Faith

Listening to the "Faith" album by George Michael, He sings, "You gotta have faith..." Really? I'm reminded of questions of faith itself, what it is and what it isn't. Earlier this morning, say around 5 AM I happened upon a film on Netflix called "An Interview with God." Avery Christian perspective in most ways, but God asked the journalist a ton of probing questions many of which involved faith and how we understand it.

Do we need faith and how do we understand it in either case? Is it important? Zen Buddhism argues we need great doubt, great faith, and great practice. I really believe these are core to deepening our relationship to the world and all of our relationships,

Challenging our beliefs, our basic assumptions is the only path to truth, truth regarding our world and our relationships within it. Great doubt demands this path even though it is incredibly difficult. How many of us routinely doubt what we believe we know? Doubt to the most basic level, right down to our existential reality?

Faith plays a role in this. We must have faith in both the process of doubt and the processes involved in practice. Our practice rarely yields results we can see and measure and our doubt challenges the ground of our being.

So one way to look at it is faith is more about moving forward into the unknown than belief in a God a particular path. In this sense faith is about courage. How many of us have this level of courage? Each challenge, after all, has consequences. Are we prepared for encountering these?

Be well,