Google the word “belief” and you’ll get this definition: Belief is “acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.” Many people think that religion is only about belief. Do you believe in God or don’t you? But I disagree. I think it’s about faith. Google the word “faith,” and you’ll get this definition: Faith is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”
Faith doesn’t need a supernatural being like God, but faith does require the complete trust and confidence that something that seems impossible is possible. I love sociologist Brene Brown’s definition of faith. In The Gifts of Imperfection, she writes:
Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.
For some folks that place of mystery is their belief in a divine being. For others like me, it is faith that I can let go of my fear of uncertainty and that I can let go of the idea that love is lost, prosperity impossible, and peace on Earth and justice for all just pipe dreams. It is the faith that our best human impulses can be achieved, and that I can have the strength, courage and wisdom to be the kind of person this world needs.
A NOTE ON THE PHOTO: This marvelous image was harvested from http://publicdomainarchive.com/. A thousand thanks to them for their fine taste and their generosity.