FAITH - Nov 2010
Faith, if I may be so bold, is that in which we place our deepest confidence. Examples are truth, values, goodness, an idea, or a person. No logic is required. Some evidence may be helpful. But faith is largely based on intuition.
For those who don’t rely on intuition, this can be tricky. Instead of intuition, lots of evidence is needed. Yet, since evidence or logic is hard to come by in the murky waters of truth, values, goodness, an idea or a person, for some it can be really hard to have faith.
Faith is also fed by ideals. We yearn for truth and hold it as an ideal. We want to believe and have faith that goodness is an active ingredient in the universe, such as through God or humanity. We have ideals on how people should behave: do we treat each other with respect, do we demonstrate our love for each other, do we communicate with each other? We also hold ideals about what a religious community should be: whether it should be committed to hospitality, social justice, the spiritual journey, acts of love and generosity, or -- in some churches -- salvation.
Faith is an important element of being in a religious community. But faith can be crushed when our ideals crash into reality. The reality is that people make mistakes, people let us down, people are fallible. We understand the need to forgive and to accept others’ failings. But it can be hard to pull up our best self in order to actually accept and forgive.
There is another way our faith can be threatened. It comes when another person may not have made a mistake but still did not meet our expectations. Disappointment can be equally damaging to faith. We have faith that others will do what we expect, even if we’ve never communicated those expectations. We experience this with politicians all the time. And we also experience it with our friends and family, with our fellow church members.
Faith is an important part of being a spiritually healthy person, and it’s not something to be casual about. May each of us be aware of the basis for our faith and be ready for those times when reality comes crashing in.
Faith is also fed by ideals. We yearn for truth and hold it as an ideal. We want to believe and have faith that goodness is an active ingredient in the universe, such as through God or humanity. We have ideals on how people should behave: do we treat each other with respect, do we demonstrate our love for each other, do we communicate with each other? We also hold ideals about what a religious community should be: whether it should be committed to hospitality, social justice, the spiritual journey, acts of love and generosity, or -- in some churches -- salvation.
Faith is an important element of being in a religious community. But faith can be crushed when our ideals crash into reality. The reality is that people make mistakes, people let us down, people are fallible. We understand the need to forgive and to accept others’ failings. But it can be hard to pull up our best self in order to actually accept and forgive.
There is another way our faith can be threatened. It comes when another person may not have made a mistake but still did not meet our expectations. Disappointment can be equally damaging to faith. We have faith that others will do what we expect, even if we’ve never communicated those expectations. We experience this with politicians all the time. And we also experience it with our friends and family, with our fellow church members.
Faith is an important part of being a spiritually healthy person, and it’s not something to be casual about. May each of us be aware of the basis for our faith and be ready for those times when reality comes crashing in.
