Quotes and other wisdom on faith and doubt

Many people have asked for copies of various poems, prayers and other pieces of wisdom on faith and doubt that were featured in last Sunday’s worship service on Affirmation 10 (which affirms that doubt can be a productive part of faith).  All of these are reproduced below, along with a few extras that we couldn’t fit into the worship but are dynamite nonetheless.

Sorry about the non-uniform type size and spacing (some titles and spaces between lines are larger than others).  There was a technical issue importing these which I am not expert enough to solve!

Excerpt from “Moving Waters” by Rumi (from The Soul of Rumi)

When you do things

from your soul,  you feel

a river moving you

along.

When actions come from another

section, the feeling

disappears.    Don’t let

others lead you.  They

may be blind or, worse,

vultures.  Reach for the

rope

of God.

“Faith” by Ruth Gendler

Faith lives in the same apartment building as Doubt.  When Faith was out of town visiting her uncle in the hospital, Doubt fed the cat and watered the asparagus fern.  Faith is comfortable with Doubt because she grew up with him.  Their mothers are cousins.  Faith is not dogmatic about her beliefs like some of her relatives.  Her friends fear that Faith is a bit stupid.  They whisper that she is naïve and she depends on Doubt to protect her from the meanness of life.  In fact, it is the other way around.  It is Faith who protects Doubt from Cynicism.

“Faith”

by David Whyte

I want to write about faith,

about the way the moon rises

over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness,

slowly becoming that last curving and impossible

sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself

I refuse it the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,

like a new moon, slender and barely open,

be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

Excerpt from “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith” by Ann Lamott (originally appeared in 2003 article on Advent at Salon.com)

The thing is, I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something my Jesuit friend Tom told me — that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, and emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Faith also means reaching deeply within for the sense one was born with, the sense to go for a walk.

Prayer of Thomas Merton

“My Lord, God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead

of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know

myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your will does not mean

that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please You

does in fact please You.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am

doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I

know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I know

nothing about it.  Therefore, I will trust You always though I may seem to be

lost in the shadow of death.  I will not fear for You are ever with me, and

Various Quotes on Faith and Doubt

With great doubts come great understanding; with little doubts come little understanding. – Chinese Proverb

Only the one who knows nothing doubts nothing. – French proverb

One must know when it is right to doubt, to affirm, to submit. Anyone who does otherwise does not understand the force of reason. – Blaise Pascal

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. – Francis Bacon

Knowledge and doubt are inseparable to man. The sole alternative to ”knowledge-with-doubt” is no knowledge at all. Only God and certain madmen have no doubts! – Martin Luther

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Doubt can be a tool in God’s hand wielded, in the lives of those who allow it, for the strengthening, not the destruction of faith. – George MacDonald

If ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger. It knows God more certainly and it can enjoy God more deeply. – C. S. Lewis

Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.: Buddha – Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta

Faith isn’t believing without proof – it’s trusting without reservation. William Sloane Coffin

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.– Fyodor Dostoyevski

The problem with the wise is they are so filled with doubts while the dull are so certain.– Bertrand Russell

Christianity is not a message which has to be believed, but an experience of faith that becomes a message. –Edward Schillebeeckx

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery. – Annie Dillard

Other Relevant Quotes

You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

“Jesus came to take away your sins – not your mind.” - Church Ad Project

“Faith is believing in stuff you know ain’t true.” - Mark Twain (paraphrased)

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has noted, confronting God ”…requires not only deep faith but new faith.  It takes not only nerve but a fresh hunch about this God.  The hunch is that this God does not want to be an unchallenged structure but one who can be frontally addressed” [From The Message of the Psalms (Augsburg, 1984)].

Don’t tell God how big your storm is, tell the storm how big your God is. – unknown

A sad loss

My apologies to regular readers who may be confused by the sudden appearance of another blogger and mentions of a transfer of CrossWalk America posts.  This “other blogger” is my friend, Merrill Davison, who you will recognize from the Asphalt Jesus book as one of the core walkers on CrossWalk America’s 2006 walk across America.

Unfortunately, there will be no transfer of 2006-2009 CrossWalk America blog entries (besides Merrill’s 2009 posts), though I was very much hoping there would be.  Here’s the background for those who are interested:  In 2008, CWA merged with The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC).  Since then, TCPC has been maintaining CWA’s old web pages/blog, but this is coming to an end as it doesn’t mesh with their system and integration would be cost prohibitive.  Thus, I received notice that the CWA blog, which contains hundreds of entries from the entire walk team and several others, from before, during, and after the walk, was going to be taken down.  I hated to see this happen, as it would mean the loss of a distinctive resource and historical record.  Most importantly (to me, anyway), the blog contains hundreds of posts made by other people besides myself and our documentary film maker Scott Griessel.  Since Scott and I respectively have a film and a book that tells the story of the walk in our voices, it didn’t really concern me terribly that our particular blog posts would no longer be available to the public, though there is much written in them that never made it into the book or film.  What really concerned me (and continues to do so) is losing the other people’s posts.  These are voices of the other walkers and special people associated with CrossWalk America that aren’t contained in any other public source.  Thus, I asked if there was a chance that I could transfer the CWA blog onto my Asphalt Jesus blog.

Up until a few days ago, the word was “Yes, as long as you pay the $200 estimated fee for transferring the material.”  I was more than happy to pay this and was very excited about adding these posts as an archive here for the future. However, once the web developers started looking into the matter more closely, they realized that the CWA blog uses such an outdated web platform that no simple transfer exists.  They were going to have to hand cut-and-paste hundreds upon hundreds of entries, and hand-create folders in which to place them … a very expensive process.

Thus, just today we had to pull the plug on the project.  :-(  Before the plug was pulled, however, they’d already cut-and-pasted around 50 of Merrill Davison’s blog posts, which is why you find them here.

Sorry for any confusion this created.  I wish we could have that archive, but I guess sometimes things are just meant to fade over time.