Russellings of the Spirit

I am a guy who likes to keep score. Which probably explains my attraction to nearly every sport under the sun… every sport, that is, except golf. 

(Low score wins? Wait, WHAT??? How messed up is that?)

Besides keeping track of those myriad officially sanctioned events, I routinely keep score for all manner of mundane activities around our house. For example, I race Joan to see who can brush their teeth the fastest. I compare this week’s number of Diet Coke cans in the recycling bin to last week’s total. I try to set new land speed records for mowing my lawn, or (as is the case this week) shoveling my driveway. I count to see how many consecutive wadded up paper towels I can shoot into the wastebasket. 

However, I realized earlier today there is one area of life for which I absolutely HATE – or violently detest – keeping score. And that is the area of ABANDONED CONVICTIONS. What I mean by “abandoned convictions” is this: those areas of life where I once had a firm, ironclad conviction about what was right and what was wrong, only to find out later that I was COMPLETELY off-base, necessitating the embarrassed abandonment of that conviction. 

As I stop and think back on some of those, I am more than a bit mortified to see how many “ACs” (as I call them) are stacked up there at my doorstep. This is the kind of scorekeeping I would love to avoid at all costs. 

For example, growing up, I was absolutely convinced that…

• … Hilliard, Ohio was the best possible place in the world to live.
• … Hilliard, Ohio was the worst possible place in the world to live.
• … men were better at everything than women.
• … “tag” was a better game than “hide-and-go-seek.”
• … liver, olives, Brussel sprouts, and mushrooms were all poisonous and should never – under ANYcircumstances! – be put into one’s mouth. (I’m still not convinced that isn’t true about olives, by the way.)
• … math was only invented to make my life miserable.
• … people who drank alcohol of any kind – but especially beer – were degenerate miscreants.
• … everything I was taught in school was the 100%, bonafide, unvarnished TRUTH.
• … that my parents were good, upright, morally flawless people.
  • Mind you, mom and dad were/are really incredibly good people, on the whole. But as we all discover at some point, even good people stumble occasionally.

As I matured, these convictions were examined under the twin microscopes of Wisdom and Experience and eventually abandoned. (All, that is, except for the olive conviction). But that did not prevent a new set of convictions from rising up and taking their place. 

Some of those new convictions included my heartfelt belief(s) that… 

• … my country – the good, ol’ USA – is the most morally upright, blemish-free nation on earth.
• … being gay is something people choose to do to be outrageous.
• … every person would be better off and happier if they were married.
• … people espousing staunch religious beliefs are probably doing so to hard truths about the difficulties of life.
• … Jesus Christ was a wise moral teacher. Nothing more. Nothing less.
• … baseball is the highest form of sport known to humankind.
• … discipline and consistency are BORING!
• … the important thing in deciding on your life’s work is accurately answering the question, “What seems like a COOL career?”
• … all it takes to succeed in life is charm and a winsome smile. 

As was the case with the aforementioned childhood convictions, each of these – when studied under the harsh light of Reason and Evidence – also came crashing to earth and incinerated in a smoldering pile, before my eyes. 

I could continue this exercise and list all the later-in-life convictions I have held, only to abandon them later under closer scrutiny… 

… but I think you get the picture. 

As I look back on that track record, printed there in black and white, it makes me look like the biggest flip-flopper in the history of flip-flopping. It almost prompts me to ask questions like, “Dude… if you keep having to abandon your tightly held convictions, why do you bother even HAVING them in the first place?” and, “Is there really any such thing as an Ultimate and Unshakable Truth that withstands every challenge of Evidence, Reason, Wisdom, and Experience?”

The answer to the first question is easy. That’s because we each need convictions. Convictions are the anchors that keep us from blowing away with the next gust of wind. They help us make decisions. Convictions form the guardrails that keep our Car of Life on the road. 

The second question sounds tougher, but it really isn’t. The answer – for me – is an emphatic YES! The U.U.T. (Ultimate, Unshakable Truth) is that God (a.k.a., the power that created and continues to sustain all that was, is, and ever will be) is LOVE. And because LOVE is that kind of primal and generative force of the universe, NOTHING – not evil, not greed, not hate, not darkness, not prejudice, not political power, not ANYTHING – will ever ultimately triumph over it. 

And THAT is a conviction I will never abandon. 

Abundant blessings;

P.S. This might be a fun exercise for you, too. What are YOUR current convictions? Where did they come from? How firm are they? What would have to happen to convince you to abandon them?