It All Comes Down to Faith

-
Almost every day since I transitioned from being a committed, full-faith Christian to being an agnostic I have thought about faith and its role in my life. What did it do for me, and what have I lost with it? At heart, faith is an engine. It's a power that fuels your will to do whatever it is you think you should be doing. That deep assurance that God was real allowed me to stop smoking in one day, stop swearing in one day, stop beating myself up in . . . let's say in time, stop living inside my own head. It made it possible for Mother Teresa to spend her life in the slums. It made it possible for Corrie Ten Boom to risk her life to hide Jews in WWII. It made it possible for Eric Rudolph to blow up an abortion clinic, and for a group of religious fundamentalists to pilot airliners into skyscrapers.

Faith isn't a good or bad. Faith is simply possibility---but a unique kind of possibility. A uniquely strong one like no other. Believers can become radically good, radically evil, and maybe even radically anti-radical (go Laodicea!).

In my life now, I'm haunted by my desire to be good. I try to do no evil, but that's not quite the same thing. And though one good deed is better than a hundred good attitudes, it's the attitude that is the hardest. Just today I've struggled mightily with my anger toward a coworker, and my beautiful and beautifully souled friend Debbie tried to talk me down with emails like this:

REMEMBER ALSO:
calm blue ocean. she is a child of The Little Baby Jesus (<-- i have no idea). she isn't foiling you just to foil you. she's doing it because she has her own (silly?) reasons for being stubborn. remember that this isn't (necessarily) about getting your way but about helping her to communicate what her concerns about the project are and being the problem solver/compromiser (because she isn't going to be). channel Barry, lynn'weber! don't see white america or black america. see the United STATES of america! (<-- no idea)

WWRD*,
dj

*What Would Rocky Do


To which I responded:

You ARE wise, Oh . . . um, Wise One. I'll just keep humming "Jesus Loves Her, This I Know." Even if after the 50th iteration, it starts to take on a desperate, forced quality. As if hummed by Gaeta.


To which SHE responded:

LYNN: *disheveled, sweaty, putrid [see: gangrene]* *singing under breath**wincing* *fingering dog-eared picture of Rocky in pocket*
[Sorry . . . you'll have to be a Battlestar Galactica fan to get these Gaeta references]

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

This really did help me today. I can't claim total victory, but these reminders help me keep my little tiny flame of compassion and holiness alive. Inside, I'm crouching down with my hands cupped around it, giving it gentle breaths, and taking these gentle breaths from my friends, to keep that small flame burning. I think of my favorite song, by Sam Phillips:

I need love
Not some sentimental prison.
I need God
Not a political church.
I need fire
To melt the frozen sea inside me.
I need love.

-