What a welcoming way to embrace doubt ! Once we are willing to allow doubt, it expands our world view and philosophy of life. The card game metaphor is do apt. I know that game. It was called Gotcha! in my family.
Your reflection on doubt beautifully captures its quiet power. I’ve come to cherish uncertainty as a fertile ground where curiosity blooms and new paths unfold. Doubt, rather than a shadow, becomes a gentle guide inviting us beyond certainty into deeper understanding. Thank you for reminding us that in embracing doubt, we can find a truer kind of wisdom.
The idea of certainty as a locked room feels so true, and your story about your friend quietly hurts. Just holding onto being right too tightly, and something human slips away.
I agree… doubt isn’t weakness, it’s what keeps things honest. Most people don’t want to flip the cards, they want to protect the story. I think I’ve always trusted doubt more, it feels more real.
I appreciate your skillful way with words. They approach difficult subjects with thoughtfulness and kindness, even here, pointing to the fear beneath certainty and inviting reflection. <3
"I was thirteen years old when I lost a friendship over baptism." and with that, you summed up the greatest lesson of my formative years. With uncertainty comes curiosity. With curiosity comes wonder. With wonder comes love. Thank you for this.
What stays is not the argument about doubt, but the cost of certainty you let show through the story. That’s where the piece shifts from thinking to consequence.
I’m less interested in doubt as hesitation than as a form of honesty that refuses to close too quickly. This felt like that. Thank you for writing it.
Doubt can accompany faith, but it is not necessarily its proof. It can also emerge from the refusal to accept what has not been tested. What matters is not that doubt exists, but what it is doing. Whether it deepens the relation to what is believed, or quietly replaces it... what do you think?
I think you’ve said it beautifully. That phrase “doubt is a sign of faith’ has always been an antidote to the fear of uncertainty – especially when concerning matters of faith. I was taught a rigid, unquestionable dogma as a young man. With that was the warning that challenging this dogma would place your soul in peril. So hear someone say to me, ‘doubt id a sign of faith” opened a new door. One that you have described. Permission to think and ask, “what if.”
What you say makes a great deal of sense. In a structure where doubt is treated as a threat, even allowing it to exist becomes an act of trust rather than a failure of it. In that sense, the phrase isn’t trying to define faith as such, but to make space for thinking again where thinking had been closed off. It shifts doubt from something dangerous into something permissible, and that alone changes everything.
What interests me is what happens after that door opens. Because once doubt is no longer feared, it begins to take on different forms. Sometimes it does deepen what one believes, as you describe. But sometimes it also reveals that what was held as faith was sustained more by the prohibition against questioning than by the thing itself.
And that is a more difficult threshold to cross...
But without that initial permission, one never even reaches it.
What a welcoming way to embrace doubt ! Once we are willing to allow doubt, it expands our world view and philosophy of life. The card game metaphor is do apt. I know that game. It was called Gotcha! in my family.
This is what we all needed to hear, Kim. Thank you!
Me too. That’s why I wrote it.
The part about losing a friendship over baptism..? I winced at that... cuz that is such a real human cost for wanting to be right too hard...
Tell me about it. I wish it was the only time I made that mistake.
“[Certainty] is fear wearing armor.” I felt that! Great post, Kim!
Your reflection on doubt beautifully captures its quiet power. I’ve come to cherish uncertainty as a fertile ground where curiosity blooms and new paths unfold. Doubt, rather than a shadow, becomes a gentle guide inviting us beyond certainty into deeper understanding. Thank you for reminding us that in embracing doubt, we can find a truer kind of wisdom.
Sunshine, thank you for reading and your thoughtful comment.
The idea of certainty as a locked room feels so true, and your story about your friend quietly hurts. Just holding onto being right too tightly, and something human slips away.
I agree… doubt isn’t weakness, it’s what keeps things honest. Most people don’t want to flip the cards, they want to protect the story. I think I’ve always trusted doubt more, it feels more real.
I’m not surprised at this. You have that way about you…open, considering possibly
Always ♥️🙏
I love how you frame this. From a playful game to the game of life. It can be applied to so many things in our reality.
Oh. I like that connection. 😎
I live with him.
hey… I resemble that comment.
I appreciate your skillful way with words. They approach difficult subjects with thoughtfulness and kindness, even here, pointing to the fear beneath certainty and inviting reflection. <3
Thank you, Petra.
My pleasure <3
If I've learned anything in my soon-to-be 74 years, it's that certainty is one of the biggest enemies. At least, I think I've learned that.
I see what you did there, I think. 🤔
Such a beautifully written piece,you are a brilliant writer all things you explained are full of wisdom and true 🫶
Thank you, Hina.
It's been observed that the Quaker approach to religion is basically the same as the scientific method, only applied to spirituality.
Why am I not surprised? ;)
Experience?
Seriously, though, both Quakerism and the scientific method are products of the Enlightenment, and that probably has a lot to do with it.
"I was thirteen years old when I lost a friendship over baptism." and with that, you summed up the greatest lesson of my formative years. With uncertainty comes curiosity. With curiosity comes wonder. With wonder comes love. Thank you for this.
Travis- I think we've all felt the sting of that lesson. Thank you for the read and comment.
What stays is not the argument about doubt, but the cost of certainty you let show through the story. That’s where the piece shifts from thinking to consequence.
I’m less interested in doubt as hesitation than as a form of honesty that refuses to close too quickly. This felt like that. Thank you for writing it.
I have pondered something many times: Doubt is a sign of faith.
Doubt can accompany faith, but it is not necessarily its proof. It can also emerge from the refusal to accept what has not been tested. What matters is not that doubt exists, but what it is doing. Whether it deepens the relation to what is believed, or quietly replaces it... what do you think?
I think you’ve said it beautifully. That phrase “doubt is a sign of faith’ has always been an antidote to the fear of uncertainty – especially when concerning matters of faith. I was taught a rigid, unquestionable dogma as a young man. With that was the warning that challenging this dogma would place your soul in peril. So hear someone say to me, ‘doubt id a sign of faith” opened a new door. One that you have described. Permission to think and ask, “what if.”
What you say makes a great deal of sense. In a structure where doubt is treated as a threat, even allowing it to exist becomes an act of trust rather than a failure of it. In that sense, the phrase isn’t trying to define faith as such, but to make space for thinking again where thinking had been closed off. It shifts doubt from something dangerous into something permissible, and that alone changes everything.
What interests me is what happens after that door opens. Because once doubt is no longer feared, it begins to take on different forms. Sometimes it does deepen what one believes, as you describe. But sometimes it also reveals that what was held as faith was sustained more by the prohibition against questioning than by the thing itself.
And that is a more difficult threshold to cross...
But without that initial permission, one never even reaches it.
My dear Kim I really admire your writing, I can see how profoundly you think, very thought reflecting topics, I enjoy reading you.
Have a blessed day my friend.
Aliya, I am honored. Thank you.