Are you a person of faith?

Is faith something that lives somewhere? 
And if it does, where? 

Is it out there, beyond yourself, living the same way it acts? An idea about the generative nature of things that we can't quite pin down? 

Or does it have a home base that it travels to and from?

Perhaps your faith feels lost, displaced, at a loose end. You have a sense that there's a place for it, but you're not sure where. You thought it behaved one way, and you've found it to do the opposite. You believed faith to be one thing, but you haven't seen it to be so. You thought faith did this and that and meant that you were safe and right, and yet, you're still so full of doubt, and you're not really sure how safe you feel.

What does it even mean to have faith?

To be a person of faith? 

A lot of what has been labelled faith by communities and traditions is more like magical thinking. Magical thinking is the idea that some ritualistic thought, act, or behaviour connect two unrelated events. For example, if I'm nice, I'll be acceptable; if I pray in a certain way, God will deliver me. If I do not, God will not. If I behave this way, God will love me more.

I remember a time in bible college when I felt frozen in place: My Grandmother was dying, and I had an opportunity to visit her in the hospital, but I would have to cut class to do it. I was stuck thinking that if I cut class, I was sinning, and God couldn't protect me, which meant that something terrible could happen to me on the way. The anxiety of it was overwhelming.

It often plays out in devastating ways: people staying in relationships, careers, family systems, and even friendships that are not safe because the idea of leaving feels like a bigger sin than what's happening in those situations, and what could God possibly do for you if you leave? 

My partner was once told that if he left the Church, he would be out from underneath the covering and blessing of God (magical thinking 101). And I gotta say, we're out here in the wilderness, feeling more blessed and connected than ever. 

For many of us who grew up, or spent a large amount of time, in faith communities and traditions, a careful evaluation of how we were motivated to behave and engage is critical for making our way forward. Fear motivates quickly, but it doesn't supply the motivated with the endurance or the grace to continue. Magical thinking can create a habitual loop or pattern of behaviour: If you come to Church, you'll be protected; if you do not doubt, you will be strong; if you tithe, you will be provided for; and you could probably fill in the gaps many times over for other ways magical thinking has masqueraded as faith and belief - but it doesn't provide foundational transformation. In fact, magical thinking is avoidant behaviour and always serves to lead you away from the present moment and from your own agency and responsibility. 

Where does that leave faith? Is there a place for it?

For starters, faith isn't belief. Faith isn't the substance of the idea that if I pray correctly, live correctly, believe correctly, tap my nose three times and spin around to the left, I'll be saved. Faith is the energetic space between here and what's next, between what we can define and explain and the mystery beyond that. Faith says, if I open my heart to love, it will be filled, rather than: if I do this and that, I will be worthy of love. 

Rabindranath Tagore said: 

"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."

Rabbi Heschel said:

"Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart."

Faith is the knowledge that there is more going on here than what we can define, see, touch, articulate, and know and that if we keep going, left foot, right foot, following that nudge of possibility in our hearts, our faith will lead us somewhere generative and life-giving, deeper into the mystery and wonder of what it is to be here, to be human.

What does it mean to be a person of faith? Is there a place for it? 

It doesn't mean that you have to live in rooms of impossibility, believing outrageous and extreme things… 

I guess if faith is the substance of hope, and the essence of things beyond the seen, then it's not really for me to answer what faith looks like for you and the space it takes up in the rooms of your heart.

Let's keep exploring together - this week, we'll look at the function and process of faith, how to recover from harm caused by toxic ideas of what faith is, and whether or not faith can exist beyond ideas of belief. Spoiler: it can, and it does. 

REMEMBER: Having faith doesn't mean that you have to live in rooms of impossibility, believing outrageous and extreme things. Faith is the energetic tension between what is and what is yet to be. It is a possibility in the making. 

Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco 

From this week’s series titled "A Home For Your Faith", with a subscription, in the App.