[MF] faith, hope and love

[Kevin Perez]

As I reflected about what faith, hope, love and relationships mean to 
me one word came into focus, commitment.  It seems to me that it's 
only through my commitments that these other words have any 
meaning at all.  And paradoxically, it's through the faith, hope and
love that I express and that others express to me that I'm able to
make commitments at all.
   
  For a more eloquent explanation I would refer you to a book by 
James W. Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human
Development (HapperCollins).  The following are taken from the 
opening pages.
   
       - What are you spending and being spent for?  What commands
        and receives your best time, your best energy?
     - What causes, dreams, goals or institutions are you pouring out
        your life for?
     - As you live your life, what power or powers do you fear or dread? 
        What power or powers do you rely on and trust?
     - To what or whom are you committed in life?  In death?
     - With whom or what group do you share your most sacred and
        private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you love?
     - What are those most sacred hopes, those most compelling
        goals and purposed in your life?
   
       These are questions of faith.  They aim to help us get in touch
     with the dynamic, patterned process by which we find life
     meaningful.  They aim to help us reflect on the centers of value
     and power that sustain our lives.  The persons, causes and
     institutions we really love and trust, the images of good and evil,
     of possibility and probability to which we are committed - these
     form the pattern of our faith.
   
       Faith is not always religious in its content or context.  To ask
     these questions seriously of oneself or others does not
     necessarily mean to elicit answers about religious commitment or 
     belief.  Faith is a person's or group's way of moving into the force
     field of life.  It is our way of finding coherence in and giving
     meaning to the multiple forces and relations that make up our
     lives.  Faith is a person's way of seeing him- or herself in relation
     to others against the background of shared meaning and purpose.
   
  After elaborating on specific works by Paul Tillich (Dynamics of 
Faith) and Richard Niebuhr (an unpublished manuscript from 1957) 
Fowler goes on to say,
   
       Faith, so Niebuhr and Tillich tell us, is a universal concern.  Prior
     to our being religious or irreligious, before we come to think of
     ourselves as Catholics, Protestants, Jews or Muslims, we are
     already engaged with issues of faith.  Whether we become
     nonbelievers, agnostics or atheists, we are concerned with how to 
     put our lives together and with what will make life worth living.
     Moreover, we look for something to honor and respect that has
     the power to sustain our being.
   
  Fowler then goes on to relate a "moving story of faith in crisis."  He 
summarizes Judith Guest's "sensitive first novel, which became a 
best-seller and [...] movie," Ordinary People.
   
  Hope this helps.
   
  
Kevin Perez

			
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