Doubt

Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty.

A woman was gossiping with a friend about a man she hardly knew. That night she had a dream. A great hand appeared over her and pointed down at her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession, and she told the old parish priest the whole thing.
“Is gossiping a sin? Father, tell me, have I done something wrong?”
“Yes! Yes, you ignorant, badly brought-up female! You have borne false witness against your neighbor, you have played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed!”
So the woman said she was sorry and asked for forgiveness. “Not so fast! I want you to go home, take a pillow up on your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me!”
So the woman went home, took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to the roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed.
“Did you gut the pillow with the knife? What was the result?”
“Feathers,” she said. “Feathers everywhere, Father!”
“Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind!”
“Well, it can’t be done. I don’t know where they went. The wind took them all over.”
“And that is gossip!”

- You haven't the slightest proof of anything.
- But I have my certainty, and armed with that, I will go to your last parish, and the one before that if necessary. Trust me, Father Flynn, I will do what needs to be done, though I'm damned to Hell!
- I can't say everything, you understand? Even if you can’t imagine the explanation, Sister, remember there are things beyond your knowledge. Even if you feel certainty, it is an emotion, not a fact. I've done nothing wrong. I care about the boy.
- Why? ‘Cause you smile at him and you sympathize with him, and you talk to him as if you were the same? You're a cheat.
- I can fight you.
- You'll lose.