“Imagine the last time your faith failed. Faith in yourself,your family, your God, your country, love, the arts, even faith itself. Of course, faith is Janus-faced. One face is blind, unquestioning; the other sees far and deep, trusting what is unfolding in you, in life.” Phil Cousineau

You don’t have to be someone who is part of a church to speak about faith. It is a word that is used with great abandon in our culture. Some people had faith that Brett Favre would return to the Vikings this season. Some people have faith that it won’t rain on their outdoor plans. We all place our faith in institutions like banks, government, the transportation systems. Most of the time that faith works out well for us. Our money is safe and grows through interest and investments. The Systems within our government bring us security, freedom and a general sense of an ordered life. The majority of the time our buses,planes, trains and freeways allow us to make our way in the world in with very little thought as to how it all works. Most of the time, it is faith well placed.

But there are times when our faith seems difficult to hold,impossible to grab onto. I think of the people I know who are faced with the ravage of disease and, a too soon, impending death of a loved one. How to have faith becomes a nagging night-time partner.  Or those who have been knocked down over and over again by life’s challenges….poverty, unemployment, loss of homes and friends and all that defines who they are. How do we hold onto our faith in those situations? How do we continue to practice our faith in the face of what can seem like insurmountable odds? In times when God seems far away?

These, of course, are age-old questions. However, it is at times like these that,I believe, we see the very real, and fragile relationship that exists within faith. At the times when I am unable to sense or believe God’s presence travels with me, it is then that I trust that there is a greater faith at work. A faith in me and all the created order, a faith that can become hidden in the shadows of our daily walk. It is at these times that I latch onto the force of a common good that breathes beneath and through all Creation. With white knuckles and,often, clenched fists, I ride out the wave of my faithlessness held by a deeper, more abiding faith than I can ever imagine. It is then that I know the presence of the Holy in new and surprising ways. The Holy One’s presence in my life is bigger than my ability to imagine my own faith, a practice that is often blurred by own need to harness what I believe to be fair, or right, or true. In the final analysis, I must rest in the arms of the One who has faith in me, even when I am faithless.

If today finds you clutching a faithless moment, may that moment be brief. And may you and all those you love be held by this deeper, eternal faith that is breathing, unseen and yet felt, as near as our own next inhalation.