Faith as Doubt

Faith is not some hard, unchanging thing you cling to through the vicissitudes of life. Those who try to make it into this are destined to become brittle, shatterable creatures….as in the natural order of things, so too faith is folded into change, is the mutable and messy process of our lives rather than any fixed, mental product.

Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss

Unfortunately, faith became a matter of believing impossible or strange things (which was supposed to please God, somehow), instead of an entranceway into a very different way of knowing altogether.

Richard Rohr, Naked Now

I am wondering, “What is it that I have faith in?” 

The root of the word faith is “to trust or promise” or later in its evolution “the assent of the mind to the truth of a statement for which there is incomplete evidence.”  

While “belief” and “faith” are often used interchangeably, to me they point to very different philosophies of things.  The root of belief, “confidence reposed in a person or thing,” implies a trust that things will work out as we hope and expect, while faith rests in a wider more open ended space of possibilities.  When we say we believe in ourselves, a spouse, a car, it suggests a certainty about how these things will behave and evolve overtime.  When we say we have belief in these things, we are saying that we trust them to do what we want, what is expected, that they have the good sense and means to protect, provide, come through.  

To have faith in a thing, event, prayer leaves the door open to much wider possibilities than certainty.  In our faith, things might not turn out as we hope but even so there is a sense that we will still be okay. Love might appear in the midst of loss, hope in the pain of suffering, beauty in the dark cave of the heart. There is a mystery to faith that cannot be pinned down without killing it, like the new yellow butterflies dancing around the forsythia. 

Belief serves it purposes in life. My sweet and elderly mother has a belief in a heaven where she will be reunited with everyone she has ever held dear and who has held her dear in a nearness with God.  She imagines sitting at a great table overflowing with the Italian foods her childhood eating, drinking, imbibing in the company of all those she misses and longs to be reunited with.  I am grateful for her certainty and will do what I can to be with her as she makes this long last journey towards them.  I will celebrate with them all when we are reunited. 

Unlike belief, faith is enfolded in doubt, an infinite loop which makes it more alive than belief to each day’s mysterious, unique unfolding. Each moment, each breath, a possibility we cannot foretell.  

I feel myself at times to have very little faith which is to say trust that I will be okay.  I am overtaken with the doubt and catastrophizing. Faith comes to me as a grace, a gift.  When it comes into my body, I am taken by surprise by it and grateful.  But to grasp after it only squelches its luminosity. 

But maybe this too is what makes me feel alive? To lose faith only to be surprised by it again.