FAITH
Faith. Yes, we need, we must have faith. Faith sustains us. But faith deserves, demands, truth, solid truth, not myths, not fairy tales, not fabrications. Such “blind faith” is merely false hope, self deception, communicable self deception. It mocks and exploits faith, like a robber. It is blind because it will not open its eyes; it dare not open its eyes for fear that nothing is there. Spiritual faith is based upon spiritual awareness, which is based upon upon a never ceasing search for truth. Any truth is better than make-believe. Those who have have lazily accepted “revealed truth” that has been handed to them, who have never departed port on the spiritual quest, may be said to not have any real faith at all, just an inauthentic trinket that they think is gold. Faith cannot come from a book; it comes from the brook. Faith comes not from anything manmade, nor can it be transferred from human to human. It must be seen, felt, experienced in the river, the forest, the trees, the canyon, the plains, the desert, the ocean, the sky, the sun and moon and stars, in the eyes of a lover or the touch of a newborn child. What have these to do with the dogmas of religion? Nothing. Faith comes from blood and bone, fur and fin and feather. It is written in the leaf and the pebble, the raindrop and rainbow, the cloud passing by, the twinkle of an eye. Put your faith in the ground you walk upon, the air you breathe, the water that renews you, the sunrise and sunset, the wonders of the world. This is faith that will not desert you; you can never lose this faith as you can all others based upon which you cannot open your eyes and see or reach out and touch, or even reasonably believe. People of religious faith commonly experience doubt, having never seen or touched their god or messiah or prophet… which are mere dramatic characters in a tome we are told were real, but we have no evidence in our modern world that such things happen. Would you have faith in an invisible bridge? Faith cannot be based on hand-me-down assumptions, much less scenarios that violate the laws of nature. How much better faith in the laws of nature? The mountain, the flower, the cricket are right there in front of you. Hold tight to them. For a hundred generations they say the messiah is returning soon, very soon, within our lifetimes, and so the end of the world, but they haven’t been right yet. You can keep holding your breath if you wish, but don’t call it faith, call it what it is: gullibility. Place your faith instead on the comet returning, the seasons changing and the tides following the moon. We need not invent gods to invite us to heaven or condemn us to hell; we inherit heaven on this precious orb spiraling through spacetime, surrounded by the vast glory of this amazing, benevolent universe, and create our own hell through our disconnect from the rightful faith in love for the ALL. What god deserves worship who demands worship? What god deserves love who invents hell? What god is to be trusted who is quick to anger, violent and sets traps? What is “faith” good for if it is refuted by science, incites all other religions and even is debated within your own schisms? How does that help a broken world? There was never a forbidden fruit nor evil snake. We were never cast out of Eden. Disoriented and divided, we walked right out of it! Why don’t we reorient, and unite, and simply walk back in, shower it with love and restore it? Why risk your faith on the childlike knowledge of ancients who were ignorant of oxygen, a round world and evolution, that latter being the profound way the universe actually works… the most beautiful truth humanity has ever discovered? But do follow the same spirit quest of the great spiritual teachers, who left their inherited religious traditions far behind. Seek faith not in a building but in a cave, under a tree, wandering in the desert, staring into a pool, sitting on a bluff, a butterfly on your finger, not in a throng of people chanting, but alone, you and the song of the true Mother of life… Earth. She expects no surrender from you, no alms, no rites, no worship, no sacrifice, no clumsy suspension of rationality or “leap” of faith, no believing fiction as gospel truth… simply lie in her pasture or fall into her bath and contemplate the shower of blessings she bestows upon you with every breath, every stretch, every glance, every thought. And know through her you are connected to every moon, every sun, every galaxy, every colossal supercluster splayed across the cosmos. It is all One. It is all divine. Be not afraid of this behemoth, be awed; be not diminished by its unfathomable size, be honored. It is all yours, as you belong to it. You are a shard of this vast, crystal Creation. It is the greatest of all miracles, the greatest of all stories. There resides true faith, where it has been all along, and will be for all of eternity. Go find it. Go feel it. And start your own sect, of One.
Copyright 2020 Rusty Reid
