O Great Spirit, whose breath gives light to the world, and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze: We need Your strength and wisdom. Cause us to walk in beauty. Give us eyes ever to behold the red and purple sunset. Make us wise so that we may understand what you have taught us. Help us to learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. Make us always ready to come to you with clean hands and steady eyes, so when life fades, like the fading sunset, our spirits may come to you without shame. Amen.
~ traditional Native American Prayer with thanks to Liz Simons
My faith was tested. I was my own guinea pig; the years in isolation due to illness were passed in prayer and study of all kinds–like Job on his dunghill. I was to learn that health is also having FAITH in the higher aspects of human nature. Health is having hope, because without hope there is no life. Health is love of our selves and others. In truth, love is the life blood of faith and hope and together they create a healthy body, mind, and spirit: the Trinity of our being.
~ from THE VOICE OF SILENCE by Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo
In terms of faith, it's the story (and not the facts) that grips the imagination, impregnates the heart, and animates the spirit within bringing meaning and integration into one's experience.
Without faith that it is possible to render reality understandable by means of our theoretical constructs, without faith in an inner harmony of the world, there could be no science. This faith is and always will be the basic motivation behind every creative scientific idea. All our endeavors, all the dramatic conflicts between old and new ideas are supported by the eternal desire for knowledge, the unshakeable faith in cosmic harmony which becomes stronger the more difficulties loom before us.
~ from THE EVOLUTION OF PHYSICS by Albert Einstein and Leopold Infield
Into my life You came like a storm of monsoon banging down from the eastern sky. And You scattered me, like the wind disperses dry grass and the petals of flowers. Out of myself You scattered me into Nothingness, Beyond the Nowhere, beyond the Beyond.
A true artist directs readers back to themselves, helps them to discover within their inexhaustible riches. No one can be saved or cured other than through their own efforts. The remedy is Faith.
Once there was a great bombing, and I had my baby sister with me. I had Maria on my back and I was running back home, but I could not breathe, I could not swallow. I could not say anything. When I came home, mamika embraced me. She said, "Why are you so frightened?" That was such a balm to me. Her words still live inside me. She said, "All of us will meet anyway, even if they kill you. "There was such a strength for me in those moments. Through my mother's calm, unshakeable faith, God came to comfort me.
The enlightened one of God is characterized by profound faith. This faith is a created sharing in divine light, an inward gift of knowledge, the "eye of love," which enables one to apprehend, believe in, and respond to the highest of values. Through faith, the enlightened individual finds the universe friendly with a power, a wisdom, a love that broods at the heart of things and overcomes all evil.
