Faith is Meant to Surprise and Stun Even the Divine Presence

 

Faith is meant to stun us with its surprising courage and tenacity.  But we do not at first realize faith's great value.  

The process generally begins with an experiment, one that involves trying out various images and metaphors to see which of them is most helpful in evoking whatever spiritual understanding we are seeking.  As we work with these images and metaphors in trial-and-error fashion, the light of insight - Sophia Wisdom - suddenly strikes us with an "aha! experience that lets us know which of the images is most interesting to the Divine Presence. For ultimately, it is God - not us - who is seeking to know the depths of Spirit through the mediation of our own creative images and metaphors.  

However, once the "aha!" occurs, it often immediately disappears, leaving us in a wintry experience of desolation, like brown grasses rattling in the wind.  During this withdrawal, we are tempted to think that our insight was merely an illusion.  However, this is precisely the time when faith is meant to awaken and to stun the Divine Presence - the One dwelling intimately within us - with its surprising ability to trust in the remembered insight despite all obstacles.  Bringing vibrant color where none is apparent, faith is meant at first to seem unnatural and doubtful. For faith's ability to hang on despite all current evidence to the contrary is exactly the sort of shock that the Divine Presence enjoys so thoroughly.  

Let us always remember, however, that this is a faith not in some sort of dogma which someone else - or some religious tradition - tells us is true, but a trust in the earlier revelation - present within the vibrant aha! experience of insight - that was given specifically to us.

Photo: Prickly-pear cactus fruits, Reservoir Ridge Natural Area, Fort Collins, CO, November 10, 2011