An ode to my beloved and beyond

I just wanted to take a moment to write about my profound respect for my husband, Jay. His sometimes brutal honesty in his quest for an authentic faith is an inspiration to me. A grappler, a scholar, a collaborator and a facilitator in the truest sense of these words, he has the courage to share his doubts, his fears, and his dark nights of the soul on his spiritual journey in order to encourage related discussions among his larger community - in other words, all of you reading this right now. He constantly pushes himself to achieve deeper levels of understanding in this way, challenging assumptions and asking questions. I deeply admire his candor.

Soon, with the birth of our first child, our life job descriptions will change forever. We will be parents for the first time, and we will navigate complex choices regarding what values we will teach our child, and how we will teach them. I feel the heaviness and joy in this responsibility has sent us both a little deeper into the woods regarding our faith, which is always a good thing in my mind, as I am my best self when walking through the trees here at the farm, forests that technically belong to our neighbors but in reality belong to God, to themselves, to all of us creatures. Can an occasional shift of paradigm in regard to matters of faith be a healthy thing? Can we embrace what is sacred to us and many others and still wonder about and question their traditional interpretations?

If you profess to a core belief of any kind, do you have a story of a faith-shaking doubt, of a period of time where you just weren't sure if or what you believed? How did you cope? What was the outcome? What did you learn? I don't expect many to answer, and you can certainly contact me personally if you'd rather not participate in a roundtable blog; I understand completely, as I know these questions touch on very private corners of our lives. But I'd love to learn from your experiences, and I know Jay would too.

I close with a quote from Jim Wallis' book God's Politics, and then a riff on that quote from my good friend Dennis Plies.

Here, Wallis recalls when he and other spiritual leaders were jailed for praying in the Capitol Rotunda in protest of legislation that would hurt the poor:

I smiled as I looked around the massive jail cell and focused on what seemed to be a very vigorous conversation going on between Baptist preacher Tony Campolo and Jewish rabbi Michael Lerner. I moved closer to hear. They were discussing Christology, the theological topic concerning the nature and identity of Jesus Christ. ‘Who was Jesus?’ is still perhaps the most provocative religious question in our interfaith world. Tony and Michael were deeply engaged together. Was Jesus the very Word of God made flesh or a great Jewish prophet? They clearly didn’t agree and were not likely to convince each other anytime soon.

But the amazing dialogue taught me something very important. Perhaps the best place to discuss theology is in jail, after you have all been arrested for acting on your faith. Act faithful, then talk about why you have faith and what your faith means.

Dennis' thoughtful response:

“Act faithful, then talk about why you have faith and what your faith means.” This is gorgeous. Take that into anyone’s arena. Some folks’ heart is the issue of immigrants, the state of education, how ethics or non-ethics are practiced in corporations, ecological concerns, noise control near airports, the plight of the oppressed, the lack of justice, and on and on. What is it that causes me to act faithful, and then can I talk about why I have faith in this premise and what that faith means—action? Having the ability to listen to you without judgment for what moves you, then listen even more intently as you share why you have faith in this cause and what your faith means ...

...exciting to me was that they (Campolo and Lerner) were able to dialogue about a reality without having to slice Jesus up or down, having the inner freedom to talk about Jesus’ person and identity. This can be applied to any topic or person if we choose to be free enough so that our own identity is not marked by what others say of someone we love or honor.

Charis again now: The question, then, is how do YOU define faith?

Peace,

Charis