The changing face of faith

Got to get psyched up, so to speak, for another Internet radio interview tonight with mediums Marcel and Lenny. Tune in your computer at 8 pm PST here for a discussion of “The Changing Face of Faith.” Here’s the blurb that got emailed to me.
Download in_good_spirit_12606.doc

I’ll jump on their medium turf and look into the future: Marcel and Lenny will challenge my spiritual skepticism. And I’ll say, “But skepticism is the doorway to openness.” Or something like that.

Maybe I’ll talk about walking up our driveway to get the newspaper in the morning. A few days ago I was lost in thought, pondering what I’d do after I got the newspaper in the morning even though I hadn’t yet reached the paper box.

Then…a gap in my pondering. A flash of movement. I saw a deer standing in the field, staring at me. I looked back. We had a deer-human moment. It jumped over the fence. I walked on.

My face has eyes. My eyes connect me with the world, along with my other senses. But most truly, only when I’m open to whatever comes along. When I’m focused on something that exists only in my imagination—“after I read the front page I’ll drink some coffee and then meditate for a while”—I risk missing what exists now in reality.

Like, a deer standing in the field. Like, who knows what else.

So to me the changing face of faith means moving away from looking at life through spread mental fingers, believing in this but not in that, refusing to consider the possibility of X while embracing the hypothesis of Y.

Eyes wide open. No rose-colored glasses. Believing in it when you see it, not before. That’s the sort of faith I find attractive, the kind I wrote about in “Don’t believe, just have faith.” In that post I quoted Alan Watts:

The believer will open his mind to the truth on the 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 religion that is not self-deception.

Fairly frequently I’m asked, “Brian, have you lost your faith?” God, no! I’ve found it.

What I’ve lost is my unfounded faith in dogma that I have no evidence for, and in the notion that just because I firmly believe something, it must be true. But that sort of faith should be lost. It’s worthless.

The faith I’ve found, or at least come closer to, is a trust in reality—whatever it may consist of. I don’t need to make reality conform to my wishes or desires. All I have to do is open my eyes and see. As clearly as possible.

With my changing face of faith.

[Next day update: per the link in Marcel's comment, below, the eighteen minute interview can be listened to here. Click on the December 6, 9 PM, option. I've also written about the experience on my other weblog. See "My radio interview about the changing face of faith."]

Comments

[Marcel Cairo]

Brian, thank you once again for being on In Good Spirit last night. As always, you expressed yourself clearly, intelligently and...ummm... at length. To be totally honest, I misplaced my spaking points right before going on, so I was winging my questions to you while still looking for my paper. I think you can pretty much hear that on the playback. I get totaly lost in my head without writing things out first.

If anyone wants to hear Brian on In Good Spirit, the best way to do that right now is by listening to part "A" of the December 6th show (9:00 PM segment) found here -
http://audio.achieveradio.com/goodspirit/ia/

[tao]

On Cairo's website http://www.believe2receive.com/ he makes the following claim:

"Will provide absolute proof of spiritual contact."

So where is this absolute proof?

Cairo has not provided any so far. There is no proof on his website. There has been none posted here. There was none provided on his talk show. There is also none provided in any of his comments on the Sweeney blog either.

So I say, provide the proof or shut-up. He should show the proof that he claims to "provide", or go back to the shadowy parlor games, or the circus side-show.

[Marcel Cairo]

tao, I love you. Why? When I meet ignorant and angry people, I really start to appreciate the awe, wonder and blessings that surround me. Thanks again.

[tao]

marcel cairo:

your words are the words of a hypocrite and a fraud. sadly, you have no clue what love is or means, or what kind of person that I am. instead, your thinly veiled sarcasm only reveals just how really foolish and ignorant you are.

[Susy]

marcel cairo:your words are the words of a hypocrite and a fraud. sadly, you have no clue what love is or means, or what kind of person that I am. instead, your thinly veiled sarcasm only reveals just how really foolish and ignorant you are