Faith=Coherence=Integrity=Generosity

If one is in the world and wants to continue living in it, one should give it a vow of trust, if just for coherence’s sake. Otherwise, and also to be coherent, one should feel free to exit the planet.

Only by being coherent one can live out of conflict with oneself, that is, one can keep one’s integrity, and only by having integrity one can step beyond oneself in generosity. That is, in trusting our own species, the world it created, and the science that, although propelled by capitalism, has extended its average life span, saved it from monkeyhood, cured many of its diseases, and prevented many others.

With the unfolding of this virus through the perverse variance of its reproduction, plus the negative power of denial from so many people who are prone to believe in conspiracy theories and look at what is the prevention of covid as a way for millionaires to make more money- a lunacy that is either self-importance generated in the will to be contraire, or the result of envying people like Bill Gates, but took this nation by surprise- one wonders whether having faith is absurd. Then one has to remember Kierkegaard’s connecting absurdity to Faith.

The leap of faith is triggered by the confrontation with the absurd, with the irrational. Embracing it instead of being egotistically disappointed by it, is to embrace that which sole breaks our illusion of understanding reality, allowing it to break the limits of ego and open up our soul to larger horizons. Embracing the absurd is to embrace faith in God, that which transforms the irrational into liberation. Let’s remember that faith is letting go, rather than confirming expectations. It springs from self-detachment, instead of willing, or wish fulfillment. From humbleness, instead of empowerment. From accepting what is beyond our understanding, rather than from knowing.

“ I have to do away with knowledge in order to make room for faith”, said the king of philosophy, in the remote XVI century. Amen.

We can only have faith in things that are beyond our understanding. For faith is to be at one with what we have faith in, whereas understanding is to be split from what one haughtily “understands”, from the heights of what Kant did “away with”, that is, from the illusory abode of knowledge.

For 2022, I wish the absurdity of the world and of the times we live in to not incarcerate us within our ego’s frustrated whims and expectations, but instead, to liberate us from this ego. Instead of battling it, let’s be open to the mad wisdom of God!

Adding to AA’s prayer moto: let’s change what we can, have patience with what we can’t , wisdom to know the difference, and be loving regardless of the result!