FEELING FAITH

To not “feel faith” would take me back to my childhood and many days in between and up until now.  When I first felt like “I believed in Jesus” it was most probably a mixture of emotional/intellectual/rationale/physical… and some faith as well.  I am not sure that ever changes, only the percentages of each area change (i.e., sometimes more emotion than intellect, etc.) but that is because of our humanity. I denied my humanity to a large extent for many years in my faith walk believing wrongly that it fought against my spiritual development (Romans 8:1-12) and what a miserable denial this can present.  I became robotic and religious.  Yet, on the other side was the “faith camp message/gospel” of “you just have to believe more, brother” and, of course, this was irrational to me because it fought so hard against my experience, study, reading and meditation.

Where this leaves me is… with St John of the Cross, Mother Teresa and others, in various levels of the “dark night of the soul.”  I think the biggest mistake with the study of St John of the Cross is to come away believing that the “dark night” was unbelief, rather than a mysterious search for a “hidden God” and the mystery and hidden parts are on our end… not the Lord’s. And, for sure… these times are without much “feeling” except for feelings of depression, despair, loneliness, frustration and doubt… until we get to the other side. (From a letter to a friend)

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Jesus