This reflective piece explores the author's kinship with "Doubting Thomas" (called Didymus) as they both grapple with skepticism in an era of misinformation. While questioning is valuable, the author realizes that excessive doubt can become paralyzing. Like Thomas, they must eventually move beyond endless foundation-testing to build a life of faith and action. [Prepared for the Feast of St. Thomas celebrated each year on July 3rd in Catholic calendar.]
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Thomas the apostle—a.k.a. “Doubting Thomas,” though I can tell you from talking to him that he is not keen on that title. He’d prefer to be remembered as “Brave Thomas” for that time when Jesus made the brazen choice to return to dangerous Jerusalem vicinity, and he—Thomas—told all of the other disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.” But no one seems to remember that, not even the lectionary, not even on his feast day. So, wanting to steer clear of all that controversy and avoid upsetting him anew, I call him by the name that everyone in the text itself seems to know him by: Didymus. Twin.
And Thomas is indeed my twin. I feel like we’ve known each other forever and that the two of us speak our own secret language no one else can understand. But we’ve grown especially close lately. Because I’ve also tried to be so brave in recent months. I’ve tried to look the reality of the situation in the eye and be courageous, not anxious… focused, not melancholic. But the conversation that keeps resurfacing between us has everything to do with living in a sea of doubt. What’s really going on here? Do I have all the information I need? Can I believe what I am hearing? I don’t trust Fox News one iota, but I also don’t trust MSNBC isn’t skewing things a bit. The stuff that appears on my Facebook feed…where is all that coming from? Whose telling me the truth? I don’t want to get myself into a tizzy about something I can’t quite tell is real.
Thomas and I are both very defensive about our skepticism.
“I mean, seriously,” Thomas says, “It is not like anyone had ever risen from the dead before… and it’s not like the other disciples were particularly trustworthy reporters. They’d all scattered at Jesus’ arrest. Peter lied about even knowing the man. Why should anyone listen to them?”
“I know, there is so much fake news nowadays,” I agree. “Everyone believing what they want to believe… claiming weird stuff that usually just reinforces what they already thought in the first place."
“I mean I just wanted us to be realistic and stop living in Crazy Land,” Thomas says.
“I’m with you,” I nod.
“Would you believe they used to celebrate my feast on December 21st?” Thomas recalls.
“I did not know that,” I admit.
“Yes, there used to be this terrible ditty in the northern hemisphere,” he sighs, “’St. Thomas Day, St. Thomas gray. Longest night, shortest day.’ It was like an earworm. Everyone else would move on to Christmas carols, but it would taunt me in my nightmares all winter long.
He sighs again. “I mean gray’s not a bad color. The ability to nuance, to deal with ambiguity—these should be acknowledged as virtues. People can be so black and white,” he says, “Gray is a sign of maturity.”
I consider myself briefly in the mirror, checking how my roots are growing out. “Exactly,” I say. “Gray is great.”
We pass several minutes in silence.
“And yet, I’ll admit that if gray is the only color you’ve got in your crayon box, it’s not a great world to dwell in forever,” Thomas says.
I sit for a minute more, and then I nod. “I guess, yeah, I can see that,” I say.
If constructing my life was like building a house, I think about how much time I’ve spent in the basement testing whether the foundation was solid, re-pouring the concrete over and over again, testing the strength of the pillars, but never building a first floor… never mind a second one or a third one, even though at this point I’ve probably got enough pillars laid to support a skyscraper. At what point, does one say, “You know, I think the foundation of this house is good… we are ready to build upward so we have something we can really live in”?
I think about all those who right now who have become so skeptical of any news source that they refuse to ever take a stand on anything. They want to remain openminded before the fact that they still might be wrong. The danger of fake news is that it begins to make everything and everyone feel untrustworthy, even when some are trying to tell the truth. Skepticism becomes immobilizing.
If every morning, as the philosopher Wittgenstein says, you wake up and have to ask, “Do I really have two hands or is that a figment of my imagination?” it’s hard to get much done with your day. It’s hard to ever take action. Even the kind of action that is necessary for our own and others’ survival.
Questioning is valuable, but life is more than questions alone. Personal experience is valuable, but it cannot be the only thing that we trust. Rather than trying to figure out how to just get by with one’s sanity intact in a post-truth, post-trust society, perhaps our energies are better spent vigorously building up a more truthful, trustworthy society.
“I mean, I guess Jesus’ point about needing to be able to believe without personally seeing everything with one’s own eyes does have a certain validity to it,” I begrudgingly mutter.
“Well, of course,” Thomas sighs, “Jesus’s points generally do.”
“Happy Feast Day, Didymus,” I say.
“Same to you,” he says.
And I watch as my brave twin stands and charges forth: “Let us continue to go with Jesus wherever the road might lead!”
I agree, and on this day, once again try to follow suit.
