"The Scriptures call us into a personal struggle like Jacob's. He wrestled with an angel of Yahweh (Genesis 32:24-31) In that personal involvement, in our personal wrestling match with the mystery of God, we come to faith. Faith is not just another competing ideology. It is more a process than a conclusion, more a way of relating than a way of explaining, more wrestling match than a classroom lesson." (R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p.73)
One of my favorite sports is wrestling. I wrestled in high school. Grinnell didn't have a wrestling team, (strange for a school in Iowa). Both of my boys have wrestled, and Mike still is, I'm hoping Peter starts again next year. Wrestling isn't for everyone. It is an individual sport that has a team score. There are very few sports like it. So when I see the notion of wrestling being used to describe faith, I get excited.
Fr. Rohr said that faith is not just another competing ideology. I take that to mean for me, that faith is really what supports my other ideologies, my politics, my ethics, my stewardship, my work, and my relationships.
As someone who lives well in ambiguity, and doesn't see the world as an ongoing either or choice, the idea that faith is a process more than a conclusion, also resonates. Though I've met many folks for whom faith has to give decisive answers, or they panic.
I'm with him on faith being about relating more than explaining. Though I do think sometimes in the relating, we find an explanation for the why questions. And if faith is brave and secure enough it will enter into dialogue and relationship with the fields that answer the why questions.
Faith certainly for me is that wrestling match. Whether it be wrestling with pieces of scripture, or struggling with the harder questions in life, that defy explanation. I certainly have had classroom lesson in faith, lots of Sunday School growing up, and 3 years of seminary, but the best of all of those were the ones that got me thinking and inquiring, rather than spoon feeding me the answers.
Blessings,
Ed
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