Faith
in Life
“Today,
we often think that before we start living a religious life, we have
first to accept the creedal doctrines, and that before one can have
any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must force
one's mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this
is to put the cart before the horse.”
Karen
Armstrong
I'm
sitting on my porch this morning. The sun is shining, the birds are
singing, the trees are glistening from last night's rain, and it's
about 68 degrees—an unbelievable combination in the middle of July
in Birmingham, Alabama. Even if I had no religious affiliation at
all, this would be a morning for expressing gratitude for the
incomparable glory of the created world.
Lots
of people get tripped up by organized religion's insistence that we
“believe” in a set of doctrinal tenets, some of which require
willing suspension of disbelief in the same league as, say, Godzilla,
Superman, or Spiderman. But all of us have within reach the capacity
for awe, the response to nature's grandeur, and deep and abiding
faith that there is goodness in the world that seems to come from a
source beyond ourselves. We don't have to “believe” it, because
we feel it, we see it, we experience it.
We
don't have to be affiliated with a church, or a temple, or any other
form of organized religion for faith and gratitude to be central to
our lives. We can simply live with open hearts and open eyes. Faith
is not possessed or defined by organized religion alone. It is the
capacity for acceptance and empathy, and, yes, awe, with all of life
that resides within the human heart. If you have that, you are by nature,
a person of faith.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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