I'll share this only because it's something I wrote to explain to the chaplain why I wasn't comfortable in Church - but could still claim to have Faith:
It is my own belief, therefore my Faith, that I best honour my God, not in flatteries of praise, but in my own simple appreciation of all His gifts; not in paying Him dues, but in giving, of my own free will, to Him, His due respect; not in a raucous worship, but in my silent wonder at a sunset; in the still of a lake; in a swift-moving stream; in the simple beauty of a flower ... in the good in man, for it is in these gifts of Mother Earth, not in an environment created by man to please man in which my Spirit thrives.
That in which man chooses to place his Faith is but a personal preference. It is one's own theological opinion. As an opinion, it can be neither right, nor wrong. God created man as His vision of a man - in His image. We know not the appearance of God. Since this species called man exists in a variety of shades, shapes, tongues, beliefs, and comes in two genders, it seems logical that our own image of God is that which is created by man - for the comfort of man.
I believe there was a man named Christ. I accept Him to be my mentor. I cannot disprove His miracles. I choose not to do so. I understand the Message to be in the man ... in his own acceptance of others for whom they are. In His own time, this man named Christ was persecuted and condemned, by wisdom and ignorance of the day, for His non-conformity and insights ... as I have been in mine. He challenged convention in that He dared to be different. I will not re-crucify my Christ with labels of denomination.
Throughout the history of mankind, the arrogance of man has labelled others and persecuted those who do not conform to his own beliefs. We see it, even today in our alleged enlightened times: in Catholicism versus Orthodoxist versus Protestantism; in Islam versus Christianity versus Judaism versus.... Theology means just that: Theory! No one knows.... He believes. It matters not whether your Higher Power is named as Good Order and Discipline, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Hare Krishna, or Harley-Davidson so long as it gives comfort to you. That's Faith! It is arrogance for one to believe his own Faith to be another's Truth.
When viewed from the peace of space, our little blue planet - another of our gifts from God - is a mosaic of colour, shape and shade: white, blue, brown.... The white of the clouds, vapours of life-giving water, seldom varies in intensity. That is the uniform purity of unconditional love. Blues - the life-givers - remain another constant. Brown denotes fertility and health in a multitude of shades - and those spaces where man can live. Ironically, the browns mark dead spots, and those places densely inhabited by man.
Peace in mind, soul or spirit is an ideal achievable only in acceptance that we cannot control what lives in the hearts of others. In an old Sunday School song, man is labelled as red, yellow, black or white. In my reality, man is those many shades of brown. Our time on this Earth is our Heavens or our Hells, dependent on our own levels of Peace.
Wolf
