Got Faith?

Recently I had an online conversation with friend about faith. In my life, I have had thousands of these, but this day it was different. I was asked “Why do I think we need faith?” Well, if you have known me for more than a year, you probably know that I have an opinion about most anything including this. As I took a deep breath and prepared to answer, I felt the air in room shift slightly and I chose to experience that pause of my thoughts and keystrokes for just a moment to hear, see and feel what was coming into being within me... In those moments of pause, I posed that question to myself and my own living instead of the prepackaged mumbojumbo.

I asked my spirit - Why do I need faith? I realized that faith is chisel that shapes so much of my perspective and being. It is the brush that allows me to paint with broad and sure strokes. For those of us who live with vision corrected by glasses, contacts or surgery; you will understand this illustration deeply. I compare the acts of faith in our lives to the change that comes about when we experience the difference in our eyesight or what /how we can see when wear our glasses or contacts. Things go from fuzzy to clear, from distorted to absolute and from far away to internal.

Thus, I typed "In my own lifetime, I have watched what faith can do to and through the world around us. Faith changes things… Faith changes us and how we are with one another…Without faith prayer could easily be deemed as a person talking themselves. Without faith, the value of our connections as community; living into the things that give us hope could be down played by the voice of independence or everyone for themselves. Without faith, the fabric of our redemption would be nothig more than remnants of yet another debt unpaid and lives incomplete. Without faith the cross would be nothing more than two sticks tied together and the resurrection could be summed up in an eternal saga CSI or Without a Trace."

I think that we need faith to steady our steps, to guide our journeys, to amplify our heart songs, to codify our connectedness and balance our beliefs with our existence. Faith is for me the coming into being of what I remember about the acts of God in my life; into the same moment as my hope for more of the same blessings upon and around me. I believe that faith is essential to our survival of the imposition of the faithless, the hopeless and loveless. It is faith that serves as the still small voice that beckons us into the hope of possibility, beyond the edge of what see and into the presence of what deem sacred. Faith is my refuge...

As I hit enter, I realized that in that moment, I was faithful and faith filled. What a feeling! Our conversation went from debate to discourse. That day, faith changed both of us as it clarified each of us for the other.

Got Faith?

To Be or To Become? A Revised Question

E.E. Cummings said, "It takes a lot of courage to grow up and be who you really are."

I recently created a Facebook page and I must say that it is wonderful in its own way. I had a conversation with an age old friend and they remarked about how different I am now than I was 25 years ago. I chuckled and then laughed and said, “Yes I am! And thank you for noticing.”

That conversation made me think about how life changes us into the people that we have always been becoming and how some can find strength in those moments and other choose another defining point in their existence. I don’t remember the turning point that led me to today, but I am grateful for it and every accompanying experience. My thoughts today, are keep living and see who you are becoming and once it comes into focus for you, may you find the strength and courage to be all of who and what life has summoned you to be. I have found a whole new and powerful meaning in the words, “Don’t worry, be happy!” Simply know who you are and have the courage to this person!

“When I live my life in the service of my vision, it becomes less and less
apparent that I am afraid.” Audre Lorde