Tom Adams

Exploring How Faith Connects Us: Many Views

Over the past few months, I have explored the different ways guest contributors and I experience faith. In one post, I talked about the ability to “wait for it.” A friend recently shared how her efforts to grow in patience have led her to see patience as the practice of empathy. Since patience is not a strength of mine, her comment got my attention. I was reminded of how my impatience often comes from a belief I know better or best in most situations and an accompanying unwillingness to wait for or respect someone else’s approach. I now see that a corrective act of faith is to believe everyone is entitled to a personal point of view. In this more open response to alternative approaches, I know I don’t have to accept unacceptable situations. Rather I believe that I can make a choice in a way that is empathic and respectful without attacking what is different.

Faith explored – more views

Last week I shared a post by guest contributor Eileen Doud where she shared her faith in Jesus. Oddly to some, this was the first time my exploration of faith directly mentioned Jesus. I say “oddly” because I was raised as a Catholic, studied for a while to be a Catholic priest and continue to be a practicing Catholic. I do believe in Jesus and, at the same time, believe there are many names and ways of conceiving of a power greater than me, the divine, the Big Spirit or God.

Faith as a personal decision

Second day of fall, the rain has pelted my hometown. I had an appointment with the auto repair shop and, since it was raining furiously, I wore a waterproof Helly Hansen jacket; and brought along a waterproof backpack, courtesy of Eddie Bauer. Neither helped. Drenched to the bone, I reluctantly left my car at the shop and walked to the aquatic center to swim! Clearly, this was a morning of “iffy” decisions!

Why not give up: faith and resilience

A friend of mine lost his wife recently after a three-year battle with cancer. Anytime we saw Bill and Margaret together, their total and deep love for each other was obvious. Talking with him and hearing his devotion and connection to her was inspiring. Now as he grieves his loss, he is alone in the same home, taking the same walks, eating meals at about the same time. And yet it is all different. And profoundly sad.

The Jazz of Faith Formation: One Believer’s Path

Twenty years ago, I left an executive position in a faith-based nonprofit (I was dean of the Presbyterian college at the University of British Columbia and taught organizational development and leadership at Vancouver School of Theology) to launch a consulting firm that sought to provoke greater institutional flourishing in the sector. I needed a catchy angle to attract attention and found it in jazz. Thus, Jazzthink Consulting was born. Little did I imagine the lessons I would learn as I collaborated with others in imaging new ways of cultivating the common good. My faith was reformulated one conversation after another with people in both the visible and the invisible church.

“Family” and Faith: The Power of Shared Beliefs

I recently attended a memorial service for my older cousin, Paul, back in the community where I grew up. While I have not always considered it so, I increasingly appreciate the blessings of being born into a large family. My Mom came from a large, farm family of Irish Catholics. She had two brothers and three sisters – all of whom married and had four to eight children. It’s a challenge sometimes to remember all my cousin’s names, never mind the next generations of their children and grandchildren. In contrast, my Dad had only one sister but my three siblings and I share two wonderful cousins from that side of the family.

Faith as Community Building

Last night I was up late. It could have been the cortado I’d had in the afternoon, but the recent headlines about Haiti, Afghanistan, relentless fires in California, the Delta variant, and all the forgotten ills still afflicting our human family abroad and at home could have also been contributing factors. It was two in the morning. I played song after song on the piano until eventually, melodies I had not played before began to fill the room. This is amazing, I thought. I imagined people who had passed on as inspiring the prayers my fingers were sending into the world from that out-of-tune instrument. And, like anyone would do at three in the morning, I began to wonder if there wasn’t some mystical meaning to the name “YAMAHA” in front of me. My exhaustion eventually pushed me off the bench and onto the couch.

Exploring How Faith Connects Us: Many Views

Last week, Richard Rohr wrote of his belief that all forms of life are connected. He points to his spiritual father, St. Francis, for whom this belief guided his relations with the entire natural world – animals, plants and human beings. These reflections on faith have strengthened my belief that we are all connected and that we each deserve compassion.

I hope you have found some value in the many different expressions of faith posted here over the last several months. In writing my own posts and working with guest contributors, I have increased my faith in faith and decreased my need to worry about the exact nature of my faith.

Here are some other views that have strengthened my conviction that faith is universal, that it is manifested in an endless variety of ways:

Farinazi Firouzi explained the path that led her to the Baha’i faith tradition. Community building as a central tenet leads to a love for each person in the world. She explains: “I participated in my first study circle 25 years ago. Back then the Baha’i Community was just at the beginning of a cultural shift on multiple levels. I remember guidance from the international governing body of the Baha’i Faith, the Universal House of Justice, calling for a change from an inward-looking orientation to an outward-looking one in line with the Teachings. As community building (called “core”) activities became widespread, Baha’is around the world were gently guided to see everyone in their neighborhoods and villages as collaborators walking with them on their individual paths of service.”

Brian Fraser, a minister and nonprofit consultant from British Columbia, explored jazz as a path to faith formation. “I found in the work of Stephen Nachmanovitch and Donald Schön the idea that the most common form of jazz in human experience is ordinary conversation. You have a structure within which the conversation takes place – vocabulary and grammar – but every time you use the structure you improvise with different words, tones, and interactions…We contribute to the well-being of creation one conversation after another. Within my practice of the Christian tradition, as a contributor to that community’s service to the flourishing of this world, I seek to compose conversations with God, with others, and with myself that cultivate justice with kindness and humility (Micah 6:8). That’s a challenging and gratifying path. And jazz is a provocative mentor for that way of being together caring for the creation. Faith is communal before it is personal. In a culture so addicted to individualism, materialism and consumerism, forming an alternative way of being together is literally a matter of life and death. That way can be inspired and instructed by jazz.”

Eileen Doud from Maryland shared how a childhood experience in her mother’s place of worship has ended up anchoring her life with a deep unshakeable faith in a personal God she calls Jesus. “Grace. God’s free, unfettered gift. No questions asked. Just given. So if grace is free – what is faith? The apostle Paul wrote in one of his letters to the Galatians that ‘the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.’ In other words, Paul put his entire confidence and trust in Christ.

And that, in a nutshell, is what I attempt, each and every day, to do. You see, for me faith is an active verb, one where I have the chance to walk through my day-to-day events knowing that a sovereign, omniscient, faithful, loving God has my back. Not just once. All the time.”

An anonymous writer reminded us of the vulnerability required to explore faith and the immense benefits from the acts of courage required. She received a response to her feelings of confusion and anxiety in a letter from her Higher Power/God:

“My Beloved Child,

Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing your deepest thoughts and emotions with me. I hope that by verbalizing and naming them that they gave you a sense of liberation. Being true to your own feelings and honoring them will allow you to discover your deepest self. I dwell there. I am always with you. You will feel me dwelling within you – our incredible communion – when you allow yourself to discover, name and express what lies within your heart.”

May our individual and shared explorations of faith lift our spirits, brighten our lives and benefit those we meet on the trip. Next week, I will begin an exploration of how faith inspires and guides our individual and collective work for good.