Faith is not KNOWING anything.

Faith is NOT knowing. Faith is not KNOWING  anything. Faith is a leap of uncertainty into the embracer of mystery, wonder and awe in the face of all that exists and can exist.

The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faiths is certainty or certitude.

Faith allows us to find a way through the complexity of our worlds, to the embrace of unconditionally compassionate love as the magnificent force in the inverse.  No, we cannot understand this, and doubt can always be present. Faith is a LEAP-always risking, a wager on Something Else.

The small child leaps off the side of the swimming pool into its fathers waiting arms. Faith is this kind of trusting, that some love will catch me.

We are faced with unspeakable violence, murder, meanness.  We are surrounded by accidents, natural catastrophes, and the darkness of the uses of "God" against others. Yet we also have the experience of those who choose to love no matter what.

We cannot reason to faith, despite All THE pretensions of natural philosophy which convinces us that faith is not unreasonable. We cannot reason ourselves to faith. It is a gift.

When we are faced with one setback after another, we have three choices. We can sit on "pity porch" bewailing our fate, remain uncertain and confused, or we can choose to believe in the glimpses of love along the way, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. We can choose to BELIEVE in the power of love to forgive, to transform, to find wonder and awe in the presence of personal loss and chaos.

To have faith means believing beyond belief.  To have faith is to believe in love, regardless.

There are several ways to believe in love. We can believe in love because of the ways mothers, my mother, loved, that is un conditional, without reservation.  We can believe in love because we are lucky to have a life partner or a friend who loves us as we are in all our faults. We can believe in love because the force in the universe leans toward freedom, human rights and equality. We can believe in love because it is epitomized in particular persons like Mother Teresa, or the life of some other personal like Saint Paul or Jesus.

For me, Paul's words Romans 9:35 resound:

Who can separate us from the love of God that is present in this man crucified? Shall trouble, hardship, persecution, nakedness, danger or the sword?  No. In all these things we are more than conquerors because of him who has loved us. I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither things present nor things  to come, nor anything whatever in the universe can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus our Lord..

Therefore, faith is a choice, one which we keep making,  with no certainty except that of love. The question of faith is shall we keep choosing love?  I will keep choosing love. Because, undeservedly, my loving can include all the above kinds of loving, and still keep on loving by giving. I believe it is in giving that we receive, and in loving without counting the cost that is the most meaningful way to live.

Faith is betting that love is the magnificent force in the universe, beyond understanding. It is to find mystery and traces of love, beauty and goodness everywhere, in "thin places."