Dad's Learning Part 19: A Conversation Of Faith
Exploration of beliefs and spirituality, therapeutically.
Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.
Three Weeks Or Two
Three week hiatus. Kinda. So, there was a week she was out of town. The next week I had to cancel. This week I finally did another session. So, third week hiatus end is more accurate, though the wording could use some work.
First things tend to be first, so that’s what I’ll start with. I think that’s the expression. I have an issue with doing things good enough, or so I think. I don’t think I do a good job or an adequate one. That is, until I start talking about them. Vocalizing what I did, what needed to be done, etc.
Doing that reminds me I am human, it seems. And it reminds me that I do an awful lot well, but my internal dialogue doesn’t allow me to see it. This isn’t to say everything I do is done well, and this doesn’t mean I am incapable of mistakes.
My mistakes, however, are displayed for all to see. My triumphs, however, seem to be displayed for all but one to see, and that one happens to be me.
So let’s figure out how to change THAT, shall we?
I haven’t yet, though we’re working on it. Conversation, dictation, grace, forgiveness, remembering my own humanity, allowing mistakes and allowing flaws are all happening now. Even so, it’s a process. I go long periods of time without conversation. I go days without dictation as instructed. I go weeks at a time omitting grace for myself.
Forgiveness is here one day and gone the next, even with things I have previously resolved to forgive myself for. Allowing humanity and accepting mistakes likewise have odd schedules for when they decide to show up and when they feel like disappearing.
Yet, again, this all feels like a process. This all feels like the precursor to growth and understanding. The stage before discipline and habit kick in and take over.
I can swing a bat. I can swing a bat WELL. When a ball is thrown within a certain area in front of me with a bat in my hand, assuming the hurler isn’t from collegiate or major league level teams, I am confident I can wreck that ball.
Yet, I don’t think about the swing when I am at the plate. I did. I used to. I used to drop my elbow hard and make a V to swing. I’ve also swung for the moon and hatchet chopped. I have released my hips or opened up too early and too late. I’ve had to think of all those factors before and often.
Yet now it is automatic.
So to me it seems those positive reframing and habits, well they will become automatic too.
I just cannot give up.
And why would I? I am blessed, even if on occasion I am tortured as well.
That torture doesn’t hold a candle to the heaven manifested inside my household.
Ideas of Faith
I have a few inclinations on what faith is. I have some ideas as to why prayer works. I tend to have ideas in general, so who knows whether they’re on the right path or if they’re just plain wrong, but they exist.
Well, allow me to correct a portion of the above. I THOUGHT I had an idea of WHAT faith is. It turns out I have a situational understanding of some attributes OF faith.
Faith requires the courage to act in a certain manner, outlined by a particular set of principles, in the face of ridicule and persecution. This is faith in modernity and perhaps how it has been throughout history.
But that isn’t FAITH. That’s the prerequisite for the presence of faith. All this means is I have more to wrestle with. That’s exciting yet daunting. Wish me luck because my brain won’t rest until some progress is made here.
And on the topic of faith we have the tie in of prayer. With faith, prayer can work miracles. I do not believe that miracles must be showy and flashy. They do not have a requirement to be a grandiose event and visible to everyone. In fact, I think miracles are all around us and numerous. They’re just small and work in concert with life.
If prayer for understanding it taken upon with faith and intention it is capable of miracles. By praying with faith we practice humility, which we have been told to do. We practice humility, ask, and then receive. That’s the revelation. That’s our revelation we have when what we have been struggling with and struggling to understand suddenly makes sense. When difficult concepts suddenly CLICK.
Because we let go. We stop searching our brains in the areas we are familiar with, assuming the answer lies there. This allows our mind to search the dark and unexplored recesses that we are afraid to go into. The ones we neglect to allow access to.
However, there also appears to be power in prayer for miraculous events. Though there is an “absence of evidence” that prayer is to be credited for them, that' appears to be part of the faith aspect. I have been hesitant to investigate the HOW in this case. I always thought doing so would be the absence of faith on my part but I’m coming to realize the unwillingness to investigate is the actual absence of faith. If I find that there is a reasonable explanation, in my mind, that would prove it is no longer a miracle.
Allow me to rebut myself here. WHY WOULD THAT MEAN IT ISN’T A MIRACLE?
We are walking, talking, conscious miracles already. Those processes are miracles as well.
And be sure to stay tuned. I am looking into WHAT love is and HOW MANY types of love there are. Why we have them and WHAT we do with them.
And I LOVE it.
That’s all for now.
With Love and Warm Regards,
Dad