Advent is the season of expectant waiting. Remembering the waiting of Israel for the first Messiah, and our own waiting for the Messiah coming again. The waiting of creation on the redemption of the heavens and the earth. The waiting for strife and suffering and death to cease. Awaiting that which is not here.

In the liturgical calendar, it is also a penitential season marked by reflection on our own readiness for the coming Lord, as though we are seeing to whether we have enough oil in our lamps to stay awake for a coming bridegroom (Matthew 25:1-13). This year, as darkness far beyond the control of any of us sweeps the globe with a hellbent obsession of rooting out any impact of human goodness and altruism on the fate of the world—through war, rising oligarchical rule, or a complete transformation of human life and culture as things to be bought a sold, to name a few—a sense of powerlessness and despair furthers the gloom of Advent. I find this sense of powerlessness spreading into my own soul, as I’m plagued by doubts and questions about what seem like foundational ideas about the world around me, and I feel stripped of any sort of confident response to the evil around me, or at least far less of one than I believe I could (should?) have. 

This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself in a place like this. In my later years at Calvin, I forcefully cast away my (rather conservative) evangelical upbringing, coming unexpectedly close to a full-throated embrace of atheism as emphasis on certainty in “what the Bible says” set the coordinates for a new vector for certainty—toward rationalism or naturalism alone, trading one black-and-white approach to the world around me for another. Split from a former faith community and lacking answers to navigate life’s terrain with any sense of confidence, life quickly felt powerless, aimless, and even somewhat obscene. Yet through many nights spent on the floor of the chaplain’s office, there often came a resounding answer that at the time was in the form, don’t be afraid to doubt, to be afraid to ask questions. 

Certainly, I was far from alone on this journey away from a faith tradition rank with false certainty. Many of us became doubters, questioning and testing even the most basic foundations of the faith. For doubt and questioning was once held up as an affront to spiritual authority, an act shared with apostates and those selfishly “asking too much” of the faith, who were then indicted with the charge of lacking “true faith.” For those of us who had become aware of the putridness of self-appointed and prideful spiritual authority that has infected much of the American church, and the way in which the war on doubters and those seeking wisdom through asking questions was designed to consolidate authority rather than shepherd a people, this open encouragement to question and challenge all was beyond welcome. 

Questioning created a safe space to genuinely engage with the world, many of us for the first time. It even became a symbol in its own right, a protest against harmful forms of leadership and macabre forms of theology that controlled us for so long. 

Many of us remain there. I remain there in many ways. But I’m tired.

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I’ve been reflecting on a year where I set out on a quest to dive into stories I always believed I needed to hear but never did growing up——including a lofty goal to read 52 books and watch 104 movies. While falling short in both goals, I still was exposed to an ever more vast array of beautiful and affecting stories and ideas, a journey through stories that I wish I had engaged with many years ago.

Something that stood out to me on this journey was the sheer number of men and women who acted confidently on convictions, assured and certain in their visions of truth and justice on Earth, for better or worse. Homer’s Odyssey telling the story of a hero’s wisdom and beliefs about the truth of loyalty leading him to overcome peril. Frodo Baggins’s beliefs in mercy, friendship and the true damage of evil on the world carrying him to the crest of Mount Doom. Even a mouse this year had convictions, as Despereaux turns his concrete beliefs on beauty and forgiveness into bravery. 

This confidence further mocked me from the pages of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations: “if it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” 

The same certainty marked the books I read this year related to my work in city planning. Christopher Alexander, a late faculty member at UC Berkeley, pioneered a vision of architecture built from confidently identifying human patterns, ultimately culminating in a seven-book guide for building cities that was so certain, the final book on design is framed as a revolutionary battle for life and beauty over exploitation and misery. In an opposite vision of city building equally rooted in certainty in one’s beliefs, Robert Moses completely reshaped (or, at times, eviscerated) New York City in a certain vision of how the modern city should be organized and made beautiful, told through the pages of The Power Broker. Even seemingly benign books from this year, such as Doug Farr’s Sustainable Urbanism, argue that his vision of sustainable design will serve as the “winning battle strategy” in a “war between a sustainable future and ecological collapse.” 

All of these visions are built on a strength of belief and conviction that their ideas are capable of overcoming something damaging the world and its people. There’s an eloquence and ease captured in their certainty, a clearness and purity seeming to emerge from a burning furnace of a single-minded and confident belief.

The daily depths of doubt and wondering about what is true feel horrendously shallow and anemic in comparison. How much more weak and powerless that questioning feels as the world hurtles toward a darker age dictated by the oligarchical whims of those certain in their own selfish visions. The valor of asking questions quickly wears away in the face of evil that demands a response from goodness.

Of course, I still believe in the value and goodness that can come from questioning and doubt. Jude’s epistle calls for Christians to be merciful to those who doubt (Jude 1:22), a posture shared by the Christ himself (Matthew 14: 28-31, John 3, 20:24-29). One also does not need to plumb the depths of literature and storytelling to find examples of men and women breaking backs with a rod clad in the iron of one’s own certainty, where simple questions about their own beliefs could have saved countless lives and even the basic matter of their own souls. A quote from an essay by Joseph Joubert—“it is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it”aces visitors from a shelf in my office, openly questioning my restlessness with my own questions.

But I long for some sort of concrete wisdom and understanding, and the courage and certainty to be able to articulate it to a world that is dying. And it feels like it is not here yet.

I long to gather the threads of ideas of peace, joy, and flourishing – for the teams I lead, the city I live in, and the world that I feel as though I’m called to join in stewarding—and transform them into some sort of tapestry that can point to something brighter than the darkness the world is sliding toward. And yet the threads remain piled here.

I wish I had more answers, sound and concrete, with which I could speak to the evils of the world near and far. But I don’t think they’re here. And I’m tired.

Add this waiting for answers and wisdom to the list of that which is awaited this Advent season. May God forgive us for these places where we fall short of knowing that which is true.

Noah Schumerth

Noah Schumerth graduated from Calvin University in 2019 with a major in geography and minors in architecture and urban studies. He currently lives in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood and works as the village planner in Homewood, Illinois. He enjoys reading science fiction, writing essays, cycling, and exploring Chicago by train.