I dislike uncertainty.  It’s like an uninvited guest that decides to come and visit and won’t leave until it’s good and ready.  Sometimes I just ask it to go away, but it ignores me.  At other times I let it stay because I’m fascinated by it, and because it seems like it always has something to tell me, to teach me.  So I’ve decided to engage it with all of you.

 

Life is Good

            Sometimes I think that I actually have invited uncertainty, rather than it’s inviting itself.  After all, life is pretty good right now (except for a cold I’m trying to shake).  Unlike a lot of people, we are financially pretty stable; we also enjoy what we’re doing, have lovely people in our lives and are surrounded by beauty.  I feel blessed by a deeply satisfying (if not always peaceful) spiritual life, and have people who appreciate the journey I’m on and have shared it with me in their own ways.  So what’s up?  Is this uncertainty about grasping, wanting more of something, not feeling deserving of what I have?  Although I’ve experienced all of those feelings, after 60 years I think I usually know the difference between grasping and curiosity, and it seems that curiosity has its hold on me now.

 

The Experience of Uncertainty

            At this point, however, I can only describe my experience of uncertainty, rather than naming what it is actually about.  It’s like sitting in my favorite chair, but not being able to get comfortable.  It’s like feeling a sneeze coming on, but it never quite makes it to ah-choo.  It’s like watching the overcast skies, feeling the dampness of the air against my skin, but rain doesn’t come.  It’s like something wants to be born, but I don’t know what it is, where it is, or when it will come.  Even worse, it’s like trying to put a large picture puzzle together without the picture on the cover of the box:  what the heck is this??

Wanting to Do Something

            I’ve tried to make whatever is waiting to be born come forth, but being in a hurry doesn’t seem to make any difference.  I’ve looked into starting new activities or projects, but none of them seem to quite fit, at least right now.  No matter how often I find myself in this state of mind, I can’t
figure it out.  And I’m a great problem solver.  Give me an African violet that won’t bloom and I can give you several reasons and steps you might try to have flowers grow.  And I’ve used those steps myself.  They work.  But it seems what’s wanting to emerge in my life has its own gestation period, its own timing, even its own wisdom.  And desire and frustration only crowd the space where it might be realized.

 

Not Knowing

            So over and over again I go to that place of not knowing.  That means that when I’m typing, I’m just typing.  When I wipe off the kitchen table, I’m just wiping off the kitchen table.  And even when I’m wondering, I can notice I’m wondering…and wondering… and wondering…

            And then I can let go of desire and even curiosity and just open.  Open to what is.  Open to this moment.  Open to the flag shifting in the breeze outside my window, or the neighbor’s dog resting on the grass, or the steel grayness of the sky.  And when uncertainty comes up about tomorrow, next week, next year, I can just “not know.”