A Breath of Fresh Uncertainty
I'm in my 30s and I know less than I ever have before—that is a beautiful thing.
To the 500 people who read all or part of my inaugural entry here: Thank you! And welcome back. I’m determined to try to keep some regularity in posting cadence while there is interest in hearing from me. The character of Gwendolyn Fairfax in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest—a persona I have always felt an affinity to (and not merely for my similar middle name)—declares proudly in the second act, “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” When I can stop overthinking and being self-critical, I confess to enjoying my own writing. It’s more than humbling that a few of you do as well.
It was Oscar Wilde, in fact, who provided some direction for this piece. I didn’t want to focus another article on a public figure behaving poorly (although I have a list of names ready to go in that category) and I did want to explore another broad experience that many may find similarity with (once again, especially in the realms of Christianity and political polarization).
Many years ago, I was given a book called Sense & Sensuality written by the late and now disgraced Ravi Zacharias. In this book, Zacharias imagined a conversation taking place between Oscar Wilde and Jesus in some limbo waiting room between the earthly life and the afterlife. I was in my late teens or early twenties at the time, and I really enjoyed the read. Not only was it written by someone I respected (the list of Christian leaders I once respected who turned out to be abusive in one way or another could fill an entire post) but it was written about my favorite playwright and a person I always felt sad I would never know.
Because, you see, at that time I was certain about a great many things. I was certain that when I died I would be going to a place called Heaven. And I was certain that Mr. Wilde would not be there waiting to greet me.
I can’t speak for all Christians, and undoubtedly many would not share my experience of learning about the great forever after you die. But for me, one of the earliest memories that I have been able to hold onto was becoming aware of a place called hell. In fact, the day that I “became a Christian” (which in my faith tradition meant when you prayed to “ask Jesus into your heart”) was a reaction to a fight I was having with my older sister in which she obliterated me with the one-upper of all time: she responded to my final jab with, “well at least I’m going to heaven and not hell when I die.”
Now, I was all of 5 years old. At that time I had been attending weekly church services every Sunday of my life, I had been present for nearly nightly family devotions since before I could sit up unassisted, and I had learned to pray almost as soon as I had learned to speak. So, I found this assertion rather puzzling. Why was I not going to heaven? Why was my older sister getting something that I wasn’t getting? I had to inquire further.
I went to my mother to let her know the rude thing that had been said to me. This led to a conversation, followed by a prayer that felt somehow different from the other prayers, and then a sense of satisfaction that my sister would never again be able to use that particular trump card.
…Oh, and belief that my eternal destiny was sorted. Thank goodness, too. That had been a concern for about 10 minutes or so.
That day was special. Young Christians often grow up sharing their “testimony” about how they came to know Jesus. When it was ever my turn to share, I would tell this story (minus the part about fighting with my sister) and feel happy knowing that I could point to the day I got saved. It wasn’t the most exciting story—when following a dramatic tale of a life turned around after years of hard drugs or lying to one’s parents, it seemed insufficient—but it was mine and I liked it.
That special feeling lasted a while, but new knowledge began to work its way into my thoughts. I now knew about this place called hell, and that was more than a little troubling. I can’t know exactly when it started, but around age seven or eight, my nighttime silent prayers tended toward a recurring focus. “Dear Jesus, thank you for forgiving me for my sins… um, I do believe in you. If I didn’t say it right that first time, please know that I do. Also, God, if you aren’t the god that I learned about, but you’re one of the other gods that I’ve been told aren’t real, please know that I am not trying to make you mad and that I will believe in you… I’m trying to do what’s right. Please don’t send me to hell.”
I loved Jesus as soon as I learned about him. Jesus was the one who said little children could come to him and he thought they were just as important as the adults. He loved everyone and taught us how to love others. However, despite the trinitarian doctrine that I was also taught from a young age—the idea that there is one God who is also distinctly God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit—in my young understanding, “God” was very different from Jesus. The Jesus I learned about was my best friend I could tell anything to, and he also died for all of the evil things I’d done in my short life (I believed there was a whole lot of evil I had done). God was the one who was all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-certainly going to send a lot of people to hell. I remember the image that would so readily form in my mind: me (apparently I died) waking up in a screaming, burning, desolate land, desperately trying to claw my way out but making no progress toward a small opening at the top of this smoldering sphere that I could see was closing and I knew it would be forever. That wasn’t a rare image for me to see when I closed my eyes at night; regularly, this scene would play out in my little mind and I would shake it off (sometimes physically) and return to my prayers to whichever god I needed to pray to.
These memories don’t make me angry, but they do make me sad. All in all, I had a beautiful and happy childhood, and nothing can take that gift away from me. Likewise, nothing can take away the troubled, heavy thoughts that my little heart really never should have had to carry. If you didn’t grow up in Christianity, I’m sure this sounds deeply problematic (and at this point in my life, I agree). I’m sure there are multiple reasons people would give for telling children so young about the concept of an eternal conscious torment that will be endured by billions of humans, but one word comes to mind when I think of a reason: certainty.
If there was anything I learned to be as a Christian, it was certain. Despite my silent doubts that materialized at night after the lights were out, at any other time of day there would be no hesitation from me to tell anyone what I was certain of. I was certain that there was a God in Heaven who created everything and all of us. He also created hell. I was certain that there was a man called Adam and a woman called Eve and they sinned, and that meant all of us were doomed. But I was also certain that there was a plan all along, and Jesus came to earth to die for all of our sins. And because I believed in him, I was certain I was going to go to heaven when I died. If anyone told me what they thought about the things I believed, I could also tell them, with certainty, where they were going when they died. I was certain where a gay playwright went when he died in 1900.
This much blessed assurance at a young age is intoxicating. It felt great to know that we had all the answers. Despite what a lot of people out there (especially at public schools and in Hollywood) wanted to trick us into believing, my family was in the religion that knew the truth. That was really all that mattered to me. Despite the fights that would continue to happen with that same sister (and all the other ones), I loved my family more than anything. I was delighted to know that for always and ever, we would be safe in Heaven with Jesus and I would never have to worry about any of us being trapped in hell.
Certainty about the afterlife is a pretty bold claim, so once I had that one down, everything else was easy. A Bible verse that doesn’t make much sense? No worries, here is a Sunday School explanation that clears that right up. A Catholic told me her church is the real church. Nope, this verse I learned in AWANA (we’ll cover that another time) dismantles that entire tradition; Protestants win! Hmm, there seem to be a lot of Protestant churches around. Well, these ones are saved because they’re pretty close to ours, but that one over there… they have a woman pastor and they don’t believe in the rapture, so they’re deceived. Hopefully, they’ll repent and find the right church before it’s too late.
I was certain which pastors on the radio and television were godly men and which were heretics and false teachers leading people astray. I was certain what clothes God was okay with and what clothes were sinful. I was certain that God would be mad if you listened to bad music like Britney Spears (but that wasn’t hell worthy). I was certain of what you had to think about America to be a good person (and that the only ones who didn’t love America were the really, really bad guys who lived far away). I was certain who real Christians voted for.
The older I got, the more certain I became. However, like most drugs, certainty lost some of its charms. The more certain I was, the more insufferable I also was. This wasn’t told to me directly, but I can’t help but feel the pangs of embarrassment when I think back to my teenage years. While attending a Presbyterian middle school, I would argue with a fellow PK (pastor’s kid) who was Pentecostal about all of the things she and her church were wrong about. I moved to Texas in August of 2004 and by George W. Bush’s reelection a few months later, I boldly argued with my brand new schoolmates about how this happened because God takes care of America. I attended public school for the first time in high school, and though that was my choice, I still defaced my desk in freshman biology by scratching E-V-I-L-U-T-I-O-N on the top with my pencil every day that we talked about natural selection. When I graduated from youth group to the “young adults group” I rejected anyone who said not having sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend was difficult. God says no, so you don’t do it. Simple.
Yet, through all of this there was still that lingering problem of hell. Life affected me and changed me and I learned how to hold certainty without being the most annoying person in any given room. However, certainty became such a burden. I no longer worried about my own eternal trajectory, but now I carried a certainty that every wonderful person I met who wasn’t certain about the same things as I was would be lost to a forever torment after death. When you know everything, it’s easy to feel free and confident. But when the everything you know isn’t all good—in fact some of it is the worse kind of thing anyone could ever come up with—that certainty becomes a dark prison.
That is why I loved the book Sense & Sensuality so much. Although I can no longer even remember how it resolved, I was left with a peace that I actually didn’t know what happens “next.” I was still sure that there was a heaven and hell and that people were definitely going to end up in one or the other, but I was able to realize that I couldn’t know what happens in between. Does Jesus meet with everyone and talk to them like he did with Oscar Wilde? Does he give us all another chance? I didn’t know… and I was happy to not be sure about that.
Just as a little bit of certainty led to so much more, a taste of uncertainty humbled me and led to a much more honest audit of all the things I was sure I knew. That processed quickly began to free me of the impossible weight of certainty I had been lugging around since elementary school. Eventually, that has allowed me to learn so much that I shunned for years, to befriend and understand people I once believed were headed to hell and would try to take me with them. The freedom of being confident in responding to a question about the dawn of time or the end of the world or anything in between with, “I don’t know” is more beautiful than I could ever explain to someone who hasn’t experienced the severe weight of certainty.
I’m uncertain were this journey will lead to next. Stick around if you’d like to find out with me.
