Faith: What’s Your History?

What’s your history with the word “faith?” Most of us living in the US likely have one.  It may include something like the following:

Faith means believing the right things, and you have been told what those things are.  Disagree with that list, and you are excluded from the faithful.

Faith means accepting something that is otherwise unreasonable or unbelievable. It lines up with clapping your hands so that Tinkerbell can live in the story Peter Pan.  Just do it.

Faith means some words that you say that will get you into heaven and allow you to avoid hell.

If you have arrived on a Unitarian Universalist path, you likely have a history with the word “faith” that includes rejecting what you have been handed around that word.

Because you value a search for truth and meaning.
Because you value humanism and what we can know through scientific process.
Because you value the worth and dignity of every human being and think that, if there is a God, God does, too.

In our community, this begins to be what we call “faith:” gathering together in community to explore the wonder of being human in the context of the gift of this earth–nothing to prove–everything to gain from the journey.

What is your own personal history with the word “faith?”

Bob Patrick

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