Keller, Tillich, Lamott: faith and Doubt

   Keller, Tillich, Lamott: Faith, Doubts

“Observers in the full enjoyment of their bodily senses pity me, but it is because they do not see the golden chamber in my life where I dwell delighted; for, dark as my path may seem to them, I carry a magic light in my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the way, and although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I walk unafraid towards the Enchanted Wood where the foliage is always green, where joy abides, where nightingales nest and sing, and where life and death are one in the Presence of the Lord.”—Helen Keller in Midstream: My Later Life.

How beautifully Helen Keller describes faith. Someone who is blind describes faith as light, a light in her heart. I share my image of light in my heart. It is watching my grandchildren celebrate each other’s birthdays! It is joy and all the other fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Love, peace, kindness, goodness, forbearance, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Helen Keller also does not negate doubt. The words of Paul Tillich, which Anne Lamott has popularized, ring in my ears, “The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.” Faith implies believing in something or being in a relationship with something that is a mystery not defined by our human understanding.  

Our rational minds can just take us so far in understanding faith.

When a person has difficulty with mystery, doubts move in. However, our doubts can be stepping stones to deeper faith as we read, share our doubts with others, and learn and experience the mystery together.

Certainty means we have become God. We know all the answers. Doubt enlarges our view of God. As we work through our doubts, our God becomes larger. Certainty narrows it to only the little piece of God we have realized. Our God has become and stays too small.

 I often speak with spiritual friends about doubt and reassure them that this is not unnatural or unhealthy. I tell friends, “Let’s talk about the doubts. Doubts can always be a pathway to deeper faith. Then, if, in the process, you come to a place of unbelief, let me carry your faith until you are ready to take it back. I am counting on you to do the same for me when I am overcome with doubt.”

Working-class Spirituality

Working-class spirituality

“I think you have to put a little sweat equity into what you believe. You have to practice what you preach. Justice does not just happen.

Compassion is not a spectator sport but something I have to exercise as I roll up my sleeves to do my part in creating a better community.

I need to put in my hours as a volunteer. I have to join the prayer crew and put my life on the line to make a difference. The world will not change by wishes, but by the labor of love we call faith. Spirituality is not a spa but a construction site where we build hope one heart at a time.”—Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Post.

Oh goodness! I love to sit and meditate, walk, write, read, sit in silence, and go to the weekly Eucharist. Bishop Charleston reminds us that being a Christian is not a spectator sport. Eventually, all our spiritual practices connecting us to God will call us to some action, reaching out of ourselves in some way. Even when homebound, we can call or write, cook or knit, or invite others to visit. 

My experience is that we do not have to go out of our way to realize what God calls us to do. The call will present itself to us daily. A person will come to guide us or suggest something. Someone in need will appear. Suddenly, we will see a situation that was always present that calls us to reach out.

 Often, we see so many needs around us that we become overwhelmed.

Frederick Buechner gives us an excellent formula for finding our next step. First, we are called to the place where the world’s deep hunger and our deep gladness meet. Then, we look for where our passion is, where the ministry energizes us.

We will soon learn that we are not necessarily called to the ministry of our parents or friends or what the world thinks we should do. Instead, we are called to the ministry that is our passion, and we would do it for no compensation. We begin to do things we never thought we could do, as we gain energy, working in this ministry instead of in an arena where we have no energy.

Often, finding our passion begins with a spiritual gifts workshop.

When we find our calling, we start becoming the person God created us to be.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

 

Spiritual Directions in the World

Barbara Brown Taylor: Spiritual Direction in the World

“People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone bad or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order.

They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart.” Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World, HarperOne 2009

I remember this morning this quote from Barbara Brown Taylor in Synthesis. It was a Weekly Resource for Preaching and Worship in the Episcopal Tradition: http://www.synthesispub.com. I look to my right, where my husband bought a new bookcase to house the books closer to me that I want to share with you on this blog. Then I look straight ahead out of a floor-to-ceiling window to the outside and watch a wintry sleeting rain strike at the trees just outside between our house and our neighbors. I can also hear the rhythm of the sleet on the roof above, where there is very little insulation in our “modern” 1960’s home.

 I remember having dinner with our children and grandchildren in their new home across the street. What a blessing just to walk across the road to be with grandchildren, our greatest gifts, our most important visitors we will entertain.  I learn from them whenever I see them about simple joy, unconditional love, and wide-eyed excitement about life. All of these are learning experiences. I hope to hold on to my gratitude for them, which I learned from Barbara Brown Taylor. She was once a speaker at the Buechner Writing For Your Life Conference in Nashville at Belmont University, which I attended. She is still the amazing writer, speaker, and teacher she was when I first read her over thirty years ago. If you have a chance to hear her, don’t miss it.

She has taught us so much about an awareness of the altars in the world that keep us constantly connected to the God of our understanding if only we have eyes and ears to see and hear and hands to touch and even noses to smell. Yes, the smell of icy winter rain and sleet is not unlike the scent of the well-known costly incense from Smoky Mary’s in Manhattan (Church of St. Mary the Virgin). The sound of the winter piper on the beach is not unlike the prelude from any cathedral organ.

The altars in our churches are also thin places where we especially go to give thanks for our altars in the world.

Joanna             joannaseibert.com