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Faith as Longing

Regular readers know that I appreciate the writings of columnist David Brooks.  He is an insightful thinker who shares ideas and conclusions, which make me think about my own ideas and conclusions.  Near the Christmas season Brooks wrote a trenchant piece on faith.  That piqued my attention for two reasons: I consider myself a person of faith and I teach religion, which often deals with faith issues.  So I eagerly jumped into his article.           

The title of Brooks’ offering was intriguing: “The Subtle Sensations of Faith.”  I think I got the direction of his essay when I read the following sentence in the initial paragraph.  “You’d think faith would be a simple holding of belief, or a confidence in things unseen, but, in real life, faith is unpredictable and ever-changing.”  I am sure he is correct that many folks assume faith means what they believe.  In fact, if you ask Christians about faith, they usually will begin a catalogue of beliefs---in God, in Jesus, etc.  Seen this way, faith becomes an intellectual or cognitive thing.             

I much prefer the way Brooks goes.  He re-directs the faith discussion when he claims faith is “unpredictable and ever-changing.”  Because I agree with him does not make both of us right.  But the way he puts it does resonate with my experience.  When I ponder the meaning of faith, I admit I am influenced by the languages I have studied.  I know in the classical languages faith is more often a verb than it is a noun.           

This simple observation is a subtle one for those of us who only know English.  As a word, faith is always a noun in English.  To try to make it a verb sounds absurd.  No one says “I faith God.”  Clearly when we need a verb in English, we switch to the word, trust.  It makes perfect sense to say, “I trust God.”  I can also say that “I trust my kids” and mean that I have faith in them and so on.  In Greek and Latin I could have used the faith word as a verb.  In Greek I can say “I faith my kids!”           

This seems relevant when we pursue some more of Brooks’ insightful reflections.  He describes the birth of faith in a neat way.  “It begins, for many people, with an elusive experience of wonder and mystery.”  Again, this makes sense because it resonates with my own experience.  Think for a moment.  If someone asked you how did your faith in God begin, how would you answer it?  We can even leave God out of the picture.  We could also ask how did faith in your child begin?  Brooks’ answer is sublime.  Faith begins “with an elusive experience of wonder and mystery.”          

If I understand Brooks, he is saying faith is born in an experience.  Of course, that can lead to ideas---even to theology.  But faith is primarily experiential.  And the early experience of faith often is hard to describe.  It is an experience of wonder and mystery.  I know wonder and mystery in my own life, but I also know they are not easy to describe.  The neat thing about this is the fact that wonder and mystery can break out almost any place.  Any of those places can become an opportunity for faith to be born.           

Brooks take a next and obvious step.  He portrays likely experiences that would bring most people to faith.  He says, “Most believers seem to have had these magical moments of wonder and clearest consciousness, which suggested a dimension of existence beyond the everyday.  Maybe it happened during childbirth, with music, in nature, in love or pain, or during a moment of overwhelming gratitude and exaltation.”  Again, I could not agree more.  In all my work with students in religion classes and adults in various groups, I hear stories of experiences like these that describe “existence beyond the everyday.”  That points to faith.           

Finally comes perhaps the most important statement in Brooks’ entire essay.  He says, “These glimmering experiences are not in themselves faith, but they are the seed of faith.”  The experiences are not faith; faith is my response to the truth of the experience.  In my case faith is grasping a truth that there is a God behind and beyond the wonder.  But it is a God whom I meet (“experience”) in the wonder and mystery.           

But this is not where it ends.  In fact, faith is always a commencement---always a beginning.  Faith is a verb---a word of action.  I don’t get faith to have faith.  I get faith to begin to live out faith---to live faithfully.  To continue with Brooks’ line of thought, I see faith birthed in me by experiencing the wonder and mystery of a dimension of existence different than my everyday world.  But then I bring that dimension of existence into my everyday life and transform everyday life into a kind of wonder.           

Put simply, faith enables me and challenges me to life a life of wonder---grounded in the Mystery, which is God.  To live a life of wonder is to live a wonderful life.  To live this kind of faithful life will make life amazing and never appalling.
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