38. FAITH vs. CERTAINTY

Looking back, way back, to my childhood and how I may have defined myself, I am fairly confident I identified as a sincere Christian from the get-go. From a very young age I had an unusual self-awareness which included believing I came from another realm and was given a body for a reason. I found it comforting and easy to believe in Jesus as my mentor and guide. Without being too scrupulous, (thankfully) I focused on being kind like Jesus, being obedient like Jesus, trusting God like Jesus. My mother, having reached a climax in her own struggles with self-definition, rested her weary head on the shoulder of her Lord, who was also Jesus. So, it was natural for her little flock of children still at home to follow her lead. She took us to church. She did not separate our daily lives from our religious affiliation on Sundays. We lived what we believed. I thank her for that. Afton Hansen, as I knew her, had to do what she felt like doing. That was how she defined personal integrity. At least that's how I think she did...and that's probably assuming too much. But she was not one to be told what to do and just go along without question. It took lots of mistakes for her to come around to knowing her God. The mistakes were part of the pathway to Him. In that regard, I am grateful for the mistakes she made. 

As a child in a dysfunctional family dealing with alcoholism, our participation in the 12 Step AA program helped me analyze and define my personal relationship with God to whom my thread of connection was faith. Being among people whose lives were as messy as mine, who also loved Jesus and trusted God's ability to help us thrive in the messiness, was pivotal to my understanding of myself and how faith factored into my sense of being.

As one who placed my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of  Latter-day Saints in the first sentence of my self-definition, my truest quest was to understand what Christian faith is, how faith works, and whether or not I wanted it to have a prominent role in my life. This remains my truest quest. Learning how the Holy Ghost communicates with me personally has been part of that lifelong quest. The Holy Spirit and I speak a custom language only we understand. It's kind of cool to have a custom language. That way no adversarial forces can be part of our conversation.

Want to know what the basic definition of faith is for a Latter-day Saint? Here's what a basic Ai search  gave me online this morning:

This pretty much sums it up for me. In order for me to develop faith I needed to let go of certainty. In the culture of the church I grew up in, this felt contradictory. I thought faith was absolute. Faith so strong nothing could shake it. That's the faith I thought I had. 

Only, that wasn't faith.

Just like one cannot be brave without having fear, there is no faith where there is pure knowledge. 

The girl who stood at the podium on Free Speech Sunday (that's what our Ruby called our monthly Fast and Testimony Meeting) and proclaimed "I know this church is true" had her words wrong. If we know, we can't have faith anymore. Something inside tells me faith is the spiritual muscle we build through resistance exercises. The same way I cannot build courage without fear, I can't build faith without doubt. Knowing this, strangely, comforts me. What I might have thought of as lack of faith are actually seeds of faith reaching for light.

Six decades of experience has given me just enough answers to believe I generally know where to go to find them. They come often in unlikely ways, but they do come eventually. I plant myself with people who also seek, some of whose uncertainty aligns with mine.

Not everyone I attend church with understand me, or carry the same questions I do. But I am able to love those who might not understand me as well as those who do. We become a tribe of wanderers in the wilderness, picking up tiny pieces of truth when they fall and nourishing our hungry souls with it. We lift the manna with our fingers every Sabbath day, trusting our Lord will increase the nourishment.

There is a massive amount I do not understand. Knowing this is necessary keeps me returning to the spiritual gym, hoping to build muscles I cannot see, but I trust will keep my soul strong, healthy and able to jump for joy. 

In the ministry of Jesus, the day after he had fed 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes, and hours after he had walked on water, he preached in the synagogue. Giving his followers further light and knowledge, many of them turned and left, whispering as they left that his sayings were hard. 

Jesus turned to his apostles and asked;

"Will ye also leave me?"

Peter, speaking for himself and his brothers, answered;

"Lord, to whom would we go?"

I echo Peter.  I tuck my questions into the tissue I slip between my flesh and the sleeve of my shirt, open the door to my place of worship and seat myself where, piece by piece, I have  received answers in the past. If I cannot find Him here maybe it's because I stopped looking before the answer found me.