Having A Faith In Life- reprint

Reprint: An excerpt from “Becoming Who we Are”

by The Rev. Robert E. Senghas

Rev. Senghas was a highly respected college of mine and a respected observer of the human condition. In this sermon, he outlines the issues of having a faith in life that works in today’s world, and what it requires of us.

In a similar way, in my work with my clients in interfaith spiritual coaching, I would inquire about the role of a working faith in a person’s life, its effects and how it functions to provide both inspiration and solace…

“As human beings, we are born with the potentials to develop arts, skills, and powers. Although we did not know how to speak, we were both with the potential to speak and to use language to read and write, and as adults, we have learned to realize that power of language and speech. As infants, we did not know how to reason, but we had that potential,[too.]… We were born with the potential to realize many things, and our process of “becoming who we are” is a process of learning to nurture, to develop, and to utilize these skills and powers.

And each of us was born with the potential to realize certain powers of supreme importance. We were born with the potential to celebrate life, to act with caring for others, to have a passion for justice and truth, to affirm life despite our inevitable suffering and death, the potential not only to labor but to live, to enjoy, to love, to worship, and to embrace our existence itself, with everything in it,…. .

None of us realizes our full potential. And humans never are able to realize much of their potential because of being deprived of love, nurture, or education or because we were subject to economic and political oppression, or to accident or disease.

Still…our most important potentials— to be able to care, to love justice, and to affirm and celebrate life– we can develop by observing our parents and others who are [admired adults, friends, lovers, spouses, and even our own children.]

 

“It is, as Martin Buber (a famous Jewish mystic and theologian) once said, ” from one being to another, that the heavenly bread of self being is passed.”

Nevertheless, despite all of our good nurture, education and relationships, there comes a point in the life of each person where we can progress no further in the development of our capacity to love others unselfishly, to care for others unconditionally, and to affirm our life in spite of our awareness of our limitations and mortality. Beyond a certain point, we are unable to affirm life and love unless we have developed a faith in life, a faith which is an act of commitment by our whole self, an act of affirmation, a saying “yes” to the world.

That faith is an essentially a religious commitment, although it might not be traditional, or theistic, or embodied in any institutional religion. It is an act of will, and no one can do it for us. I have known people raised in the most privileged families who have not been able to live by faith, and I have known many who grew up with emotional, physical, and economic handicaps who have that [kind of]faith. Neither I nor anyone else can give you your faith; Only YOU can give it to yourself.”

“… The fulfillment of our faith is that we can keep trust in life, and become the loving and caring men and women we can be. We shall not escape pain and disappointment and death, but we can realize the power to bear what life brings. And beyond that, to be able to make our life itself into a song of praise and fulfillment.”