Faith is an elusive thing – 27 July 2012

Faith is an elusive thing. It is a bit risky to imagine we see clearly what faith is. Faith is usually not heroic or conspicuous. It is emphatically not what someone once called believing six impossible things before breakfast. And certainly it has little to do with what Kathleen Norris describes as the relentlessly cheerful and positive language about faith associated with the strong-arm tactics of “evangelism”. Jesus doesn’t talk about faith much – it is more that he responds to it when he sees it in other people. I am inclined to disbelieve anyone who says they have unshakeable faith. It’s as though they simply haven’t been paying attention. Faith has a lot to do with what the Benedictines call stability. Stability means that where we are now is where God is seeing us now. Sometimes in life we do have to make changes, and it is then important that we do if we can. But at a deeper level there is a deeper truth. The Desert Fathers and Mothers were very much against running around looking for excitement or something better. My problems are here, and if I run away I simply take them with me. The best-known desert saying of all is from Abba Moses: Sit in your cell. Your cell will teach you everything. Moving to another house, trying another medicine, changing to another church, buying a new outfit… all may be helpful, but also, maybe not. It is a fundamental principle of contemplative prayer and life that God is not somewhere else. And what the Desert Fathers and Mothers knew is that faith is probably boringly prosaic. It is usually a matter of taking the next step, putting one foot in front of the other, doing what now needs to be done. Abraham, the biblical exemplar of faith, it is said, went out, not knowing where he was going… The point is that he did what faith demanded, he took the next step, and then the next… And in our prayer, in meditation, that is what we do. We take the next step, we repeat the mantra. We find we have strayed. We take the next step, we return to the mantra. The next step in our prayer is to say the mantra. It is mindless, one might think, but it is actually mindful. In a place of the best silence and stillness we can manage at this moment, paying attention, we are saying Yes to God, in faith, in life and in death. And whatever we may be doing three hours or three years from now, we will still be saying Yes to God.