Courage Lead Me Where My Trust Is Without Borders
This song is beautiful. It’s really in two parts and the link I've given starts at what I suppose is the chorus, which repeats multiple times. The first line of this chorus has been distracting me from writing a review of my posts so far, and I don’t think I'll complete this review until I’ve written about this song. The first line of the chorus goes, ‘Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders’. I’ve been distracted because my reaction to this line has been contradictory. I find it compelling while at the same time I want to reword it to suit my own beliefs because it’s religiously motivated and I'm not. This post is the resolution I found.
The song, called Oceans, originates from a Christian worship collective called Hillsong UNITED. The song is about stepping into the unknown and the first line of the chorus is a plea for God to lead the singer through an uncertain world in a way that creates trust in this ‘Spirit’. I’ve never been religious, but I've always felt a connection to religious people. They take seriously questions that naturally form in the minds of conscious, thinking people, such as: Why are we here? How did we get here? How do you live a good life? They also feel wonder at existence. I can relate to this way of being, and I found the song and the first line of the chorus compelling because I would also like to believe in something that helps me live in a way that gives meaning to my life.
For the religious, these questions and feelings have been answered by a God via religious texts. However, I think science has and will reveal all we are able to know. But rather than calling upon a Spirit to guide you through an uncertain world, science reduces that uncertainty through ever more detailed observation. When I first heard Oceans, I felt challenged to replace the first line of the chorus with something that felt right to me as a scientist, and if science accepts the doubt we should feel when faced with an uncertain world then why not, ‘Doubt lead me where my trust is without borders’? But I found this didn’t work. The original line of Oceans’ chorus isn’t a cold, technical instruction for how to live in an uncertain world, as my suggested replacement seemed to me. It’s a plea for something to help you through this uncertainty.
We imagine we make purely rational decisions but there will inevitably come a point where we reach the limit of what we know and understand. The point where all that’s left is doubt, and where we can only reduce that uncertainty via action. What leads us to make a final step? I think it’s courage. Whether it’s everyday actions where you’re barely aware you’re being courageous or major life decisions where it’s obvious, I would say we only really progress as thinking, feeling beings when we live courageously. And anyone who has tested their courage will develop trust in it, I think.
So, I found myself in an ironic position. When I set out to challenge the first line of Oceans’ chorus, I imagined I would claim that knowledge and reason makes trust in God redundant. And although I think this is true those things require something science hasn’t yet explained and may never explain. It’s not overblown to say courage is required to extend knowledge. We’re lucky to live in a time and place where we can access knowledge accumulated over 1000s of years and forget how much struggle and suffering went into that knowledge being accepted. And what about things that science hasn’t explained yet? The most obvious being love. You can never know how much someone will love you until you love them first, and often this requires courage.
So, courage lead me where my trust is without borders. This is my resolution to the contradictory feelings I had when I first heard the song Oceans. While researching this song I found another video of it being sung live where the audience sings the chorus with the singer, Taya Smith. It must be a wonderful feeling to share what feels like a resolution to something so fundamental to what it is to be human. I can't see myself doing anything similar any time soon. Not that there aren’t people who I imagine feel the same, but I think there’s less of us and they’re not easy to find in my experience. A religious resolution to life’s big questions is easier, I’d say, than the patient application of doubt and courage.
I was going to end this post by saying I suspect I’ll have to continue searching for answers to questions I find interesting mostly on my own. But then it occurred to me that this will be read by people who’ve chosen to subscribe to this blog. Have I revealed enough of myself in my posts so far to find some kindred spirits, I wondered? The one subscriber I know personally has certainly lived her life courageously. And then there are others that through their words and actions I can believe understand the value of courage to an authentic and meaningful life. Maybe it would be nice to meet some of you some day, although for that to happen I’d have to be courageous enough to say who I am.