Some thoughts on faith

The blog I published earlier has had me thinking about faith.

Faith is a funny word. It means so many different things. I went to Google and said define:faith. I got a lot of interesting definitions. One was a list of fictional nations from Gundam SEED. Another was a band in the early years of American Punk. The closest definition to what I grew up with was this one "a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his faith but not his morality"".  That's close, but not quite right. This is the one I grew up with "Faith is to hope for things which are not seen, but which are true."

So, those definitions are great and all. But, what do they really mean? The word gets used in so many different ways. I have faith in my team, my family, my friend. I'm a member of the LDS faith. I have faith in God. I have listened to Faith No More. If you are a cheating spouse you are faithless. If you are a Marine, you are Semper Fidelis, always faithful, Semper Fi.

Faith is all those things and more. And yet, we still haven't truly nailed down what faith is. Some words have a very concrete definition. If I say "cat", you know that I am speaking of a feline. A lion is always a lion, a tiger is always a tiger. But is faith always faith?

Part of what makes the definition of faith so slippery is that faith can't be pinned down. You can't quantify faith, you can't take it out and weigh it, measure it and give it percentages. You can make faith grow or shrink. Your actions can cause people to have more or less faith in you. You can do things to make your faith in God increase or decrease. But you can't say I have 3 pounds of faith today.

The reason I have been thinking of this is because good things have been happening today. A corner has been turned and I have faith (see there it is) that it will be good. I am hoping for it to be true. I was sustained by my faith in God today, which I can't see, but I know is true. I was also sustained by the faith my friends have in me. They knew that I can do it and so I can. It seems that while faith may have a lot of definitions and many contexts and uses, it isn't something that we can do without.

Is the definition of faith something that is highly subjective and personal, or is there one definition and then we all shade it by our experiences? When you hear the word faith, what do you think of?

How Do You Carry On?

Do you ever wonder what you will do when you reach the breaking point? What happens when you get to the point where one more thing, even the smallest thing, not even a straw but just a grain of sand puts you so far over the edge that you just sit and start crying? How do you get up and carry on when you feel like you are shattered into a million pieces or that you are stretched so thin that there just isn't anything at all left?

It is more realistic to keep going or just sit down and realize that there is nothing else left for you to do and give up your burdens? What happens when you realize that there is no one else who can pick them up for you, do you have to pick them back up and shoulder them and hope they get better? Do you feel like Atlas with no Hercules to trick into shouldering the world for you?

These aren't idle questions. These are the things that come to me at 3 am in the long dark teatime of my soul (apologies to Douglas Adams, read him if you haven't). The reason that these things come to my mind is because recently I've been going through a really hard time. Things in  my personal life have been in great turmoil for the past week. I was getting a handle on them, until yesterday. Yesterday was the one more thing. The straw that made the camel fall to her knees. There was too much for me to deal with.

Last night I questioned whether I could pick up and go on.  I wasn't sure that I could. I wasn't sure that I really even wanted to. I started looking around for my Hercules. And I didn't find him. I realized that there is no one who can pick up my burden and shoulder it. That means if it has to be carried I have to be the one to carry it.

I was raised thinking that God won't give me more than I can handle, and that if He wants me to do it, He will provide a way. Yesterday, when I reached the point that I was done, that I wanted to tell Heavenly Father enough already, I was reminded of the refiner's fire. We go through what we go through to make us a stronger person, to make us better. He gives us what we can handle, and maybe just a little more to make us stronger, to put us through that fire. The refiner's fire isn't there to make the metal brittle and breakable, it is there to burn away the dross, the impurities. It actually strengthens the metal. My trials actually strengthen me. Do I like them? No. Do I want them to stop? Yes, I really do. Do I see the benefit of them? Yes I do. I wouldn't be me without the struggles and trials and the one more thing. It has taken all of that to make me the person I am, a person who can fight through and find a way.

So, this morning, I pick up the world. I stand as Atlas, because I am the only one who can carry my burdens.  I am the one who needs this particular fire, and I am going to come out stronger on the other side. As Neitzsche said, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I am also reminded that though I have to carry my burden, my globe, because no one else can, I don't do it all alone.