John Wesley

[MOW]

As I am from a UMC background ,I was looking at the Wikipedia article on John Wesley(the founder of the Methodist Church). Toward the end of the article it states that Wesley, despite his achiements , never overcame profound self-doubt. Around the age of 63 he is said to have wrote to his brother,Charles, " I do not love God, I never did. Therefore I never believed in the Christian sense of the word".

 

I found those words both shocking , but also kind of comforting at the same time. I haven't got my thoughts together on this quote . Any thoughts?

 

MOW

[DavidD]

Among the neurosurgeons where I trained were two who couldn't be more different. One was the head of the program. He was meticulous in his discipline. The worst thing anyone could do was give him contradictory information, as that was just not acceptable for his worldview.

 

The other was younger and emotional. He had a habit of grabbing his forehead as he listened to you, as if in pain, but I think it was more that he just had to do something than be completely in his mind as he listened. Now he had self-doubt. There were times in the OR when he would blurt something out like, "I've ruined her!" about the patient. The first time you heard this it was very disconcerting, but there was always someone more senior around to say, "Don't worry. He says that all the time. It always turns out OK." Well not always, but no worse than anyone else.

 

Interestingly, the first man developed Alheimer's Disease. It wasn't hard to tell when he started changing away from a perfectionist's perfectionist to someone making a lot of mistakes. The younger man never stopped saying things that weren't accurate about his shortcomings.

 

Everything has a context that makes sense of it. I'm sure Wesley's comment does, too. Taking words at face value leaves so much out.