As I sit with my laptop in front of the fire, I’m looking out into a beautiful, peaceful, snowy woods behind my house. The morning sky is gray and quiet; the wind is still. Every twig and branch is delicately lined with glistening white snow. It’s so silent and restful—an invitation into being and presence. I’m drinking it in with every slow, deep breath, welcoming it into my soul. I alternate between gazing silently out into the snowy wonderland and then coming back to my computer to type another few sentences. It’s like the world is standing still and a healing balm is washing over me. A renewal of trust and faith in these unsettling times when so much in my country and in the world feels like it is coming undone.
Between the daily barrage of news and my own personal journey of late, I’ve been reflecting on faith and trust and what they mean for me now. Broadly speaking, I have deep faith that there is a Greater Intelligence at work within all of life’s unfolding. Yet I’m also aware that if I allow myself to get lost in the many and vast uncertainties of these times, I could easily doubt whether such an Intelligence really exists.
Yet when I gaze out into the snowscape pictured above, I’m quickly brought back home to that deep faith. I don’t pretend to understand the bigger picture of all that is happening, personally or globally, yet still my faith remains. I do believe that there is a reason or purpose for all things, even though I may not ever fully understand what or why.
I also have a deep trust within me that no matter what happens, somehow, I will be ok. I no longer dwell on what “ok” might look like, because in my past, it’s rarely looked like I might have imagined. Yet even in the darkest moments and biggest challenges of my life, I have been taken care of. I have rarely felt alone, and for that I am deeply grateful. And I also realize that not everyone has this experience to rely on. Maybe their sense of trust has been betrayed too many times; there might be a lot to heal. So, I don’t take this trust that I feel for granted.
At the same time, my faith and trust are not blind. They are grounded in life-long experience of being guided and directed in the moment. The more I am learning about what it means to live in the “eternal present”—a present moment that holds all that has ever been and all that is yet to come—the more I strive to live there. Indeed, sometimes I get afraid, or I get lost in the uncertainties all around me. Yet I keep practicing staying present with that fear and uncertainty. And now, as I look out into the silent, snowy woods, my heart calms, my breath deepens, and I slide more easily into that “eternal present.”
My friend Cate McQuaid is an art critic for the Boston Globe; she also writes her own column here on Substack. I especially love her writing when she peels back the layers of life and art together. In her January 26th Substack, she wrote about artist Cicely Carew who was installing a new exhibition of her work at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. Cate describes Cicely Carew’s work as “regenerative.” Cate writes, “She makes things, takes them apart, and reassembles her materials into something new.”
Those words feel like beautiful, simple guidance for living. From early childhood, we begin “making” our lives. And then, at some point, the life we have made starts to feel less relevant, so we “take apart” what we have created. And then we take the “materials” of our lives so far and the pieces and experiences we are drawing to us and begin to create something new. And when that new creation no longer feels relevant, we take some of the pieces apart again and combine new and old to create the next iteration of who we are and how we live. That’s certainly been a pattern in my life. In fact, as I prepare to turn 70 in two months, I’m once again in a “taking apart” and “making new” period.
Cate continued, “Talking with [Cicely], I came to understand exactly what the phrase ‘a force of nature’ means. She spoke of her practice as if it were indeed a natural force. And it is! We humans are natural beings. As a bee gathers honey, a person creates, a person loves. We can be so generative and channel such clarity and love if we just keep clearing out the clogs and let the force flow. That’s near constant work,” Cate writes, “but it can be joyful, and it opens to such tenderness, sparkling, and buoyancy.”
“Clearing out the clogs and let the force flow.” Those words describe what the snowy woods and the “eternal present” are giving me now. As I gaze and write, and then gaze and write again, the “clogs” within me are being cleared away so that the force of my faith and trust can flow. The parts of me that have sometimes felt a bit lost since the stroke three weeks ago are coming back online again.
Cate closed her article with another quote from Cicely Carew: “I feel like the more you are able to feel, that’s where I want to be, rather than separate from it.”
At this point in writing this post, the snow had stopped, and I wanted to feel that snowy peacefulness—to be in it, not just look at it from inside by the fire. So, I put on my coat and hat and out the door I went. As I walked, the feeling of the snowscape became even more magical. The light was changing as cloudy gray skies gave way to bright blue, and the snow-lined twigs and branches sparkled in crystalline brilliance. The sun felt warm on my face in the cold, crisp air.
I walked with the thought,
Make something new with the materials life brings you.
Life keeps bringing me experiences that deepen my awareness of the “eternal present” and how I am showing up—my own presence—in the realities of the world around me. I continue to focus on what is mine to do in these times and what isn’t. And every day, I recognize deep in my soul that, in fact, I can’t not do what is mine to do. Even when I don’t feel like it. Even when I think “How could it possibly matter?” in the face of all that is happening.
Six or seven years ago, when my mother was growing weary from her health challenges and the physical realities of her later life, I found a greeting card with the inscription, “Some days you don’t feel like singing. Sing anyway.” For years, my mother had an unfailing ability to find light in almost any darkness, but she was losing touch with that light. When she opened the card, she smiled gently as she recognized its message for her. These days, I take that message for myself as well.
One of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s latest poems says it another way.
Instead of Losing Faith
for K., Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.
After all the hours of dressing up
and combing our hair and trying
to show our best face to the world,
we find ourselves bare, naked,
haunted, and painfully, wondrously clear,
full of visions and limitations, aware
of the great invitation to be kind. And
if we’re lucky, we burn with hope.
It isn’t safe, this life. Don’t let anyone
tell you otherwise. But if you are able,
as you listen to the screaming, sing.
Sing through the walls. Sing of miracles,
healing and light. Sing. Because when
all else is ash, still, we can sing. We can sing.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
So much is changing in our countries and in our world right now, and perhaps in your close-in circles as well. Many of those changes might feel unsettling, perhaps dangerous, and quite possibly destructive to life as we have known it. These times will not always feel safe. Yet in our own ways, we can keep singing. We can keep living into who we are called to be. We can keep doing what is ours to do.
And we can clarify what faith and trust mean in our own lives, even if they are ever-changing and evolving. Because we’re going to need faith and trust as we navigate the coming years. If you find that your relationship with faith and trust is fluid and sometimes falters, and maybe even takes work on your part, just know that that’s normal. Especially in disruptive and unsettling times. Sometimes, leaning into faith and trust is easy; other times, not so much. You might have to choose at times where you put your trust, where you put your faith. And maybe also acknowledge to yourself where you can no longer put your faith and trust. For all of us, in these unsettling times, it’s important to have clarity about who we are, clarity about our intentions and actions in our daily lives.
If faith and trust play a significant part in your life already, you have something to lean into. And if not, I invite you to spend some time with them. Walk with them. Sit with them. Let them talk with you, and you with them. Explore how faith and trust might serve you now. There is no right or wrong about what or who you have faith in—who or what you trust. Maybe your first trust is in yourself, or in a relationship, or a belief, or an institution, or a higher power, or…. What matters is that you have a sense of trust and faith that can sustain you as life goes on.
Invitations
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Beautiful! A very helpful reminder about trust and faith -- so necessary for all that we face in the world today. Thank you!
Alan, what a comfort to read about your trust and faith this morning, in these chaotic times. And a surprise to see myself there (and the luminous Cicely Carew)! I love Rosemerry's poem. I think that's Cicely's message, too. Thank you. 🙏🏻