Keep the Faith

Faith believes that there is a greater plan than your own at work in your life, in all of life. The extraordinary gift of faith is the greatest asset bestowed upon us.

Acceptance is being at peace with all that is, as it is. Faith is the absurd conviction that all that is occurring in our world, no matter the consequence, is a momentous contribution to the grander vision of Creation and the unfolding potential of our Spirit.

We come to know faith most intimately in the darkest alleyways of our journey, when there is no light to show us the way. Faith comes to us silently and whispers that we have a light within us and that this light is enough to lead us forward. Faith is tending to this light knowing God is both the light within and the darkness surrounding us – the stillness and the activity, the silence and the din.

Faith sustains us even when the “WHAT IF I’M WRONG?” demon screams fervently in our minds. With faith there are no ‘wrong’ choices; for all is God. I see war on the news, I accept there is brutality within humankind, and I have faith that within the brutality a greater vision is being conceived. Perhaps the greater vision is the yearning, the learning and the realization of, and for, peace. My faith leads me to focus my efforts there. Faith keeps me focused on the one living, green blade of grass in the bloody battlefield.

“Have faith” doesn’t mean to sit and wait for evidence that Spirit is at work, but to work toward the greater vision of your Soul knowing you are being guided by our Creators and that your footsteps will lead you to the magnificence of your fullness – that which is most pleasing to God and to our Earth.

Faith means seeing the ‘green lights’, the indicators on your journey that it is ‘good to go’ and moving in that direction. Faith is following the path that say’s “yes” every step of the way and trusting this will lead to fuller realization.

“YES” does not always point us in the way we would prefer to go or in the direction of ease. YES is always the instinctual nature within that guides us to the best of who we are. YES is the urge to leave a job that is killing your spirit even if it helps pay the bills, it is the notion to open your doors to a lost soul and welcome him to your hearth, it is expressing the most sacred of human virtues each time the urge to do so arises – which, if you are listening, is most often.

We have to be talked out of acting on these urges by the real demons of mediocrity that surround us, the necessity of conforming to the predictable and the mundane. We all have these instinctual urges to love but we follow the dogma of “realism” that keeps us dull and dumbs us down. We have had to convince ourselves that we are nothing…faith leads us to remembering how tremendous we are.

Faith is action; compassion, justice, love. With faith we embrace unfathomable hurt, roll up our sleeves and get to work. Faith is not passive for no action done in faith is passive. Prayer is not passive; neither is planting a garden, lobbying for justice, or placing your body between the oppressor and the oppressed. Faith is the fuel that feeds every muscle in our bodies so that we might move the mountain.

Can you have faith that each wrong committed ‘against’ you was necessary in the greater plan forging you into the complex and powerful soul that you are? Can you have faith that each wrong you have committed against another was also necessary to forge you into the greatness of your soul? With faith, can you forgive others and yourself? Can you let yourself be forgiven?

It is our faith that we incarcerate when we shackle ourselves to anger, envy and fear. Faith weaves us into the great universal tapestry when we remember our instinctual nature and embrace the wilds within us, acting upon the urge to sacrifice, love, give. Our instincts need no reason, no oracle into the future, in order to be there – impelling us to effortlessly expand into our own immensity. Our instincts are the keys to unlocking the Divine that dwells within us and move us to set free all of Creation.

Male Emperor Penguins incubate the eggs of their offspring, while the females leave for weeks to feed. It is possible that the female will not return, being eaten herself by a predator. Yet each male tirelessly protects his potential offspring by balancing it on the tops of his feet, enduring unimaginable cold, with no food or shelter for weeks. Huddling together against the cold, these fathers find what warmth they can through sharing their body heat while nurturing their individual eggs. The mother-penguin, if she survives the weeks of feeding, returns once the egg has hatched and finds her mate and chick by instinctually following the call of the male, leading her home. It is then that she sets to the task of feeding the chick from her own stores. The success and survival of the species depends upon following the instinct to do what appears nonsensical at the time and holding to the faith that the life that so delicately hangs in the balance over the long cold weeks, will be fed and nourished into fullness.

Instinct and faith are inseparable. When we rely on these we step back into the wonder and awe of the vast mystery around and within us. Instinct compels us to shelter one another from the cold, and faith warms our soul while we await the sun’s return.