Faith is the key word for this article.
Defined: allegiance to duty or a person; fidelity to one’s promises; sincerity of intentions; belief and trust in and loyalty to God; belief in the traditional doctrines of religion; firm belief in something for which there is no proof; complete trust; something that is believed especially with strong conviction.
Introduction: Addison and John are dropping off food to the local food bank.
Addison: Looks like that is it. We will see you the next time we have something for you, Bob.
Bob: We really do appreciate you fellas donating this food from time to time, especially during this bad economic downturn. You guys have a good day.
John: You too… see you next time.
[Overheard in the distance, “Thanks Bob for this food, it sure helps!” Bob responds with “Keep the faith brother.”]
John: Addison, why do people stress faith so much when wise action is so much more effective?
Addison: That is a good question. Perhaps most people need a place to start in order to begin taking that wise action. When we get back to the center I will put it up for discussion and you will have more than enough to contemplate on when it comes to the word faith.
[Back at the community center everyone present begins to gather around.]
Addison: Welcome everyone as usual. [“Good to see you again, brother.” “Aho”…] When everyone is ready, John would like to know why people stress having faith so much? Anyone care to respond?
Kailoken: Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel!
John: What? Let me think on that a bit to see if I can get what you mean. …That means something like it is good to have faith in the will of God, or whatever term you choose to name the One, but we all have to do our own work? For instance, through the life force of the One herbs grow and can be quite beneficial to man, but it is man himself who has to cultivate and use them properly.
Kailoken: That is a good basic interpretation of what I said. Too many people try to rely on outside forces and do not have enough faith in themselves. Without proper work on oneself, faith does not effectively get you very far in a positive direction. The best faith you can have is in your own core essence, which as you know is the One showing up as you.
Catharsis: You know what I find interesting about faith? It often serves as a placemat for one’s own knowledge and experience. You have the bitter cup that is half-full or half-empty, you have the spice of life over there; then you have the plate with your typical serving of “lot” on it, and your silverware would be a knife that can either butter you up or cut you, a spoon that others can use to spoon-feed you, and I do not even want to say what the fork is for! And then you have a bowl full of toasted oat cereal.
John: Toasted oat cereal, what does that stand for?
Catharsis: Nothing, I just thought since I was laying out the dinnerware and food, I may as well put something I eat on there! [Laughter from the group.]
Naruto: Ah, very good… you very funny! As the great Buddha say, faith can be a seed but you need other things to help the seed grow and bear fruit. Some faith lands on barren and unfertile soil, some gets planted in an area with strong psychedelic mushrooms, perhaps some falls where it grows well but something comes along and takes a bite out of it or worse,… you get the picture.
Catharsis: I see you are very funny too, Naruto!
Zhi: There is always much joy here. From my perspective faith helps if it is a healthy and reasonable faith. For example, an oxen’s strong faith that it will become a champion sprinter will not help it become one! This leads me to say that much faith is often misplaced. One does not feel the need to do much inner work if one thinks s/he can rely on outside forces to save him, usually from himself.
Waneta: One also runs the risk of having so much faith in something that the stronger one’s faith is in it, the more extreme and selfish one may likely become. In other words, one may not keep the mind open to something else outside of where the faith was placed. There are some very zealous people out there creating all kinds of problems for others who think differently than them.
Zhi: You make a very good point. Without wisdom, faith is blind. Faith is not absolute; it is a way of using your mind. We still need something higher than faith to guide it, or you may end up walking into walls, or take leap over cliff and have big splat.
Catharsis: Yes, that proverbial leap of faith…it is always interesting to see where you land. Another thing that I find interesting about faith is that many people have faith in something that has not been proven to be correct. Why do they do it? Perhaps they were influenced by family members to place their faith in something, or maybe they adopted the beliefs of someone who helped them with kindness at a point in their lives, or one of my personal favorites, they saw the outline of what they took to be Jesus’ mother on a piece of toast.
Naruto: If I only have good fortune to have such a piece of toast. Then I sell it on Ebay!
Catharsis: Yes, then you can take us all on a nice vacation to your homeland of Japan!
Addison: John, did you get your fill on faith?
John: Yes… as normal around here, I have much to think about. Maybe you can answer one more thing for me. What about the saying, “faith moves mountains?”
Catharsis: Son, that gets a little more complicated and will have to wait another time for when you are ready for it. Besides, Waneta gets a little touchy when anyone messes with her mountains!
John: Thank you all.