Dearest Readers,
A number of years ago, when I was just at the beginning of what I would now call the conscious spiritual journey, a friend said to me, “Have faith,” after I bombarded her with a fearful tirade of controlling remarks.
Have faith.
Her words had the right effect. I calmed down and took a breath. I knew I had to let go of whatever was causing me anxiety in that fraught moment and this little phrase helped me to do that.
‘Have faith’ can mean anything to anyone, really. It can mean believing in God but it can also mean trusting in the human spirit.
I work with a lot of people who have either lost their faith or simply don’t have any to begin with. Some of them once believed in a God that was ‘good’ but because they see so much ‘bad’ they no longer do. This makes sense. ‘Belief’ is fickle. It can be too easily eroded by the ‘thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.’ (That’s Hamlet.)
Having faith requires trust and trusting is different than believing. In what do I trust?
I trust that I am not the Power Making the Planets Spin.
I trust that the Spirit of Goodness will prevail. It may take a week, a month, a year, century or a millennium but eventually things work out. This quote sums it up: ‘If it ends, it ends well. If it doesn’t end well, it’s not over yet.’
I trust that the Universe knows what It is doing. When looks like the world is going to hell in a hand basket I remember that a heck of a lot has happened before now and a heck of a lot is going to happen after now. We are still evolving. I trust that.
Have faith.
It’s easy to say. I could have had a different reaction all those years ago when my friend said those words to me (f*ck off comes to mind). But she wasn’t being flippant. She was reassuring me. And because I do have faith, not blind-everything-happens-for-a-reason-spiritual-bypassing-faith, but faith in the stars and the sun and the moon, in the galaxies and the entire cosmic dance, in the grass growing and the trees blowing and the unfolding of history and the miraculous present and the uncertain future. I have faith in the steadfast spirit of the animals, in the perseverance of people who continue to fight for justice and equality despite staggering injustices and inequality, in the kindness of strangers and the generosity of neighbours and, finally, in the Transformative, Radical, Unconditional Love that seems to permeate Everything and defies logic and intellectual understanding.
Have faith, she said. I listened. And I let go.
And I’m still listening and I’m still letting go. Because I still like to hold on. And I doubt and I question and I fear and I rage. And I have faith.
May we all have faith right now. Not faith that ‘everything will be okay’. But that everything will be. Because it is.
From the fires of love,
Celia
