I’ll be at in Montecito this Saturday night, from 6pm to 7pm, in conversation with one of my dearest friends, . She has a new book out—This Must Be the Place—which is an interior design romp. Like her, it’s fun, inventive, gorgeous, and hilarious. (You can see some of her projects here.) If you like great design and want to be entertained for an hour, come and join us. (Tickets are here.)
There’s still time to sign up to join me and at Omega, in Rhinebeck, New York from May 25-29. If you need a break, this might be the retreat for you. If you want to understand who you are and how to serve in the midst of all this chaos, this might be the retreat for you. And if you want a moment to let go of something that no longer fits and step into something new, this might be the retreat for you. Come join us! More info is here.
This weekend I gathered with some dear friends for an impromptu circle with Dre Bendewald (you can hear her on the podcast here). What happens in the circle stays in the circle, but a big thematic came up for me, something that I’ve been working hard to understand. This is it, in a nutshell: I don’t like to include myself in the circle. I’d much rather circle the circle, noticing and serving other peoples’ needs and reflecting what I see. I don’t know if this is because I think of myself as an outsider-insider—someone who occasionally gets invited into the garden, but mostly likes to stay on the perimeter—but I’d much rather observe and mediate than participate myself. And I definitely don’t want to put myself in the circle of care, because obviously, I don’t need anything! There’s nothing to see over here!
In Morality, Jonathan Sacks offers the following passage:
“There is a fascinating passage in the Talmud, describing an event in the third century, which tells of a certain rabbi who had the power of healing. When he laid his hand on someone who was ill, he was cured. Then, continues the Talmud, he fell ill himself and sent someone to fetch another rabbi to heal him. Why, asks the Talmud, did he not cure himself? It answers: a prisoner cannot release himself from prison. It takes someone else to turn the key that unlocks the door.”
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m facing a “rough initiation,” to quote Francis Weller (podcast episode is here). It’s a life class that I need to take, and it feels like I can discern the syllabus from where I’m standing outside the locked classroom door, but the reading material, the core curriculum, is inside and therefore outside of my reach. I will need to cross some sort of threshold in order to get there—and I’m not sure what or where it is. This is an interesting conundrum for someone who likes to figure things out and “do the work” on my own to understand—I don’t know how to do this work. I can’t teach myself, I need a teacher.
My sense, of course, is that the initiation will unfold the minute I stop trying to figure it out and allow it to unfold. If I can only let go. (This is why there are initiators, though life often steps in to fill the void.)
There are a few passages that I have written out on index cards near my desk. One of my favorites is from the Alan Watts classic, The Wisdom of Insecurity, where he writes about the difference between faith and belief.
“We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religions that is not self-deception.”
This always cracks me open: It’s such a profound take , not only on the distinction between dogma and agnostic spirituality, but a quality in our stance to life. In Watts’ view, belief suggests that you are clinging to an assurance that you know how things are (and how they should be), while faith requires an attitude where you’re willing to recognize that you never will.
You need to be really brave and courageous to lean into faith. I’m really good at having faith on behalf of everyone else (and all of humanity); I often find myself losing faith that it—that it being God’s care, a divine plan, a wise unfolding—could possibly extend to me. I want to put myself out of that circle too: It’s okay, God, I’ve got it. I don’t need any help over here. I’m just gonna lone wolf my way through life. Don’t worry about me!
And yet. And yet. Even as I write this, I know I do have faith, even that I’m being delivered right into the hands of a teaching that I need. And yes, not knowing how to fulfill the course requirements gives me anxiety, but that’s also the point. It’s fitting that the subtitle of Watts’ The Wisdom of Insecurity is A Message for the Age of Anxiety. We are certainly living through that.
Cynthia Bourgeault (podcast episode here) writes about the definition of faith as well, offering, that its true definition lies in something St. Paul once said: “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” She elaborates, “But in our own diminished age even faith has now gone dark and tends to be understood as a ‘blind’ leap into the dark rather than a luminous perception of the invisible golden thread.”
As you know, I like to pull on threads; my life revolves around understanding their structure—how they hold each of us and all of us—together tight in a collective tapestry. And so follow the thread I must. I’ll do so with faith, “an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be.” And I’m going to try to do it within the circle—as even I need some help now and then. :)
With belief, we fixate on the future as something that we can will into being; but faith means we might get something even better than imagined. Here’s to life’s enduring mystery and the faith—not belief—that it will deliver us exactly where we’re supposed to be.