I have been a person of Faith for 45 years. I was the Sacred’s from the beginning but then in 1971 I found out that the Sacred truly loved me and wanted a relationship with me and that was when I realized my salvation. Since then, I have been a person of Faith. Little did I know that it was not a one time gift, but something that takes a great deal of work.
I was thinking this morning, where did I learn that faith was a one time thing that was the perfect gift given and that if it wasn’t perfect, it was my fault because I was too sinful. I have heard so many sermons over the years where all of the wonders of faith were explained and all of the pains of lack of faith also explained. However, in none of those sermons, including a good number that I delivered myself, did I ever hear that faith was something you work on daily, that Paul was right, “work out your own salvation in fear and trembling”.
Then, I read some lines by Carl McColman, a wonderful author and a Lay Cistercian of the Holy Spirit Abbey in Georgia. McColman writes, “Our faith matters because it invites us to remember our identity……faith invites us back to that place where we shine like the sun”. So to be a person of faith is to practice it every day, to develop those habits that keep us faithful. Like praise, prayer, humility, gratitude. So why aren’t more sermons about the skills to grow in faith and that being faithful always brings us back to being Abba’s child?
I think we want easy answers, ones that are the same every time. But Rohr has a good point, that is faith for the first part of life and it is immature and limiting. Faith, as it matures, calls us to see the world and ourselves the way the Sacred does, each of us as joyous and beautiful lights shining for all the world to see. That is easy to write, difficult for me to believe about myself, but I am trying. I am practicing at my faith every day. It is the journey, not the destination that matters after all.
TMM