How do we hear what we don’t know? How do we take in what we have not experienced?

These questions seem paramount to me in this time and space as we are exposed consistently to new experiences that we never thought would happen. This morning I did a short scripture reflection after realizing how often the disciples’ reactions to Jesus’ thoughts were one or more steps behind His teaching. They would only hear what they already knew and experienced. That makes sense in some ways because our minds construct knowledge by building the new onto the known. However, I have begun to wonder if in this time and space we easily find ourselves in a silo in which we only add known to known thoughts and ideas. As Solomon would say, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

I perceive an edge that runs through all humanity. It seems to be the edge of certainty/uncertainty. In some spaces, certainty becomes a pillar that upholds the known but requires control because of the tiny circumference of the pillar’s top horizontal surface. However, in other spaces, a kind of uncertainty becomes braided into relationships that allow for breath and wisdom to grow deep and wide. Which feels more intimate in life for you?

Certainty is not all bad, nor is uncertainty all good and vice versa. we need to grow in hearing what we don’t know and learning what we have not experienced. So this is my conclusion. We add new ways of knowing to our practices. Some have already been asking questions and reading in the wake of racism and the pandemic. Questions and reading are great tools! But I think we have even more ways of knowing.

Have you ever heard with your eyes or understood through your body? Someone was talking to me a little while back and in this brief verbal pause, I “heard” feelings and meanings cross this person’s face. I found empathy. Have you ever felt someone’s feelings through your physical presence with them? I think we have multiple ways of knowing in which we either need to grow, practice, or maintain for our own understanding of things we do not know in the usual ways.

So, move forward exploring hearing, seeing, feeling in new ways that allow uncertainty to inform your certainty.

—Dianne Morgan