Faith

This is the first time I’ve missed a deadline for the blog. 

I know that means little to you. With monthly installments, who cares when they land in your inbox or on your feed?

But missing a deadline, to me, is a serious indicator that my life is out of control. And it is. My family remains, as so many remain, in the throes of chaos. As we attempt to gain our footing in the discipline and structure of routine, the seemingly arbitrary and endless swirl of setback dogs each step. 

I could share more details. But it’s needless to make this post controversial. Once that veil is lifted, you are no longer reading a post at all. Once I declare my stance on any number of issues that divide us, my words become a counterpoint to an argument long-building in your mind. And, what’s more, you encamp me beside an army of phantoms that are to blame for this or that problem. 

No matter where you pitch your tent, life, since 2020, has felt less and less like living. Life has been compartmentalized into the strictest of standards. I’m not used to it. I always understood life best in terms of possibility. Think of the near absolute improbability that allowed for our existence in the first place. The eddies of history swirling impossibly in our favor. Each breath cashes in on the divine retribution of the evolutionary lottery. 

Isn’t’ that — each breath — enough?

Why do we continue to insist on making life difficult for each other?

Whatever your position is on whatever issue, there appears to be a profound lack of understanding going on. And understanding, in spiritual terms, beats being understood everyday of the week, and twice on Sunday. Let us seek to understand, not be understood. Being understood, nowadays, has too many caveats. We are understood only when meeting an increasing set of conditions. We are understood only if and when we say the right things. 

There is an insecurity underlying all of this. It’s either foolishly naïve or dangerously prideful. What point of fact of history, what prophet, what teacher has instructed us to know better than our neighbor? — to deify what we create rather than love our creator? And, if it is science that will guide our morals, then how does simple inquiry presume ignorance? Science, of all our disciplines, is home to the most imaginative minds in history. 

It’s been a rough fall. 

And as our family places more and more energy into backup plans in case of the emergency revocation of life as we know it, I have grown in my faith in God. I’ve never been more sure of the higher power that governs my life. I have found this new and perplexing relationship between hope and faith. As my hope weakens, my faith strengthens. And, if that is the case, who needs hope, anyway?

We’ve had to forego hope altogether. Hope is too supple a thing. Too light. Hope floats, sure. So do inflatable plastic rafts and paper boats. Hope is not the antidote to chaos; it is the delusion that chaos will order itself. Hope without faith is purposeless. Faith is the moral order imposed upon the world. Irrational to some, faith makes perfect sense to those who have it. It cannot be questioned. It covers fear with a warm blanket. Yes, faith is the thing that moves mountains. It is faith that saves, serves, and protects. All hope can do is prolong.

At the onset of these turbulent times, I was angry. I didn’t want to spend the time to understand and to listen. I wanted things fixed — fast. I bemoaned the prospect of our family’s upheaval. I grew resentful and bitter, quickly. 

Then those mundane miracles kept occurring. I found myself, while dejected and beaten, more happy than ever to come home, to be in the peace and presence of my family. You, especially you who’ve been reading the blog over time, are not surprised to read this, I’m sure. All I write about is the sublime everydayness of bliss. But what I am attempting to communicate to you in this post is that I’ve never known this discovery to be more essential. 

I’ve seen the miracle of the mundane as this rare find in my life: a gobsmacked awe while eating a bowl of cereal or in the pickup line at school. But, as hope’s utility diminishes, miracles are becoming more and more necessary for sanity. The love I experience each day is forming like a pearl, formed from the immense pressure of the outside world, hardened and polished in the privacy and protection of what we call home.

My daughter and I were talking about this love just the other day.

“There’s nothing bigger,” I said.

“It just keeps growing and growing,” she said in agreement. She had lost her first tooth the night before and spoke with that uncertain tone of voice and slight impediment that comes when your words form through a brand new shape of exhalation. It’s as if she whistled as she spoke. 

“It never stops.”

“But God’s love is bigger.”

“You’re right about that.” I had to give it to her.

“God’s love is bigger than anything in the world.”

“But wait a minute. Since God gave us this love, doesn’t that mean that the love we feel is God’s love? Doesn’t that mean that our love is just as big?”

“I don’t know, daddy. Think about the stars and the moon and the sky. That’s pretty big.”

I couldn’t argue with her on that point. And who could argue with any conception of God in the mild of a child? They know more than we do on the subject, anyway. 

My heart shudders to imagine the true love of God. How could I ever be worthy of that? And yet, how could God make anything capable of less?

My faith tells me all sorts of things. But, above all, it tells me that what matters the most is acknowledging and loving my creator and creation. My faith tells me that I escaped Mexico with my life in order to build a new one, centered around God’s will. The further I go along that path, the more certain I become in all the things they say cannot be known.

Persecution emboldens faith. And faith is unconquerable. My faith tells me that, with times growing increasingly complex, simpler things are true and good and worthwhile. My faith tells me to grant mercy and kindness and tolerance, especially when faced with combativeness and stubbornness and insecurity.

Faith makes anything possible. But more importantly, faith makes what’s most important certain.

Looks like we have a schedule change here, folks. We’re going to kick this can on down the road a stretch. Look for new posts on the last Monday of each month, from now on.