Keeping Faith

I’ve been wondering lately what is faith? What is it and how does it function in people’s lives? As a word, it has been mostly used in religious context, but I think it needs to be explored more broadly. Perhaps faith is just believing in what comes next, and we don’t know what comes next, do we? "Faith is believing what you know ain't so," so said Mark Twain. I want my faith to be in that what I know is so.

It has become my belief that as we connect with others, that it is in this connection and in our relationships that we allow others to know what is possible, and for me, this is becoming my faith. That that which we don’t know, gets made explicit in and by other people. If we don’t know love, we learn that through others. If we haven’t traveled to someplace, we can go there through the stories of those who have been. If we’ve never felt safe, we may find ourselves in a place of safety, if we allow it, amidst those who welcome and celebrate us. 

What we want can be evident in our longings, and even in our envy of what others have or have accomplished. And as we find more and more of how amazing life can be, along with it comes this sense of abundance, so much abundance that we can only want to share it. This then becomes love. Love that doesn’t differentiate between who is worthy and who is not, love that doesn’t differentiate between what I may or may not get back in return. We live and love to show ourselves and each other what is possible, and if you think of all the people, all the stories that live through history, that is a lot of possibility. 

As we travel through our lives, creating the path in front of us, we call into our lives the people and experiences we desire to expand the view of what can be. I wait in wonderment then, each moment, each day. And I look back in gratitude for all the possibilities that each person in my life has made me aware of.