Practicing Faith
“People who believe in God are either stupid or weak,” my father said to me many times over my childhood. It was a long road to live beyond that declaration and, even today, I marvel at the brilliant people I’ve met who have a faith deeper than mine.
To be perfectly honest, I’m a very liberal person in my secular life. I’m not here to try to convince anyone of anything, just reflecting on who I am and what’s important to me. It was a grand coincidence that I stumbled onto a church in the high desert that’s more progressive than me!
For instance, my church wants to be good stewards of the earth. So my husband and I became a part of our solar initiative which culminated in the approval of putting solar panels on our roof and acting as a community-based organization to help low- to mid-income people access electricity from one of several local solar farms in our area. We see this as a mission by making electricity cheaper for those who need it and spewing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Caring for creation and the poor is biblical.
Long before we came to this church, they had given birth to an organization called Border Servant Corps (BSC) which helps asylum seekers access legal means of entry and orient them to the new world they’ve entered. With the recent changes in the federal administration, that effort has been thwarted and we’re spending more time volunteering since staff has been laid off. (Until things change, BSC has shifted focus to holding immersion groups from all over the country so people can see what’s REALLY happening at the border — email me if you’re interested in being a part of that.) Welcoming the alien is biblical.
We’ve started a study group to explore how some Christians have gone astray when they marry faith with politics. The book we’ve started to read is called The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta. It’s eye-opening, powerful, and biblical.
Last weekend, I led a Saturday retreat called Conversations with God. The pastor and several lay people added wonderful contributions, and the whole day was well-attended and blessed. At the closing prayer, we offered laying on of hands and I was surprised by how many people needed prayer for their anger. Or maybe I wasn’t surprised. Maybe this is the season for anger. Prayer and anger are biblical.
Yesterday, as Sunday worship ended, I found myself tearing up at the last hymn. It was an oldie — Beautiful Savior — and connected into my childhood when I first heard it but was prevented by my atheist parents from embracing it. My hands rose in praise (and Lutherans don’t do that!) while an Insider cried bittersweet tears of joy that now I could choose (or not choose) my faith, my practice, my love, and my spiritual discipline.
Each of you may experience or practice your faith — or the tenets that make you the good person that you are — in ways that are different from the way I practice it and that are wholly unique to you. That is good and as it should be! The driving force at the core of your being — and for many of us that may simply be healing — compels you to live in that space. Because it’s who you are. It’s who you’re called to be. To live an authentic life, you must be true to yourself.
It’s true for me too. It’s who I am, who I’m called to be, and what I was made for. So forgive me if this post sounds religious, because it is! It’s the lens through which I see the world and see my own healing journey. I wish you the gift of identifying your lens and embodying it in all you say and do.
Healing, love, and peace to all of us!
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Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
~ Helen Keller
Lyn