Faith

I used to think all kinds of things about faith but I confused faith with my own judgments around religion and what I told myself religion was telling me. Now Faith is my bedrock, my best grounding tool, my most staunch ally, my cheerleader, and my friend. It’s connecting with myself on the deepest level that exists and allowing me to be myself from that connection. It’s believing in myself and the divinity that is me and is all else. It’s embracing the truth as I see it and calling it whatever definition works best for me in that moment, regardless of anyone else. It is embodied through the prayers I utter, the tears I weep, the gasps of surprise, the passion I feel, the compassion I have, the way that I move, the stillness inside, the peace in my mind, the joy in my heart, and the cells in my body. Faith sustains me in my darkest hours, at my lowest points, when I feel broken and alone, and it always has. I just saw it differently to how I see it now. Before, when I resisted, rejected, and denounced faith because I did not understand what it could be for me, faith shine into my bleak view of life and I could not stand its brightness, so I pulled down the blinds some more, and then some more, and then some more still. Eventually I made it so dark I could not see at all and that’s when I actually found faith and saw it for what it really was to me. It took me another ten years to realise that was what had happened and when I did, I allowed faith into my life fully. That choice changed my life again and brought me miracles beyond imagining.

Now I see faith as rainbows and nature, as me and as you. For me, faith is my choice to greet life my own way and trust that I won’t be harmed for doing that; it’s what drives me and holds me steady. I finally have faith in myself and in every breath that I breathe and it goes far beyond any heard or seen paradigm of beliefs that I’ve encountered, so I guess my definition of faith has grown as I have. Faith is knowing I have everything that I need in life, even when I feel as if I have nothing and noone; it’s what I reach out to when I don’t know what to do or who to turn to; it’s what fills the loneliness inside, the emptiness of eternity, the nothingness of existence, and it cradles me in compassion when my own mind would tear me to shreds. Faith is no longer about religion or about spirituality for me, for they are but labels that brought me to faith itself. Within the mind, labels are necessary to contain us enough that we can keep up with the vastness of who we are, and once we reach in and find faith, we can begin to let go. Let go of the confines of our mind, let go of the labels, let go of the judgements and the blaming, let go of the shaming and the fear, and let go of the definitions that we have used to now and no longer need to understand anything at all. We can let go of who we thought we were, who we think we are now, and who we think we will someday be. We can let go of all illusion and come into our own truth, and we can allow others to do the same. Faith has that much beauty and grace and mercy within and I breathe that in now, along with the love I feel for all creation. I hold love by one hand and faith by the other and I walk through every barrier that I once imagined to exist, and as I do, my heart expands until we are one, until it’s all one, and no thing is the only truth I perceive.

Faith has brought magic and mystery to my life. It has pulled me up to the highest heights and it has body-slammed me down again. Faith has dragged me kicking and screaming along the streets of perception and it has welcomed me warmly at the door of realisation, too. It has seen me beg and grovel and bleed and die, and it has seen me sweep regally back into my life more times than I can count if I cared to. Faith has been with me every tie I’ve taken a breath and every time I have not. Faith has sat in silence in the farthest reaches of my soul and patiently waited for me to create my own reality and my own choices and has never judged me for any of it. It doesn’t matter what label my mind wants to find for it, or how my mind wants to describe it or perceive it. Faith is the glory of life for me and it turns pain into power and grace. Faith is what I hold onto and it has brought life into my being. Namaste & blessings.

Photo by Alessio Lin from Unsplash