Faith

Author's Note: I wrote this essay (slightly adapted) in 2015 and have never published it. Today, when in so many domains of human interaction - politics, religion, even sports discussions about the best team or player of all time - people claim to own the "truth", I thought about this. This season is sacred, and in that sacredness lies the opportunity for great wonder , depth , vulnerability , humility , and expectation. In other words, it it a season to practice great faith - that is, great trust that in stepping forward into mystery, the unknown, we have the potential for great joy and great good.

Faith

I like how Frederick Buechner describes faith:

"Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you're going, but going anyway. A journey without maps. Paul Tillich said that doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith."

Faith as a verb—as something you do—fits my worldview. Looking at it this way, faith isn’t something you “have”, like a possession, but is an ongoing process on a never-ending journey. Rather than "I have faith", it would be "I faith", or "I am faithing ". To me, faith does not mean “I believe”, so much as it means “I trust”. That is counter to how many view faith, which is as an acceptance of a set of beliefs, often of what is agreed to by a “faith” community, religious or not. Often “my faith” is being used to describe the sect or denomination one belongs to, with its set of “I believe” statements, rather than being used in the sense of stepping off a cliff and trusting that I have the means – through my own devices or through the community of people or through supernatural or divine intervention – to keep walking. To keep exploring. To keep questioning without losing myself completely.

There is nothing wrong with having a set of beliefs - we all have them, we all need them - but to me faith means much more.

“I trust” allows me to venture into uncharted territory, visit religious ceremonies that are not of my own faith, countries that differ remarkably from my own, or propose concepts that run afoul of extant theory and existing “knowledge”. “I trust” gives me the confidence to let some other thing take my hand and guide me to new places, to new inquiry or exploration or risk or vulnerability, whether it is through the scientific method and community of scientists or via the call of God and the whisperings of a heart.

Joan Chittister’s view of faith complements Buechner’s. She says that faith is about awe and not about understanding and in fact that faith is “reverencing what we don’t understand—the mystery of the Life Force that generates life for us all”( Chittister, 2015 ). The essence of faith, she believes, is centering power outside ourselves. It is recognizing God’s greatness when we see our smallness. She says:

" Faith in what we cannot control, do not see, cannot understand destroys the idol that is ourselves. It is only the deep-down belief that we are not the be-all and end-all of the universe that can save us from ourselves. It is the awareness of being part of something vast and intelligent and well-intentioned that gives purpose to life, that leads us to seek beyond the horizons of our smallness to the hope that tomorrow, warped as we may be today, we can all be better."

Faith as that "deep-down belief that we are not the be-all and end-all" makes sense to me. So in that sense faith is a belief, a trust that the journey includes something far more than I can ever understand.

Faith, for me, is reverence for that which is outside our ability to ever fully know. Faith in God – the unknowable, uncontrollable, the awe-some—cedes our self-centeredness, our hubris, to something much greater, to a force much more in control, than we can ever be. That God, which I cannot describe but which encompasses and surpasses all natural physical laws, known and unknown, is the creator of the universe and of all the universes beyond, from the past infinitely stretching behind, through the future seen by us through a glass darkly, awaiting our discovery.

Faith as a proclamation of ignorance (I am italicizing myself here…) rather than one of loyalty, obligation, or doctrine is beautiful and wondrous. It transcends. Asserting faith as ignorance, as being imbued with doubt, is the process of journey. It is saying to ourselves that we are infinitesimally small, it is the essence of humility, and the window to ever more full, but still pitifully lacking, wisdom.

When I have faith in God I trust that I can question God and everything about God and that God will still be there, will still “see” me. When I am secure in my beliefs about God I am not afraid to test those very beliefs, by questioning them I am trusting that - I have faith that -like a new baby, trying every new task, the process of discovery will bring me asymptotically closer to, but never touching, ultimate truth, if there even is such. I am not afraid to look at evidence that might shake my belief systems.

It is time for the journey. It is time to step forward into mystery, into the unknown. It is a time of anticipation, the advent of something we can't imagine. It is time to be open to something completely new, to something beyond us.

It is a time for Christmas.

It is a time for great trust.

It is a time for faith.

Buechner, F. (nd). Faith. Retrieved from http://frederickbuechner.com/content/faith

Chittister, J. (2015). What Faith is Not Retrieved 7-20-15, from http://joanchittister.org/word-from-joan/7-20-2015/what-faith-not

Faith. (2015a). Retrieved July 21, 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

Faith. (2015b). Retrieved July 21-2015, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith