A Stone in Your Shoe

What the title of my blog means to me

I recognized that I have never really come out and explained why I decided to call my blog A Stone in Your Shoe. This phrase has meant a lot to me for many years and sort of encompasses the kind of thinking mind that is needed to begin to address some of the questions of life. I say questions because I do not think we really have all the answers to the things which we often feel are no longer questions. And I am more than inclined now to be ok with the fact that lots of things will stay a mystery. I am ok with that. For the greater part of my life, I felt like I knew the answers to a lot of these things. But I have come to reconsider that stance.

Do you recall the sensation that you get when you are out walking in a rocky area or out on a trail and you get some rocks in your shoe. Continuing to walk with those rocks cutting into the soft and tender parts of your foot is not something that most people find comfortable. As soon as you can, you take a pause; sit down on the ground and take off those shoes for some inspection to find that uncomfortable culprit. You remove the rock; take a look at it and then try to resettle yourself on the journey.

To ignore such an uncomfortable situation and keep trodding down that path would not be the option most people would take. Most immediately try and find the source of the discomfort so it doesn’t continue to hinder them on the journey.

But I want to posit that just as there is a physical journey that we are on, there is also a mental and spiritual one. There are sharp and pointy rocks that can cause discomfort to us in our thinking and in our processing of the big questions of life. But I guess there is a difference in the pain receptors of the feet and those of the mind and spirit because we often put up with a lot of discomfort mentally and spiritually without seeking out the source of it.

We have our questions. We have our doubts but many of us were conditioned to spiritually bypass such things and hold to the stance that we were taught growing up. We choose to let the troublesome rocks remain and keep moving forward. We don’t sit down; take off our shoes and investigate the source of our discomfort.

As I have said many times, we have often lived our lives letting others, who appear to have some greater authority, tell us how to think; how to believe; how to react; how to judge things. We live a life of deferral rather than personal engagement.

I wanted to name my blog A Stone in Your Shoe because I wanted to bring up topics and beliefs that often seem to pass by personal engagement. I don’t claim to have the answers to these many questions. That’s the whole point. There is so much division in this world over the ‘answers’ that they become our battlefields. When in reality, most of those things which we hold with such certainty are still a mystery yet we replace mystery with certainty because it is more comforting I guess.

Having faith in something is not a bad thing. Your faith can spur you on to produce good fruit. It can help build up humanity. It can care for each other. It can love each other. The problem comes when your faith is not really faith. It is certainty disguised as faith. And when others don’t hold to your same certainty on something you then judge them based on that or allow it to be a thing which separates us from each other. The Us versus Them is born. This is certainty that bears bad fruit. It causes wars. It alienates people. It positions some people higher and others lower. It sets forth dogma and doctrine that are used to judge others and their own faith claims. It invalidates people and attempts to shut the mouths of other opinions.

The end goal of all of this is humility. A humility that does not claim that we have defined once and for all the Mystery. That would be pride. If we can have awe in anything it must be towards the Mystery. One of the most powerful of phrases is “I do not know.” We use it way less often than we should.

So as you read any of my blogs, they pose the questions I am now allowing myself to face. Yes, my views are changing. The pendulum is swinging away from certainty and more toward Mystery. I am ok with that. To me, it means that I am more often sitting down; taking off my shoes and examining the uncomfortable rocks that have gathered over my life. It does not scare me. It feels more true and intellectually honest.

I don’t ask you to come to any of my conclusions. The journey is your own. But making it your journey is part of the point. It means you are allowing the mind that you have been given to ask the tough questions and let the journey take you where it will. You are leaving the world of deferring to others and engaging it yourself.

Sit Down

Take off your shoes

Remove the rocks and examine them closely

Continue the journey