Daily Reflections

08/31/2022

Warring Siblings

The nature of faith has always been slippery and ironic. The requirement is certainty in certainty’s absence. Proof obliterates the need for faith. To further the irony, there is a peace about true faith that is not replicated in any other sector of human experience. Only in faith are some truly free.

By contrast, the old Russian adage says, “trust, but verify.” A more cynical man might say this really means, “don’t trust.” Okay, its me. I am the more cynical man. But lately, I’ve been contemplating the idea that there may be a subtle distinction between the two. Or rather, that the need be balance.

As with most things in this life, balance is essential. That much, even a once and future curmudgeon like me can admit with little more than anecdotal examination. Yet, in this instance, I don’t doubt the logic that proof denies faith either. I always assumed that the two were so insoluble in one jar that, were they placed inside a single person, it would be like chasing vinegar with baking soda. Indeed, it is this volatile and fizzy reaction when faith and proof mix that creates a decent swath of existential crises in the collective and individual. So much so that it seems, like two Bettas in a fishbowl, only one will be left alive after meeting in the mind.

I’m thinking now, however that it is not winner take all. There is no electoral college for the myriad feelings that might occupy a person concurrently. Rationalization does not defeat them. At best, (and quite usefully at times) reason and proof can prioritize and compartmentalize its brothers and sisters of consciousness. Faith, by counterpoint, can pacify them. Like the wise sister that is secretly the Matriarch in the family. The liaison between the parents and children.

Faith and her twin, Reason are not enemies, merely birthed for us from the same source, competing for the same amniotic ether. They are the schism in the universe’s answer when we learned enough as a species to begin to ask, “Why?”. The answer is simply, “Because.” But the two possible tones of that answer are as polarizing as the advocates on the extreme of either end.

Why?

And Faith answered, “Because. Just because and its alright to close your eyes you are protected.”

Why?

And Reason answered, “Because of X, Y happened, and you can rest easy as long as you know what X is doing or has done.”

Must we only choose one answer? If they are of the same concerned parental spirit, can we not love them both equally? Trust and verify?

Seems worth asking. I have faith that we will find a reason.