Belief , Faith and Chaos

I'm relaxing now, and have been in the mood to do a mental exercise I do from time to time. I reflect on a word that describes something I've experienced and I look the definition of that word up. If I've experienced it, you'd assume I know the meaning - but I think concepts such as words are sometimes like the facets of a diamond. There are many different angles that it can be seen from.

So tonight it was "chaos." I came to a place with the definitions that I found where I posted the following FB status:

"In order for chaos to exist, we have to believe in predictability. The degree to which we have faith in predictability determines how chaotic we find our circumstances to be. What if we had faith in WHAT IS, rather than what we'd like it to be?"

Where I was going with it was that a lot of times we say things like "I have faith that it will all work out," or "I have faith in my God/Creator/Higher Power," etc. and yet when things don't work out as we'd anticipated they would, we may suddenly find ourselves thrown into chaos. However, the chaos is really because the anticipation we had of what we thought would happen was ruined. So how is it that we give such power to anticipation, rather than to that origin from which we had our initial faith?

When I say "I have faith that it will all work out" I usually mean that I've got a belief that however it all works out, whether in my favor or not, I will find meaning and a way to make sense of what happened in retrospect. So in other words, I don't give power over to my anticipation, or what I think I want to happen. I anticipate anything might happen, and work with WHAT IS when it happens.

But here it gets interesting...I just looked up belief and faith and found quite a bit of difference - faith requires a level of certitude (certainty) whereas belief appears to begin with a phenomenon and seeks out evidence to confirm or refute the truth of the matter. So might it be said that faith maintains a certainty of truth, but belief seeks out the truth?

So what does that mean when I say that I have faith in my Creator? Usually when people say that, it's related to an outcome of anticipated events, typically assumed to be of a potentially negative nature. There's some level of expectation there, placed on whatever or whomever a person calls their God.

I don't know that it's right for me to have such expectations of my Creator. I mean, wasn't it enough that I was given the gift of life? The whole idea of having expectations that my Creator's going to take the presumed negative out of my life gives me pause. I'm envisioning it as if "God is my Quarterback and He's gonna take you, (it) down!" Somehow, it doesn't feel right, or fit with my relationship to a Creator/God/Higher Power.

What if the WHAT IS, the impending chaos, is just a gift from said Creator in the first place? It's difficult when you feel you're in the middle of it to take the long view on what gifts come from it.

I rather think that I will change the language that I use going forward. If I were to say "I have a belief that it will all work out" it means that I will seek evidence for it all working out, and seek out the truth beyond the chaos.

It may be closer to the truth for me to say "I believe in the Creator." In looking up the word "believe" I discovered that discovered that the Old English origin of the word means several things, including "to allow" and possibly "dear" as it relates to love and affection.

It would be nice to think of allowing the Creator into my life, in a loving, affectionate way. I much prefer that image to the quarterback one!

In considering it that way, then too, might I lovingly allow what challenges I'm given, that at the time feel very chaotic? If I were to do that, is it possible that I would see WHAT IS in a circular fashion, rather than the straight on view of the diamond that only allows me to see one facet of it? Might the gifts of WHAT IS then become more apparent?

While, admittedly, this all sounds like heady, esoteric thinking, let's bring it to a practical level. Were we only to stay in our one position thinking in relation to chaos, we could easily miss the gifts due to our frustration that what we thought would happen didn't. Those gifts exist and were created exclusively for us, based on something the Creator/God/Higher Power feels that we NEED. If we don't see the gifts in order to claim them for our own, we are still missing something that we need.

So what happens then? I believe we seek it out in the externals and escapism that is rampant in our society. Some seek out that fulfillment or gift in relationships, hoping the other person will give it to them. Others seek it out in drugs, alcohol, high risk behaviors, hoping to fill the void or give them an experience. LIFE IS AN EXPERIENCE. We don't have to seek it out or create new drama in order to have an experience. It is WHAT IS. Some will fall prey to seeking it out in the idolization of pop stars, rock stars, movie stars. The list is seemingly endless...

So, if we don't seek out and claim our gifts, we seek fulfillment other places. One last word look up - the word, "fulfill" - means in Old English "to fill" and the definition of it talks of "to make full, to put into effect..." and, (my favorite):

"to convert into reality..to develop the full potentialities of..."

We can't convert into reality or develop the full potentialities of ourselves by expecting our fulfillment to come due to externals and escapism. It just doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Because of the error of our faith in the predictability that we can get it externally at all. When we don't (and it will happen), it throws us into chaos because we expected a different outcome.

Well, those are some lengthy thoughts to ponder - FB friends, if you've read this far (bless you for your persistence! LOL) What's your take on it?

(All definitions found at Merriam Webster online dictionary)