Spring is such a funny creature.  I recognize the quirkiness and understand something about myself and about humanity when I experience this season.

“Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.”~ Charles Dickens

We want so badly to be hot or cold, or maybe even a nice warm, but not vacillating between.  Should I wear sandals or boots? Yeah, we really like our little seasonal routines and habits.  I sense this in other areas of life too. It’s not hard to discern that we really want to be settled and sure, with fingers grasped securely around information, with categories perfectly aligned in a spreadsheet; explaining and clarifying.  We study, calculate, look keenly and then we throw this information with force into in the “truth pile”; a reverent place of stoicism. But moments later we are seen scrambling and digging to find it and take it out again, surmising that we may have miscalculated.  We call the catalyst for this action “Doubt” and we see it as an enemy. I’m not sure why I’ve mostly deemed doubt as a negative thing. But I have. Yes, diving back into the pile does make me look a little fickle, like spring, but doesn’t it also represent honesty?  Somewhere deep down, I respect the doubt and subsequent digging.  The honesty. The humanness.  I wager it actually protects the “truth pile” in the end.

I saw a fascinating little clip on Donald Miller’s blog.  http://storylineblog.com/2014/03/23/sunday-morning-sermon-2/

Madeleine L’Engle stated that “If you don’t doubt, you don’t change.” and “you are stuck if you want finite answers to infinite questions.”

Honestly, my “truth pile” is smaller and smaller these days.  I’m taking things out…one by one…rethinking…reevaluating. I’m pulling out the cultural, social dogmas and calling them what they are.  Taking them out actually gives integrity to what stays in.  I used to be threatened by even looking at the pile.  “What-ifs” were scary monsters, and now, well, now “what ifs” are friends, teachers and have ignited many “aha moments” that deem it wise to put things into the “I don’t know” pile. So much so that reaching into the pile feels like a spiritual pilgrimage.  There’s a freedom in this.  Not fear at all.  I want to be a learner, not living in stagnant waters, not threatened by rethinking. Isn’t that the work of the Holy Spirit? I wonder if He teaches more with mystery than dogma?

I wander into the shade and have to make a run into the house to take off the sandals and grab the boots.  (smile) I’m actually ok with that.