We celebrate faith in this month’s edition of CityView Magazine with what we hope (and hope is elemental to faith, right?) is a diverse collection of stories on the subject you’ll enjoy and learn from.
Faith is an experiential thing, easy to define but difficult to describe. In thinking about and exploring faith on my own over the years, and with others, my sense is this: some people truly own their faith. Others, in a manner of speaking, have only leased or borrowed it. Probe the notion of faith deeply enough and you invariably encounter tenuous threads among practitioners.
But that makes faith what it is — a belief, an assurance, or a conviction of something not necessarily tangibly seen.
I’ve always been intrigued by French philosopher Blaise Pascal’s observation related to the subject. He recognized both faith’s frailty and its significance when he postulated thusly: “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof, but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
That’s a great case for deconstructing your faith. Pascal’s logical inference is that we should examine our personal faith closely. Not to aimlessly cast doubt upon it, necessarily, but to thoughtfully consider: How did I arrive at my beliefs? What delivered me here? Why do the beliefs I hold dearly appeal to me?
Those questions, Pascal would say, are worth asking. Deconstruction doesn’t require renunciation, but there’s an argument to be made that seeking the elusive proof Pascal nodded toward does create a more confident belief in the end.
I’ve always envied the tinkerers who found pleasure in taking something apart — electronics, engines, other machinery — to see how things really work. Proper deconstruction necessitates taking apart and then rebuilding. (So what if sometimes there are parts left over, and the thing still works?)
A slightly more modern philosopher made an observation about certainty that’s also worth considering. “It’s not what we don’t know that gets us in trouble,” Mark Twain famously said. “It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
A friend recently shared a simple story with me about assumptions — and things that “ain’t so” — and examinations that was instructive.
A father and daughter who, while out walking, came upon a vendor with an apple cart. The young girl asked her father to buy her an apple. He didn’t have much money, but it was just enough to purchase two pieces of the shiny red fruit.
He handed them both to his daughter. He asked if she’d share one with him. Upon hearing this, the girl eyed him, then quickly took a bite from the apple in her left hand. And before her father could speak, she laughed and took a bite from the apple in her right.
The bewildered father stood there wondering why his daughter acted in such a selfish, greedy way. His smile disappeared, thinking he’d not succeeded in teaching — or she’d failed to learn — the lessons he’d attempted to impart. He was crestfallen with disappointment, certain that he’d failed as a father.
Suddenly, the girl stretched out one hand and handed her father one of the apples.
“Here,” she said, smiling up at him. “Take this one. It’s the juiciest and the sweetest.”
His faith was immediately restored. Always a good practice to ponder the assumptions we hold dear.
