Reflections for 9/5/10

"Being lowered into the baths at Lourdes an act of humiliation and trust, an act of faith. Your mind wants to say, Why do this? What does this mean? What is this going to do? It seems everything in our life has to have an immediate visible effect, or it hasn't 'worked.'
That attitude is a terrible enemy of faith because faith is not in the realm of the practical; faith means entering into the world of mystery, where deeper energies are at work, where transformation takes place even though nothing appears to change."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p.298)

I have never been to Lourdes, perhaps one day but I certainly have heard of it. There are other "healing shrines" throughout the world some right here in the good old USA. A place where people go because nothing else has worked or makes sense. There are obviously people who literally get healed at these places, or no one would show up. I suspect that more people have a healing or strengthening that is different from what they originally went to the site for.

One of the biggest problems in our world is a lack of patience. Because we expect immediate gratification if it doesn't happen we move on to the next quick fix. Usually to be disappointed by that. This may be why faith is so hard to understand or often gets rejected outright. No instant gratification, no major zap for the most part. Occasional glimmers of something bigger, but unless you go deeper than your immediate senses, faith won't make much sense. That may also be why I have a very hard time explaining why I believe, I just know that it has worked for me all my life, sometimes in ways I didn't originally expect.

Blessings,
Ed