I watch a hawk soar through the morning sky and something falls into place within me. It is as if I travel through a wood long unvisited and recognize familiar trees grown taller with the passing time. I come upon a thought, an act, a place with the vague sense of having thought that, done that, been there before. Or I come to a fork in the road and I know by some unexplainable sense which is right for me. I walk and uncover or discover anew what I have always known. Living intimately with nature opens doors in my spirit; the mystery becomes known, darkness becomes light.
Faith is not about understanding the ways of God. It is not about maneuvering God into a position of human subjugation, making a God who is a benign deity who exists to see life as we do. Faith, in fact, is not about understanding at all. It is about awe in the face of the God of all. And it is awe that inspires an alleluia to the human soul.
Faith is about reverencing precisely what we do not understand—the mystery of the Life Force that generates life for us all. It is about grounding ourselves in a universe so intelligent, so logical, so clearly loving that only a God in love with life could possibly account for it completely.
