Faith
“Faith
is the deep want of the soul. We have faculties for the spiritual, as
truly as for the outward world...” William Henry Channing
We
talked in the Spirituality Group yesterday about the difficulties of
tamping down anxiety about all the “wrong” that is going on in
the world, and in our personal lives. We spoke about where we believe
we “should” be, and how we are not there. We use our peers as a
template against which we measure our own worth. It's interesting,
isn't it, that we humans compare ourselves to others, and not just to
some others, but to those whom we perceive to be charging ahead,
living life as it “ought” to be lived. Doesn't matter what age we
are, young, or old, or middle aged—we all use the same yardstick.
So
what does faith have to do with it? I would say, everything. A person
who is deeply faithful lives his own life as it unfolds, trusting
that he is where he should be, even if it is not glamorous or
“successful.” Our idealized view, the one we constantly stress
about, is like a ladder with only a top rung. How on earth will we
ever climb up there without those bottom rungs? And then, there is
the question of whose ladder are we trying to climb anyway? Is it our
own?
Martin
Luther King, Jr. said, “Faith is taking the first step even when
you don't see the whole staircase.” All we need to do today is take
that first step, trusting that the second step will be there when
we're ready. This is your life. Just live it. Trust that life itself
will fill in the blanks as you go.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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