Knowing

Paper Written by Gloria Wood as a student at Hamline University in 1971 for Epistemology Class


Knowledge! The very word has become an enigma to me. When in a fighting spirit, I wrestle with it, hammer away at it, give it every ounce of energy – demanding answers. When disappointed and defeated, I lapse helplessly into idle speculation, drifting aimlessly from one glimmer of truth to the next, seeking answers. But whatever that monstrous, unfathomable word demands – I do not have it to give – cannot give it. I do not have the answer! It means too much perhaps, the word has become so filled with meaning it is now everything and nothing. Has it gone past or beyond all meanings into the incomprehensible!
But you say, “look here...” and you may demonstrate your logic and your proofs – you may show me empirically, you may tap the mighty forces of intuition but the vastness of what is demanded in the name of knowledge is too immense, too great – it is mind-shattering! In our humanness we scurry to security and seek to protect ourselves from the blast of “not-knowing”! And cloaked in the various systems and theories of knowledge, we have fashioned and invented to cover our nakedness – we somehow survive. But if we are honest, perhaps in rare moments, we see through, above and beyond all of mans” so-called theories of knowledge and experience the terror and agony of absolute “not-knowing”.

Connection

Life on Earth has gone forward since the beginning to this current moment. It has been unfolding in great explosive surges of pulsing energy. Looking at that parade of time and events, I wonder what my role has been. Am I connected to all that has been and ever will be? Do I join in with my short burst of energy in this brief moment? What does this life that I live require of me? And at what level do I call forth the answers? Because I am somehow joined to everything that has ever been or ever will be, I was there at the beginning and will be there at the very end. Moment by moment the challenges present themselves and moment by moment I am called upon to respond. And it seems that each singular response is part of the grand eternal response, the song that we all sing. When I respond with love and compassion the energy within and without grows brighter and when I respond with negativity and separateness the energy grows darker. And it seems that that participation in energy extends in all directions and across time and space. It is awesome and humbling to participate in this eternal flow of life and energy. It means that there is every moment a choice to support and enlarge the flow of positive energy or contract and reduce the flow. I see it all as a great breathing in and out, a great pulse of life reflecting the united massive flow of light and darkness.