"faithing", and the "lust for certitude"


Random notes on this thing known as 'faith'.

"To 'faith' is to hand over the direction of one's life journey to another, to yield up the' illusion of control' to someone who is essentially beyond one's control, over whom we have no power."

Faith is a verb, a process, and not a static reality.

In our faith journey, there are several similar or common elements:
(1) conversion: also known as metanoia--change of mind or life/direction;
(2) a struggle to internalize and act on that conversion experience;
(3) a call to integrity;
(4) a call to reality;
(5) a call to radicality.
These elements emerge regardless of era, culture, theology, life-style, or ministry.

Faith is primarily a relationship. Any love relationship challenges us to greater honesty and transparency, to awareness of those areas of our lives where we hold back or refuse to face ourselves, or to let others see us as we truly are. To really love others means to become progressively more vulnerable to them, to risk letting them see us in the bad times as well as the good, trusting that they will still love us.

We are converted many times, and this endless series of large and small conversions, inner revolutions, leads us to continued growth in Christ. This is the faith relationship.

Jesus is The Man of Faith. He taught us, not only by his parables, but by his whole life journey, his interior struggles with the subtleties of darkness and light, as they occurred within his own person.
The "lust for certitude" that we sometimes see in ourselves and in others we journey with ( and whom we criticize) is not in the mind and heart of Christ. It is a subtle and sometimes not so subtle form of religious fundamentalism, one that sees religion as 'the set answers to life's questions', 'the statement of faith' or 'creed', which give us the latitude of nailing down of 'orthodox' beliefs, rather than unveiling an experienced Person who allows us and shows us, how to live in struggle with the big questions.
~adapted from "Inviting the Mystic, Supporting the Prophet"-Dyckman/Carroll

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