So you think you are a believer? Meditation for 5/6/14

36 x 48 inch framed canvas for Old Savannah Tours

(For today's journal click Here.)

“Faith is about doing.  You are how you act, not how you believe.”  -  Mitch Albom

“Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.”  -  Seneca

     For much of my life it seemed important to know what I believed and how that compared to what you believed.  Many hours and days were spent formulating and arguing beliefs.  By definition, a belief is the acceptance that something is true.  Indeed our life is spent navigating among “belief systems.”  These are large bodies of beliefs that are subscribed to by individuals in order to act as a bloc.  There are political beliefs, religious beliefs, scientific beliefs, social beliefs – the list goes on and on.  And of course there is hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy is when one’s actions are completely at odds with what they profess to believe.  Then there are the issues with rationalization – if I believe this or that I have to be prepared to defend that belief if you should question it.  Then there is the proselytizing thing – most beliefs demand that you can only prove your “belief” by convincing others to profess that you have convinced them that your belief is the right one.  It all is very complicated and time consuming, and lots of people fight and even kill each other over these differences in what they have convinced themselves is true.

     Lately I have backed off on “belief.”  I have decided that in my little corner of the world I am just going to pay attention to what actually works.  For example:  For a long while I was struggling with the fact that when I pray for direction I am only given the next one right thing to do.  I got really irritated with this.  After all, God has all these answers and yet he wants to string me along a piece at a time.  But then it occurred to me – who said God has to have all the answers?  What if I view God as being on the journey too – that God doesn’t have the answers as to who will live in self-will and who will act out of love?  This would mean that God and I formed a partnership of sorts, with God having a much better seat to observe and give guidance from but still relying on me to regularly check in and to perform the work well.  And adopting that attitude has helped me immensely – I no longer get those periods of rebellion where I get sick of feeling like I am a mule chasing a carrot.

     Now, I could “argue this new belief.”  I could say that even religious texts show folks “believe” he doesn’t.  For instance in Judeo-Christianity God and Satan make a bet about whether this one particular guy would cave in if they kill of his family and take away all his stuff.  Now, if God knew the future why in the world would Satan agree to such a bet?  But how about a different approach.  How about if I just say that this view works for me right now, and I don’t have to convince anyone – including myself that it is correct.  I can use it as a mental model for now, and if it quits working or something comes along that works better in the future I can look at adopting it at that time.  I can tell you that this approach is much more freeing than a rigid approach where I have to argue, debate and convince others of what what I am going to “believe.”  And it changes my definition of God – it allows me to believe in the God I experience rather than trying to experience the God of my belief.  It worked again today – I think I will try it again tomorrow.

Today, may I be effective.

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