Faith and the Empath

“Oh, but I need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
Oh, when that love comes down without devotion
Well, it takes a strong man, baby
But I’m showin’ you the door

‘Cause I gotta have faith
I gotta’ have faith”

-George Michael

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Even to the devout, Faith can be a difficult thing.  Faith is so much more than the simplistic term “belief”.  Faith is the entity that emits an energy so strong that it is often viewed as a being.  Where does Faith come from?  Why does it feel like a solid, gold cord that wraps through a person and seems to coil around their being?

I  like to believe that my Faith is a part of me.  It is wrought iron through my body and supports me when the external becomes more than I can bear.

Faith in others can be frightening because it is often Faith in something that makes people do the terrible things they do.

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So where does it come from?  Is it bestowed by a higher power?  Are we born into this world with these strong cords peeling through the deepest parts of us, or do these chains form in our conscious and unconscious as we go through this life?

This is how it feels: Faith feels embedded in people, so I find it difficult to believe that we acquire it during this lifetime.  It is a belief that is so strong that it reaches beyond reason and captures a truth that is explainable.  It cannot be pulled out of people, but I have felt when a person loses their Faith.  There was a man whose picture I read as he was dying.  His family did not understand why he was unable to speak and why he was not going gently into that good night.  He was holding on, but they did not know to what.  My friend (his niece) asked me to read his picture to see what I felt.  As I read him, I felt his loss of Faith.  It was a struggle in him that tore him apart.  I saw that it had happened because of the death of his wife.  He lost his Faith then and now he was scared to die.  I felt the scars that Faith had left on him even as he fought to destroy that part of him.  I felt the torture of his lost Faith and what was going to happen in the afterlife.  I told my friend to get him a priest or pastor to assure him that he would be forgiven.  Someone who could explain to him that his Faith was not truly gone. It was only in tatters.  Tell him that God understands.  She did as I said, and he passed away in his sleep that night.

If you have Faith or do not, do not fret. It is not a thing to buy or force.  If it is right for you, Faith will find you and bind you.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

T. S. Eliot, East Coker

Love, Light, and perhaps Faith, my friends!

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