Choose the Nobler Belief

Robert Greenleaf concludes his series of essays that appeared in the 1966 AA Grapevine with a discussion that revolves around the definition of faith provided by Dean Inge as “the choice of the nobler hypothesis”. Greenleaf suggested, “Take the nobler, embrace it without reservation; and with all of one’s strength live by it, with enthusiasm and abandon. This is faith; a growing evolving faith.” The six choices Greenleaf laid out for leading a mature life included to be responsible, to be aware and foresee, to grow, to be human, to be ourselves, and to be great. For these to have meaning he recommends we take Robert Frost’s “road less traveled” – in pursuit of a faith to live by. This faith harbors paradox, which he describes as follows,

In answer to the question, who am I? I am two people. I am a unique instrument of creation (and so is each of us). Nothing like any one of us ever was or ever will be. I am an instrument of creation, not a created thing. I am not a thing in any sense. But beyond these differentiated aspects that mark my uniqueness there is another “me”: a timeless, unchanging level of consciousness that is at one with the cosmos; a level at which all is one, where there is no uniqueness. It is that aspect of me that stands in awe and wonder before the mystery and the majesty of all creation while knowing that I am the mystery and the creation of which I stand in awe and wonder. The over-arching choice is to seek to enter this level of consciousness from time to time; it is the choice to withdraw from and then return to the world of finite choices that mark my external image. It is the choice to seek to lose myself in my inward self where I am at one with all creation.

Whether or not I am at the place Greenleaf referred to, there are times when I think I get what he is talking about. Yesterday, I made a choice to drive my fifteen year old daughter and a friend an hour from our home so they could spend the day at the Warp Tour – a music festival of sorts – to spend the day with thousands of other young people listening to music. I had some choices to make that included whether or not I would join my daughter and mingle with the overly tattooed, pierced, festers in the mosh pit or find somewhere else to escape to. Heeding Frost’s advice- I choose the “road less traveled” (at least by people outside of a car) and went for a walk.

I wasn’t sure where I would go, or how long it would take, but I walked and ended up crossing an old bridge over the Minnesota River and then continued up a road that led up the bluffs that lined the river valley. This road crossed an old railroad grade that had been converted to a bike path and so I headed down that path to get away from all the cars. The trail eventually came to another road that passed through a wealthy neighborhood, and then I turned off a downhill road hoping to come out near the river where I had started. Fortunately, it did, and I re-crossed the bridge and returned to where I parked my car.

There were times during the walk where I experienced that sense of awe and wonder that Greenleaf referred to. Walking near the backwaters of the river, I stopped to watch a wood duck hen with her ducklings as they scurried across the weed filled water. A kingfisher landed on a dead branch with a fish in its bill. Chickadees flitted in the brush next to the bike path and I stopped to listen to their song. Hawks soared over the bluffs, circling and seemingly enjoying the moment as much as I did. The walk ended up taking much longer then I thought, but the time did not drag as I took in the surroundings and simply enjoyed being out and about in the cosmos.

It can be tough to come back to the world after these experiences of awe, but it is in the world that the other six chooses: responsibility, awareness, growth, being human, being ourselves, and being great, exist. However, without the seventh choice-the choice of the nobler belief of relating to the cosmos-all the rest in the end will have no meaning, and we will not truly know who we are.