KenVincent
Moderator
Registered: 12/19/07
Posts: 103
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The Big Questions 1. What do we mean when we say that we rely on our faith to help us through difficult times? 2. What is "the help of the Lord"? Is it a miracle? A solution to our problem? A metaphor for personal gumption? Something in between miracle and metaphor? Or if something else, what? 3. In what form(s) does the help of the Lord come? 4. How do you explain it when a person of faith who is in difficult straits prays to the Lord for help and none seems to come? 5. To what degree is faith a way of interpreting what happens in the world? Explain your answer.
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Ken Vincent
Online Forum Moderator
St. Luke Lutheran Church
Albuquerque, NM |
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WillHoffman
Registered: 01/04/08
Posts: 98
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| #2 |
1. What do we mean when we say that we rely on our faith to help us through difficult times?
I can only speak for myself and MY faith. My faith is not a panacea or bottle of tablets to be taken when I don't feel well. That is the trap our dualistic thinking gets us into -- to turn to something we perceive as "good" to counteract something perceived as "bad." Faith also is not an inoculation or prophylactic against something adverse that might happen. Adversity and suffering can strengthen us. Our faith is only as strong as the challenges we encounter, learn from, and grow.
2. What is "the help of the Lord"? Is it a miracle? A solution to our problem? A metaphor for personal gumption? Something in between miracle and metaphor? Or if something else, what?
I think "the help of the Lord" involves the teachings, actions, and ministry of Jesus Christ, rather than automatic or instant intercession when I ask for it. My "Guardian Angel" is the wisdom of the teachings and prophecies of the Old Testament and the Gospels and Disciples' learned Letters. I try to engage this wisdom with patience, reflection, and discernment. I seek choices while knowing that things won't necessarily go "my way." "Things," "happenings," and "stuff" will traverse the mystery of God's way, which I can never fully fathom and I accept on faith, with grace freely given.
3. In what form(s) does the help of the Lord come?
The help of the Lord comes in all forms, whether we see them or not, touch them or not, accept them or not. I think faith is as strong and enduring as those who express and profess it.
4. How do you explain it when a person of faith who is in difficult straits prays to the Lord for help and none seems to come?
This is the dualistic trap that if somehow, someone embraces faith that it (as an insurance policy) coupled with prayer will produce the desired results. I believe that dualistic thinking is a trap shown in the recent concept of "When bad things happen to good people." Take the recent Santa Fe Baldy tragedy where a rescued hiker and pilot died in the helicopter crash and the observer survived. I think the outcome of this heroic, selfless effort happened because the elements of all-too-human risk, panic, pride, and miscalculation converged on a very high mountain ridge in a terrible storm.
5. To what degree is faith a way of interpreting what happens in the world? Explain your answer.
It is too easy and too human to directly connect faith with what happens in the world. Sacred faith exists, or should, apart from what goes on in the secular world.
Faith does not need blame, rationalization, or even explanation. Faith happens when we find and express it. And faith's essential companion, doubt, also happens when we find and express it. As Catholic theologian Mary Gordon said on Bill Moyers' PBS 2006 series "On Faith and Reason": "Faith without doubt is just either nostalgia or a kind of addiction."
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