Faith

"Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe."
- Saint Augustine

Faith seems like a big topic to tackle after a week off and a hectic first few days back to work, but since my intention in starting this blog was to go with what comes and not judge it, today we have "faith"!  I just read this outstanding quote from Saint Augustine (clearly being a Saint involves the ability to quote with laser insight!) and got chills up my spine.  It is this concept - we create our reality through our belief - that has sort of been the carrot-on-a-stick of my personal journey over the last few years.  Getting this concept and being it, are, it turns out, two rather different things.  Deep down inside I firmly believe that Saint Augustine is right, but what shocks the socks off of me is how darn hard it is to get all of me on board with living that faith.  Living from the belief that I create my world, I am not a product of it, is a quantum shift in my lifelong behavior.  I think it is for many of us.

When something bad happens to you, or you hit a roadblock on the way to your goal, what do you do?  Do you immediately say "well, guess that wasn't meant to be", or "clearly it's not God's will for me to do this", or start replaying all the other bad things and roadblocks that have been visited upon you?  From what I see around me, that's a pretty common reaction.  But, if Forrest's mom is right and life is like a box of chocolates, why do we constantly focus on the stuff we don't like rather than the fact that it's all candy?  Heck, you can just lick off the coating if you don't like the filling and go on to the next one!  Why are we programmed to think that if we don't like one thing life gives us, we should give up because the whole box must be junk?  If you got one bad candy out of a box, would you give up and never eat candy again?  Maybe you just have to go through a few walnut chews first so you really appreciate those carmels! 

Assuming that we are not meant to do or have something when we hit a glitch means the Universe would go out of its way to deny us what we want.  But why would we be so mistreated by that which put us here?? We are created of Divinity and each of us has that spark within us, so there is no way Divinity would reject or deny us.  It's like we all have a bit of Superman in us, but the belief system we have been hanging on to is made of Kryptonite - so we don't realize we can just leap those pesky tall buildings, rather than spending our time cursing their presence in our path. 

So, what if the roadblocks and the "bad things" are just distractions?  What if the tall, tall wall in our way is not really made of stone but is just a stage prop?  What if all we have to say to the Universe is "ok, I see you're checking to see if I reeeeally want this, and I reeeeeally do, so could you please show me what I need to do to step over this wall?  Thanks very much!", and then wait confidently for the directions and act on them.  Now we find ourselves in a world where believing is the mother of seeing.  Suddenly, the wall shows itself for what it really is - an illusion.  When we find that serendipity called "faith", suddenly we See only what we know to be Truth.  Where we saw hatred, we can see the struggle of those who do not love themselves.  Where we saw war we see the result of believing that there isn't enough to go around and we must take from each other.  Where we saw ourselves kicking hopelessly at the walls of an impenetrable fortress, we find that the fortress was made of sand. 

For most of us, there is nothing easy about the leap into living in unwaivering faith.  It is so hard to accept that everything we've ever learned about the world might be backwards.  That we might, in fact, have it all wrong.  But why not?  Are we not created in the image of the Creator?  Surely then we too must have the power to create - in fact, we do it all the time, only we tend to do it within the parameters of what we think to be true, rather than what is Truth.  More and more people out there are discovering that when we turn things upsidedown and begin to live in expectation of seeing what we know to be True, miracles happen.  Look around and you'll see books, movies, seminars everywhere.  This concept goes by the name "the Secret", "the power of positive thinking", "consciousness", "enlightenment" and many others, but it is all in essence the same thing.  It is the reward of faith.  To create our world as we wish to see it, not as it gets handed to us.  Each time in my own life that I have been shown a glimpse of this possibility, it has taken my breath away.  How amazing it would be to live fully in the breathless wonder of faith in what is possible, rather than in the drudgery of what seems impossible.  Every day would truly be our birth-day!   Just allow yourself to think about what that would look like for a minute, even one tiny minute - and tomorrow, maybe think about it for two.