Columnists

The Power Of Doubt

T. SHER SINGH

DAILY FIX

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Several years ago, I organized an inter-faith event in the City of Guelph (Ontario, Canada), not long after I moved there from Toronto.

It was to be a celebration of faith and devotion in a heavenly setting - an auditorium located in the middle of a sprawling botanical garden maintained by the university.

We had searched far and wide for a token expression of each faith which would wow the audience, regardless of the specific set of beliefs to which any one subscribed.

Christianity was represented by an exquisite rendition of “Ave Maria”, Islam by a soul-stirring azaan, Judaism by a cantor with a heart-piercing song, Hinduism by a mesmerizing temple-dance, Sikhism with a shabad by a team of two brothers and a sister.

Each had been selected very carefully, after a wide net of enquiries, recommendations and auditions. Nothing was left to chance.

And, to provide the igniting inspiration for the evening, we had secured my favourite orator in the country, who was not only a household name but carried a well-deserved air of impeccable integrity in public life. We wanted to steer away from the ’religious’ types - no ‘Man of God’ or any brand of professional shepherd. What we wanted was a man (or woman) of the world who could inspire through the sheer weight of his life-work.

And we had found one. 

A week before the event, however, there was an urgent message from our key-note speaker - confirmed by the news headlines the next morning - that he had been appointed U.N. ambassador for an urgent mission to Africa and had to fly off within 24 hours.

We were left with a dilemma. We needed a draw that would bring in the crowds - once there, we knew we would bowl them over, but we first needed them to come! And our ’draw’ had suddenly disappeared. Who could we possibly find who could fit the bill and be ready, willing and able at this short notice?

I turned to a friend who lived a mere 20 minutes away in a village aptly named “Eden Mills”. She too was a household name, loved universally from coast to coast, because it was her voice and hearty laughter that pierced the air-waves and wafted through every home for an hour each morning. She was the popular host of a radio show on CBC, Canada’s national radio network, who started each day by regaling us with her erudition and insightful interviews.

I knew she would be a sure draw, possibly even bigger than the one we had lost. Now, if only she was available!

My first question to Shelagh Rogers on the phone was an ambush: “Are you free next Saturday evening?”

I heard her leafing through her day-timer. “Yes, looks like I am. Why?”

I was honest with her. I told her of the last-minute cancellation and the fact that she was not the first choice, but would merely be a replacement. Could she please be the key-note speaker and deliver a 20-minute talk and kick-off the evening?

Shelagh is the most gracious person I have ever known. She instantly said: “If you need me, I don’t see why not!”

“But what’s the evening about?” she asked, before I could whoop up a couple of hip-hip-hurrays.

I explained that it was an evening of celebration of faith, any faith, all faiths, and I needed 20 minutes of her usual, sunny self to light up the evening.

There was a heavy quiet on the other end. I could feel it.

“So, let me give you the details …” I hurriedly tried to lock the deal.

“I can’t, Sher, I can‘t do it.”

“What d’you mean you can’t? You just said you can!”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

So close and yet so far! I wished I could “Beam me, Scottie!” and be with her in Eden Mills in an instant to show her how desperate I really was.

“But, but …” I spluttered. “But, why? What changed your mind? What did I say?”

Again, she was quiet for a while. Then:

“I’ll tell you why, but you’ll have to promise you’ll keep it confidential.”

My concern had now switched, from the near-debacle of the event, to her.

“Sure,” I promised.

“Well, here’s the problem, Sher. Your event is about faith, about celebration of faith! And I don’t have faith any more. Any ‘Faith‘. I’ve lost my faith! I can‘t stand up at your event and talk about faith. I‘d be lying!”

I knew from her voice that she wasn’t making this up.

My concern now heightened because she sounded despondent, I encouraged her to talk about it.

She told me how, for a string of personal reasons, some triggered by difficult goings-on in and around her life, had left her questioning the most solid of her beliefs.

“I haven’t been to church for almost three years now … and I don’t know if I ever will again. Ever.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“So,” she continued, “I can’t be your speaker that night. Sorry.”

As the minutes ticked by in our conversation, the event on Saturday receded to a far corner, and we talked about loss and doubt and uncertainty.       

Somewhere along the line, however, a light switched on again, and I found myself wearing my impresario hat (turban?) again, with the damoclean sword of “no-keynote-speaker!“ suddenly reappearing over my head.

It could’ve been something she said that triggered it.

“Okay, I know exactly what we’ll do,” I announced, interrupting Shelagh mid-sentence. “You will be our key-note speaker. What I want you to talk about is not faith, but your loss of faith. How you lost it, why you lost it, and how you feel as a result. Exactly what you’ve told me … without the very personal details. You don’t need to name any names, or explore who or what is to blame. Just describe your loss and the emptiness, your despair and your despondence.”

She laughed at me, her trade-mark, infectious, chardi kalaa laugh!  

“What do you mean? I can’t do that. Why would I do that? It’ll kill the evening.”

Now it was my turn.

“You don’t know how many people out there experience the same loss, the same sense of being rudderless. But they can’t express their despair the way you can. Hearing it from you, they’ll know that they are not alone, that they have done no wrong, that there is nothing wrong with them. That this is as much a human predicament, a valid sentiment, as the expression of faith is.”

We were both silent for a while.

I think I had even convinced myself.

“I can’t explain why, but I think it’ll give people hope, not add to their personal, secret, hidden despair. They respect you, they like you, and anything you say they’ll know it is genuine, that it comes from the heart. And that will comfort them.”

We argued for a while, she pushing me to convince her more.

But, miracle of miracles, she finally agreed.

I don’t think I convinced her. I think she had a feeling that I had done a con job on her. But, she knew I was desperate as well, and kind and compassionate that she is, she relented.

What can I say.

She came on Saturday. She spoke to 400 people about her deep, personal loss - a confession she had not made to anyone else, until she had spoken to me.

There was pin-drop silence.

There wasn’t a soul in that hall that wasn’t familiar with her daily morning laughter. As she told her story, surprisingly dry-eyed, there wasn’t a dry eye left in front of her by the time she finished.

They gave her a standing ovation, that group which had its fair share of priests and pundits and nuns and monks and mullahs and bhais.

The expressions of faith that followed on the stage took on an aura of their own.

The evening was magical. That’s what everyone told me that night as they left … they said they were inspired by all that they had heard and seen and felt.

Some said they had never experienced a stronger affirmation of faith for as long as they could remember.

I struggled with it as I stood at the back of the hall, soaking in the scene. Was it the expression of doubt and uncertainty that triggered the response, or was it the honesty and sincerity, the decency and the humility? I thought of all the full-time purveyors of religion we are surrounded with in our lives, hammering away at selling their well-delineated paths to salvation, and the one thing they had in common: arrogance and a lot of hot air.
 
As the evening wound down, Shelagh fretted over what the news-merchants would make of her very public confession of a very private doubt embedded deep within her. She quipped, only half in jest, whether I had killed her career.

The newspaper coverage the next day was heart-warming. It praised her courage and her sincerity, and sang of how she had planted many a seed of hope that night in the gardens. 

Two weeks later, Shelagh called me and told me that within a few days after her speech, she had received a call from her church - the one she hadn’t attended for a few years now.

It was the minister. He wanted her to come to church the next Sunday, not to worship, but to deliver the very same speech from the pulpit in his church. About her loss of faith!

She did.

The church was full. Many had to be turned away.

She was asked to go back and repeat it.

Doubt, Shelagh’s ordeal had reminded me, only feeds and strengthens faith. I know: mine thrives on it.       

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