Though science has made enormous strides in the past century, the way we perceive the world around us is still determined solely by the scope of our logic and the limits of our senses. We may want to believe in a life after death, or in angels, or in clairvoyance, in ghosts, messages in crop circles, alien intelligence or mind-over-matter, but if an idea or feeling cannot be represented, explained logically or connected to something we already know, it doesn’t hook itself into our daily lives. If we cannot see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, touch it, or explain it, it is very difficult to bring it into a practical range – and so it remains beyond the borders of our reality.
It is understandable, logical and downright commendable to be slow to trust or believe in something that has yet to be proven. It is good to question and test the safety and the worthiness of the goods we produce and services we provide. It is wise to cast a wary eye at those who claim to be able to contact our dead Uncle Strunk, or to know our future for money-by-the-minute, first five minutes free. But to allow our cynicism to spill over into the subject of “faith,” is to lock our consciousness away from that which warms our blood and makes us living Beings, for logic and reason have severe limitations if used without our intuition, keeping us bound entirely to a physical plane, a place where the tail truly wags the dog.
Faith is often thought to be an invisible rabbit's foot, a talisman for those who are afraid of death and even more afraid of life. Some believe that if faith were anything more than a mentally manufactured superstition, the world would have become a far better place, centuries ago, when there was little scientific knowledge and much superstition. But by expecting (our own version of) a better world to be the proof of the value of faith, we must assume that a majority of “other people” has embraced faith. Such thinking only reinforces our own barrier, and prevents us from moving beyond it, for we cannot presume of others, what we do not assume for ourselves.
- We cannot understand what faith is by looking at someone else who claims to know what it is. We must experience faith ourselves to understand its value.
And that of course is the problem. How do we know what faith is when our perception of it has been suppressed? Even the very word “faith” is usually relegated to a religious realm, removing it from those who view religion as a separate subject, not immediately relevant in today's world. Those who believe that faith is tied directly to religion might feel compelled to disregard the whole notion of faith simply because of its alleged connections. Who wants to believe something just because some nasty or misguided (fallible human) character told your ancestors that they would be doomed if they did not believe it? No one. We all want to know that what we believe has its roots in ancient wisdom, and that we have understood it all accurately.
Even those who consider themselves religious and those who believe in God (or Allah, or Brahman, or Yahweh, or whatever other word we mere humans claim as our word) may have a problem with “faith.” (We might say that we ‘believe’ but when things go ‘wrong’ can we truly say that we have faith?)
To those who are spiritual, honourable, loving, kind, tolerant and forgiving, the issue of faith can be an irritant. It can be aggravating to think that something called “faith” may be eluding us.
And what about those who feel no connection to any religion? Is faith off limits to those who do not attend a church, temple or synagogue? Is it something only congregants can claim?
- Everyone has had the experience of faith even those who have no religious beliefs whatsoever. Even those who cringe at the very word “faith” have lived it.
“F-a-i-t-h” is experienced as an emotion, and is as difficult to describe in words, as any other emotion. We feel “happiness” and “sadness,” “joy” and “anger,” “love” and “hatred,” and though these are merely words as they are printed on this page, we are able to relate to the experience they symbolize. We know what the emotional sensation is – or at least we know our own experience of the emotion. We cannot touch or see, smell, hear or taste the feeling of happiness, but we can relate our emotion to describable elements that are experienced through our senses.
Now you may say that this is obvious and does not need to be said; however, the most obvious, familiar and basic facts often fall beneath our notice and occasionally need to be accentuated and given some weight so that they are strong enough to act as a foundation for more intuitive logic. Even to reiterate that we are all of the same species, experiencing the same sensations can help us to modify our many erroneous beliefs, including those we mimic or have learned or adopted reluctantly from our families and our cultures.
- Faith is not the same as belief.
Belief is born of logic, and evolves over time, while faith is established in a single step. And whereas belief is definable with words, faith embraces both the describable and the inexpressible for it belongs to an infinite field. Because the scope of faith exceeds human boundaries, it is easy to lose our feel for infinity and to find ourselves smack-dab-in-the-middle of belief, something we may think about once in awhile, but which has little direct relationship to the circumstances of our daily lives.
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