Doubt: a parable

Yesterday, I checked out Doubt: a parable from our Cedar Roe Branch. As you may know, it’s currently on Broadway and won the 2005 Pulitzer for Drama ... I haven’t seen it, but I’ve loved reading it! Fantastic! I’m lucky ... I can read plays and actually see them (okay, not really see them ... but envision the characters and action) ...

One of my favorite parts of the book was the preface ... in it, John Patrick Shanley (the author), wrote:

“Let me ask you. Have you ever held a position in an argument past the point of comfort? Have you ever defended a way of life you were on the verge of exhausting? Have you ever given service to a creed you no longer utterly believed? Have you ever told a girl you loved her and felt the faint nausea of eroding conviction? I have. That’s an interesting moment. For a playwright, it’s the beginning of an idea. I saw a piece of real estate on which I might build a play , a play that sat on something silent in my life and in my life and in my time, I started with a title: Doubt.

...

“It is Doubt (so often experiences initially as weakness) that changes things. When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you’ve gone the wrong way and you’re lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.”

Okay ... that’s how I want to write some day ... just beautiful! And how true ... it is only when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and aware that we might not be right enough or smart enough or strong enough for what faces us ... doubt is the thing for which we should all strive ... for only then are we “on the verge of growth.”

And how much better would we be, individually and as a society, if we were always on the verge, never fully believing we’d attained growth ...