Yesterday, when I visited my mother at the nursing home I wheeled her into my favorite meeting room which is full of light from many windows. I wheeled her to each one so that she could have a new awareness and understanding of the world outside her small wing and even smaller room. "Cars," she said, looking out of one at travelers on the road. She nodded at still another view: the sight of so much white snow and the bending branches of winter-bare trees. She was suddenly aware of the new season.
Faith is taking a step to open a window that shows us how to let go of the old and embrace the new, to discover new transportation through a season of change, to see a way to travel through doubt and uncertainty to deeper levels of faith in God and deeper awareness of our own capabilities.
Faith is necessary in all our encounters and relationships and intellectual breakthroughs. It's the step to the window's light so we're suddenly alert to "what if-" or "I could love him," or "I can really DO this," or "I never really understood before that both these viewpoints have elements of truth in them."
We may be stunned and upset and afraid, or even tormented when we have periods of doubt about various aspects of our faith in God. But doubt is always a gift - if we look at it as an invitation to surrender to God's call, and take another step, open another window, grow to a new, deeper, more embracing level of faith. Mother Teresa experienced decades of great doubt as God continually called her to new trust and growth to new levels.
If we look at our faith as more than intellectual truths or moral opinions or assent to religious doctrines, we discover that our deepest faith is faith in a Person and a relationship: Ultimate Reality/God/Jesus is accessible to us always, wants to love, heal, and forgive us, always. Faith isn't renouncing our rational minds, it's embracing the Person, the Ultimate Reality, who enlightens our rational minds, draws us to deeper understandings. And - we discover to our amazement - this marvelous Someone is holding on to US!
Looking out of faith windows shows us that we don't always have the Big Picture - we only see half a house, part of a winding road, only some of the steps on a front porch. Gazing through faith windows shows us that we aren't always right because the season outside is Winter, not Summer. Constantly stepping to new faith windows teaches us that our dark rooms aren't sufficient; we need the Presence we find out in the beckoning Light. Continuing to open faith windows shows us new groups of believers besides the ones inside our own small dwelling.
The hardest faith window to open is the one that opens us to the possibility that there is meaning and purification and growth in the rings of fire of darkness and suffering. Yet, Fr. Richard Rohr says "Who are the people of every place and time who have discovered this deeper meaning of faith in the midst of darkness? Almost without exception they are those who have suffered much or loved deeply. Those are the common crossover points, the rings of fire, and because love and suffering are available to all, the eyes of true faith are available to all. ("The Naked Now.")
True faith always opens us to this truth: "A Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it." (John: 1:5.)