tried out a little black out/redacted/found poetry the other day
I am a 9 on the enneagram. (If you do not know about the enneagram, please go learn about it. It has been immensely helpful to me as I seek to understand myself in order to better exist and interact with and within the world.)
Anyway, 9s are an easy personality to be around but a difficult personality to really know. (This has enlightened me on why people have: come out to me without any prompting, told me I am a good listener, told me I am the most confusing person they have ever met, gotten mad at me for seeing both sides, and most of all…gotten mad at me for avoiding all conflict…until I “explode”).
9s are a “fuzzy” number; we carry characteristics of all other 8 numbers. In that, we are very empathetic, willing to listen, and easy to sway. I either have no opinion or I have a very ardently held opinion; there is really no middle ground. When asked what I think, believe, or feel, my most common answer is “I do not know.”
Therefore, as I have been reading This I Believe I have begun to ponder, “Am I able to articulate what I believe?”
Coinciding with this evolution in my knowledge of self, I am going through a deconstruction of my faith. Because faith has been such an integral part of my life and being for so long, this is at times a very painful process. I find myself, being a typical 9, evading and evacuating away from the mental pain, though that is not at all helpful.
If asked right now, I am content in my 9ness to say– I believe nothing AND I believe everything. I am currently at a point where I indeed believe that nearly all the world religions are grasping at that spark, divinity, spiritual essence (however you name it) that resides in all beings– animate and inanimate. Do I think there is a divine mover? Yes. Do I think this mover is the Christian God or Judaic YHWH? I do not know. I am particularly drawn to the more mystic sects of Christianity and Buddhism. These sects make a lot fewer claims of certainty, which I am a fan of.
Perhaps it is the 9 in me, leaving me so open– but how can anyone know for sure? We cannot. I understand this, and this is where faith enters in. However, if one’s belief is built on faith, how can one assert that their faith is of greater value and worth than another’s? We are so shaped by cultural factors and norms handed to us at birth, that we are programmed (maybe even brainwashed) to believe in the superiority of our tribe’s beliefs.
However, I have been exploring the intricacies of native knowledge, literature from different parts of the African continent, eastern philosophy, and Franciscan teachings. These have lead me to believe that there is more than one piece. And though western Christianity my hold a piece, it is still, only one piece.
So, when asked what I believe if I had to boil it down…
I believe in Story. I believe in Love.
I believe in story more than I believe in truth. I believe that fact and fiction are not mutually exclusive; they bleed into each other more than we allow ourselves to realize.
I believe and know (mostly) from the stories that psychology tells me– we are not truly and completely rational beings.
But we have been telling stories for ages…painting pictures on the walls of our literal and proverbial caves.
Yes, we are scientific… We have advanced; we have telescopes! And I believe that the cosmos, in its own language, is attempting to tell its own story.
I believe I cannot know most things for sure. But I can exist in this given reality and hear its story. I can question and interpret and, when needed, try to change the story.
So, how do we exist in a world where everyone is reading and/or writing their own book with their own language, diction, and syntax?
That’s where we find love.
See, I believe love allows stories to clash without making bodies clash. Love allows us to really listen to the others’ stories.
As for those particularly violent stories– those that divide, destroy, create binaries and hierarchies– if they were tempered with love, would not exist.
So in Story and in Love (for now)– this I believe.
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