We take counsel with our certitudes, not our doubts and fears.

George Buttrick’s words, an excerpt from Prayer, have accompanied my own meditative time and even my thoughts throughout the day for a time now– most often when doubts and fears are my initial reaction to the day, the news, the new turn of events. Taking council with our certitudes is kin to “dwell on these things” from Philippians 4: 8 that frames this blog.  Whatever is right and true are certitudes.  That I am a beloved child of God who is always present in my life is a certitude.

Knowing that in my head is not the same as living that truth.  It is so easy to pay attention to my doubts and fears; to the what if’s or even the what is that seems to be true. These things seem more real. What if my application for a new job is just a few days too late?  What if they already have someone else in mind, someone they already know for the job?  I am unknown to them.  I don’t meet every single criteria on their wish list.  This and this and that and that would have to “work out” for that to even be a possibility.

Time for another certitude.

God equals abundance.  There isn’t one job or one book or one solution to each challenge. Certitude is beyond this one moment.  Coming into this Presence of certitude, of faith, Buttrick says is best as a by-product of a mind focused on God. It involves the work of living with the certitude of another realm that as one of my friends said is deeper than my hopes and dreams and values.

The crazy truth here is that there is a place of divine consciousness that is beyond time or circumstance where this kind of certitude meets my everyday living; where I are intimately connected to God’s presence. It takes time and work to get there and attentiveness.

This Presence will make itself known, writes wisdom teacher Cynthia Bourgeault, not by the principle of linearity– that is in my time and logic– but by the principle of synchronicity: meaningful patterns of coincidence.  Traveling mercies.