Doubting Thomas
what will be left when i've drawn my last breath,
besides the folks i've met and the folks who know me?
will i discover a soul cleansing love,
or just the dirt above and below me?
i'm a doubting thomas, i took a promise, but i don't know what's safe,
oh me of little faith
sometimes i pray for a slap in the face
then i beg to be spared 'cause i'm a coward
if there's a master of death i'll bet he's holding his breath
as i show the blind and tell the deaf about his power
i'm a doubting thomas, i can't keep my promises,'cause i don't know what's safe
oh me of little faith
i'm a doubting thomas,
i can't keep my promises,'cause i don't know what's safe,
oh me of little faith
can i be used to help others find truth,
when i'm scared i'll find proof that its a lie?
can i be lead down a trail dropping bread crumbs,
that prove i'm not ready to die?
please give me time to decipher the signs,
please forgive me for time that i've wasted.
i'm a doubting thomas,
i'll take your promise,
though i know nothin's safe,
oh me of little faith.
-- Nickel Creek
I think this song would've hit me a lot harder in the late highschool/early college years when I struggled more with these sorts of feelings, but I still I really appreciate it's honest. It doesn't assume faith is easy, natural, or in any way safe, or gloss over the struggle doubt poses. I don't think faith quickly or even often turns into any sort of absolute understanding. It's solid enough to stand on, but not because it makes sense: because it rings of truth and beauty, and is more believable for the danger implied in our assured inability to completely know before choosing.
posted by RJ @ 2:31 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Redness - I actually just started to listen to Nickel Creek myself, so am glaf to find out that it is exceptable to listen to them and Chevelle. Have you heard the string quartet doing Chevelle? Awesome.
I think doubt can be really powerful in faith negation if we are not grounded in a almost transcendent trust in God. If we put our intellects first and subconcisously demand absolute understanding (the theme since Descartes?) we will only ruin ourselves and our spiritual lives. "Faith seeking Understanding" has been the motto of Catholic Theologians forever, we would be "wise" to follow them.
Awesome comment about seeing truth in beauty. Amazing! We should talk more about the aesthetics of science as the revealing of truth, the "Beauty of the Infinite" (oh man, what a book!) embodied in creational gifting. Beauty should be utterly central to truth, but this does need work in physics (although mathematical beauty is one aspect, among others?)
Umm- first I am not glaf. Second Freudian slip on the exceptable. Acceptable would be more like it.
I think that doubt *can* be "powerful in faith negation," absolutely, but I don't want to make it sound like doubt is an option. If you have faith, you'll also have doubt, and the degree to which you doubt probably indicates how seriously you're taking it. Doubt might sometimes be a force that drives one away from faith, but it's also the catalyst for understanding, and both through and independent of that understanding, more faith.
Amen and Amen.
Yeah that hits me.
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