As I measure out my time to give to Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA and my commitment to the Presidency of Rotary Global History Fellowship, I find that I struggle with how to portion out the moments of my life in service. Also, as I communicate with others around the world, I find that they too are combating this uncertainty of rations. We have only so much time to give. Where do we place importance? Are we being fair when we make those decisions? Which of the decisions come from dogma and which from reason (which starts with uncertainly). Uncertainty is the bond that unites fellowship. 

"Doubt: a Parable” is a play by John Patrick Shanley, the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, that takes place in 1964, a time of uncertainty in our world (a parallel time to our own today) with four characters, two nuns, a priest and a black parent of a young boy. Nothing is resolved. The comfortable place of “dogma” is challenged with the uncomfortable world of “uncertainty.” Shanley thinks that these two are the predominate ways of dealing with anything in the USA. Both are remedies to the problem of choice.

What is Doubt? Shanley puts it this way: “It is doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things. When a man feels unsteady, where he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you’re gone the wrong way and you’re lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.” 

The internal battle between the reality of doubt and the longing for certainly is the background for this play by Shanley. Again, as he says, “I still long for shared certainty, an assumption of safety, the reassurance of believing that others know better than me what’s for the best. But I have been led by the bitter necessities of an interesting life to value that age-old practice of the wise: Doubt.

Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy, because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite- it is a passionate exercise. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.” 

This is an important concept for any eClub or Fellowship (that crosses borders and conducts dialogues on the internet). It is hard to join an eClub or a Fellowship. It is the place where seasoned Rotarians or young, creative adventurers in Rotary find a home for their comfortable, yet continually shifting ‘uncomfortablity’ (that is, “uncertainty”).  The Rules of Rotary are the dogma of certainty, the comfort zone of action, but “service above self” is, we find, a moving sand on which to stand. Sometimes the necessity for knowledge of self is needed to give service and other times the service to others “above self” is the only way to discover a growing inner self. It is not a world for the faint of heart, this world of a questioning “uncertainty” but it is bonding place where one can find others who question and grow.

Also if you join an eClub or a Fellowship that conducts its business on the internet, breaking down the barriers of time, space and culture, the old dogmas do not work. Rotary Global History Fellowship found this true recently when it questioned the traditional use of Robert’s Rules of Order to conduct a 72-hour meeting over several continents. The majority of its Board of Directors determined that our 72-hour meeting was possible as long as the participants were comfortable with the “uncertainty” of juggling several ideas at the same and different times. As the world becomes more a “flatworld” of technology and information, this realm of “uncertainty” as the natural state of action will become more and more prevalent and accepted by a newer generation (as well as those who see the world as it is, not what the dogmas of the past ordain what it should be).

Is this easy? No! Is this worthwhile? A qualified, “Yes!” To grow, to learn, to expand vistas, to see beyond the ordinary, to experience TODAY, we must embrace “uncertainty,” even when we practice instant dogmas as a way to get through the moment (which demands action.)

Shanley’s play, “Doubt: a Parable,” is the ground on which we walk and live today. In a democracy, uncertainty is the moment before enlightenment. In Rotary, it is critical to any organization that is on the edge of the future.  For internet eClubs and eFellowships, uncertainty is the bond that holds all its members together (as long as they practice communications.)

Joe

President, Rotary Global History Fellowship, 2007-2008

Member: Rotary eClub of the SW, USA and ROTI

Professor of Art and Art History, Kingwood College, Texas

Last night, we went to the college and enjoyed another Stellar Evening (a once-a-year event given by the Music Faculty). The quality is always high but it it is difficult to separate knowing the individuals from the performance. Therefore I use uncertainty as a guide to open up a fresh ear to the performances. I stare at the floor, mostly not looking at who is singing or playing, and listen as if for the first time (not allowing the dogma of my own preconceptions to weigh in upon the judgment of the excellence of what I am hearing. Since I am a visual person, the "floor-staring" allows me to hear a performance as if for the first time. At this performance, I was lucky. A four-year old, Sophia, listened intently through the first few numbers and then slept the sleep of innocence through the rest of the evening. Sophia is the child in each of us: innocent, alive in attension, sleeping until the performance bring us awake and alive, and willing to listen except when the effort puts us asleep. Uncertainty is much harder to hold onto than certainty (dogma) but it is the stuff of the creative life in each of us. Thank you, Sophia, for reminding me about that "child-like" self that each creative person in their creative moment must rely upon and call forth.

Joe

Three nights ago, we attended I Love you. You're Perfect-Now Change! It is about the changing relationships between men and women, and, at the same time, the endless, non-changing relationship between men and women. It is about love, sex, competition, different points of view (sometime on the same event), death as a place to meet and start new relationships, and change, change, change.

This production began and ended with hooded monks singing in Medieval harmony and then shedding their non-describe character parts to become individuals with different cloths, shapes, personalities and parts to play. It was ancient, "In the beginning was.....," and it was contemporary. It had a great deal to do with the uncertainty of relationships and the certainty of carnal actions. I love you. You're perfect. Now change!

Maybe, just maybe, that is the "bond" that keeps Rotarians together in "fellowship." It is the certainty that each is there with uncertain lives and thinking but certain that some of Rotary's ideas work universally. It is about the uncertainty of "change" and the certainty of "sharing" that changing world that binds us together.

These are just ideas that need to come out and this play brought them to the surface. Yours in service beyond self and stretching beyond borders,

Joe Kagle

President, Rotary Global History Fellowship, 2007-2008

Just viewed Anthony Hopkins at the Actor's Studio and he gave the briefest, but most compiling reason to not worry about the uncertainty of tomorrow. He said: "Today is tomorrow that I was so worried about yesterday." By believing in his talent and some basic ideas, he pushed uncertainty to its proper place- "Today" not "Tomorrow."

Joe Kagle

President, Rotary Global History Fellowship