On Doubt

Yesterday, after sending off my letter (included in the previous post), to the relevant participants, I felt my mind start creeping in and asking me gnawing questions, like, who do you think you are? You'll make a fool of yourself trying to penetrate a world so steeped in bureaucracy, so encumbered with legalities, not to mention laden with rigid conformists, all so full of fear. Give this up! They don't want some Mary Sunshine, with her zealous version of a shining, but very unrealistic, Utopia, shaking up their 9-5's.

I had to breathe deeply, and to be so thankful for the joyous response from those who received and read my letter, and who responded by seconding me, expressing that they too believed that a voice of truth was one that needed to be heard, who felt that a bright future was not in rehashing it all the same way.

Still, it was an exercise in letting go--after all, I wasn't comfortable with it having to be my voice that the truth had chosen, my name that appeared in the paper after my little speech in front of the board. If you knew me, you would know that I've always liked to keep just out of earshot of those who might disagree--just rock the boat enough not to capsize it.

So, I breathed through the doubt and noticed my fear of my own power--fear of my purpose.

This morning I came across this message:

"Doubt is the instrument that forges the human spirit. If the day were to come when the human spirit no longer doubted, the human soul, having acquired wings, would fly away and leave the plough behind. The earth would lie fallow. Now, God is the sower and man is the harvester. The celestial seed commands the human ploughshare to remain in the furrow. Man, do not complain that you doubt." Spirit of Martin Luther quoted in Victor Hugo's Conversations with the Spirit World by John Chambers

Today I welcome doubt. I embrace it as part of my human condition, and I choose to see it as another tool, even in its more painful sphere. I let it show me when I have crossed out of my comfort zone, where resides the waves of change. I let it symbolize a key to my freedom in the here and now, as I search the darkness for that little bit of light. I embrace its shadow, and behold the way the light is accentuated by the contrast of its darker counterparts. I sit with this rabid, growling beast, instead of letting it chase me and bite me in the ass.

I let it forge my spirit into the strongest of metals, through which is conducted and set into motion the reverberations of truth, with the power to free our hearts, and to reshape a world, one precious spirit at a time.