To confess you are a person of faith can cause some to shrink back as though confronted by a terrorist, but in reality, we are all people of faith. Don’t we have faith in our gadjets and toys? We expect them to work as advertised. By and large they do, otherwise our economy would go from the bathroom sink to the toilet.
We have a certain amount of faith in one another; otherwise we would make the pharmaceuticals even wealthier than they are. Imagine the amount of pills we would need to ingest if we thought everyone would cross the meridian and slam into us. We have faith that they will stay on their side of the road, that planes will stay in the air, that those expensive drugs will help us, that we watch our tv’s, but they don’t watch us, that our dog won’t mess on the floor, that our kids will come home, blah, blah, blah.
We are all people of faith. We depend (have faith in) our neighbors as well as some we don’t especially care for to abide by the rules. If you can slow down long enough to consider it, it is truly amazing what all we have faith in. Of course we could also reflect on all the things we hope in. I hope my faith that the car will start is justified. These articles are supposed to be short so I’ll skip wish.
We are all people of faith, but would you agree that few of us will ever be celebrities, tycoons, famous athletes, scientists, president? Hopefully fewer and fewer of us will be infamous. Most of us will toil in what is referred to as the common life. The Bible tells us to work to live a simple, quiet life.
Last year, after a Maggie Dawn and Dan Kimball lecture at George Fox there was a panel discussion on art. One young woman remarked that a snowflake is one of God’s most beautiful creations. Its life is very short, but it lives to glorify God … and that is enough. I fought back my unexplainable tears, but tucked that metaphor safely away in my heart.
I don’t like mediocrity, but I do like simple. I care less and less for words and phrases like well organized, structured, built, constructed, but I like organic and especially elegant. I say no to house, but yes to home; no to corporation, but yes to community; no to religion, but yes to relationship.
Despite the noise and clatter, busy and distracted world we live in, we can still live an elegant, simple, and quiet life while experiencing the best life has to offer. We are people of faith who have faith in so many things, but without faith in God, and then faith in one another, the greatest joy will always elude us.
We need to find God,
and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.
God is the friend of silence.
See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun,
how they move in silence…
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
--- Mother Teresa
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