FAITH THROUGH MYSTICISM
Being born into a Christian family and worshipping within a Christian church can give us a relationship to a religion, to an ideology, to a truth, and to a community of worship; but these things, of themselves, are not the same thing as an actual faith in God.
Just as we have people who believe but do not practice, many of us practice but do not believe. Subscribing to an ideology, however noble and inspirational it might be, is not the same thing as believing in and actually worshipping God.
To actually believe in God today, one must at some point in his or her life make a deep, private act of faith. That act is itself difficult because the very forces that help erode our cultural, communal faith also work against us making this private act of faith.
To make an act of faith requires an inner journey. There, in that journey into the deepest recesses of the soul, some of the things I must face are:
· My weakness, my sin, my infidelities, my lies, my rationalizations, my constant avoiding of the searing truth.
· My jealousies and angers, my bitterness that life has not been fair to me, that others have things I don’t have, and that I never forgiven them nor made peace with my loss.
· My sicknesses and addictions, the fact that I am not whole, that inside me there dark corners and dark demons that do not show up on my photographs, on my resume, and in the things my friends know about me.
· My godlessness, that black hole of fear, insecurity, chaos, and emptiness within me.
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