Living in faith

The kind of blinkered faith that believes in a 'personal' God- One who loves you unconditionally and will never fail you etc, always seems like blind denial to me. Is such a God really possible, and if yes, how does he (as a neutral pronoun, those more particular are welcome to substitute :)) exist in the obvious contradictions that would ensue? One man wants to steal and kill, the other man wants to protect. How can the same God grant both wishes, and if he does not, is the answer only "Have faith, God will give you another chance" to both?

A post by a friend, and several discussions with another, prompted the attempt below (And yes, this is my way of saying- Blame them, not me ;))

Despite my opening ideas, faith is, to me, essential to existence. The contradiction and confusions come in when we choose to make faith personal, believe that the universe exists solely to fulfil our desires. I prefer, instead, the idea of a balance, the universe as a tightrope and a free-fall and the swinging grace of the trapeze artiste.

There are those of us who choose the tightrope- We insist on one god, one purpose, and refuse to look up from our feet. We clutch the rope between our toes, fearful of looking up or around, at anything beyond this rope, this rope that we believe is the One True Thing. Some people are fortunate enough to make it from one end of the rope to the other, with only a few close shaves. Others fall, crashing down into the sticky web of 'reality' that awaits below.

When we fall, some of us look up, spot the rope, and focus our energies on getting back on it, and when we do, forget the fall, and never question the time the Rope failed to hold us up. Others hate the rope for letting them down, and struggle the rest of the way across the netting, limbs poking,losing balance, and insisting, announcing,that the rope failed them and this struggle is, in fact, the easier way. Who needs a higher power, when we have limbs to plod along, however unwieldy the path?

And there are those that spot the swings, realize that life isn't a straight and narrow way, and the rope will not always hold you up. Learning to swing is tricky, rising and falling in the rhythms of these ropes and bars, staying perfectly tuned to the universe of the trapeze. Of course we fall, sometimes, and need to struggle with unpleasantly close encounters with reality- but this is usually when we haven't yet learned the perfect balance. There are as many ways to be held lightly through confidence and faith, as there are ways to forget both and fall.

The question is- do you have faith in the rope, the net, or your capacity to move in perfect synchrony with the swings?