The Uncertainty Principle has always been, but I didn’t know that. When I was a child, I made the determination that I would not live past 18. I knew this because I said that was the day I could kill myself and nobody could legally stop me from doing it. “So there,” said I, mentally giving my mother and stepfather a rebellious nose-thumbing. Reasons for my thought process are in my book “Twinkle: a memoir”, available on Amazon.com, and which journey you might want to read.

I was completely certain I would die by 18, and did not give any thought to the future. Obviously, I did not kill myself because here I am, mumble-something years old, still kicking. What changed in my thinking?

It was the addition of God, which addition gave me knowledge, knowledge gave me faith, and faith gave me hope. And hope is all any of us really have, because everything is uncertain except the promises of God.

“Promises?” you sneer. Yes, promises. But even in those promises we live with uncertainty. When will those promises be fulfilled? We don’t know. Study the Scriptures all day long for years, which I did, and the best you come up with is “Maybe fulfillment will come before I die, maybe it won’t.”

And that uncertainty is anathema to many who turn to the political system to define a rigid framework in which to process information and make decisions. Or they turn to science to give them definitive answers about how all things work, and to answer the age-old questions “How did we get here?” and “What’s the purpose of it all?”

Of course, the longer one lives the more you see even those systems of thought are imprecise, uncertain, and changeable. Some react by becoming even more strident and sure they are right, confirmed that all is either black or white. Others react by living in the gray. The gray is more fascinating and involves more work, deeper thought, and, of all things, faith.