Faith and the Mountain of Current Events
Posted May 3, 2002
I haven't written in a long time. Not since New Year's, and now it's past the equinox. I was tired of listening to myself rant about the government. The writing's on the wall all over the Internet, and it doesn't seem to change anything. Perhaps someday it will reach critical mass. Perhaps not.
I think I've been looking for something inside myself--some real sense of hope that isn't just the Pollyanna schizoid part of my brain singing its "la la la." It's a real leap of faith because it's getting harder and harder to see beyond the veil of human cruelty, greed, and corruption. Small acts of kindness, which should be business as usual, move us to tears because they are violets in an earthquake. Faithwise, this--right here, right now--is where the rubber meets the road. To not stand in denial and still be able to hold onto the image of something beyond all this that is different in a good way is probably what faith is about. Maybe part of the reason I haven't written anything is that I was in the process of discovering I had less than I thought.
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
That's what it says in Matthew 17:20. It talks a lot about faith in the New Testament. Mostly what it says is that it makes you whole. What it doesn't talk much about is what you should have faith in. When we consider the word, it's kind of assumed we mean faith in God.
Times like these call God into question in whole new ways. Some people try to rationalize it all by saying he's pissed (usually at their political opponents) and that's why he's letting people fly jumbo jets into our buildings. Some put on blinders, turn off the news, and think happy thoughts or don't think about much of anything. Some ponder how a God who is good can let such suffering stand.
The interesting thing is that faith in God plays a role in all this. The Jewish people have a covenant with Him. The Arabs are extremely secure in their faith. The Christians have a personal relationship with Jesus. And look at the fruit.
Faith in God--and all the baggage that comes with it, such as a perspective on those who call God by a different name and a belief that we know His will--has led to rivers of bloodshed. Perhaps the ladder of our success is leaning against the wrong building. Perhaps we're having faith in the wrong thing. The word "faithful" appears in the Bible much more frequently than the word "faith." Perhaps what we need to start having faith in is one another.
What do you think of Matthew's quote? Was Jesus serious? Would it really help if we had faith in the goodness of our fellow humans? Could that faith move the mountain of self-generated horror that is currently holding our future hostage? Could it become a cleaver that would slay the golden calf that sits on the altar of our foreign and domestic policy?
Gandhi had that sort of faith. He led a nation into battle and won without ever expressing a violent, hateful, or dehumanizing thought. Not some vaguely mythological character steeped in legend, this man died in 1948, so everyone in the mid-fifties or beyond walked the planet when he did. Is it not interesting that the world--even that part of it that gave rise to him--seems to have forgotten his existence? For me, this disinclination to look at what has worked is another stumbling block to my faith in humankind.
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to be friends to the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business. Mahatma Gandhi
I think perhaps the reason we don't look at Gandhi is that his challenges to us are so freaking difficult. It's much more satisfying to "kill the bastards," although that is guaranteed to increase their desire to kill us. And it's not just about "them." How easy is it to find friendliness in your heart for the Enron guys, the polluters, the racial profilers, or those who support what you are fervently against? Where do we start? Perhaps all we can do is go back to Matthew's quote and contemplate its possibilities. Perhaps we need to examine our attitudes about faith, not in terms of its object, but in terms of the thing itself, and then decide if it's worthwhile to take it out for a spin and see what it can do.
