King's Daughter's Kitchen

If I could erase a word from human vocabulary forever it would be all forms of the word RELIGION, religious, quasi-, etc. Religion: the practice, pursuit, or interest to which someone ascribes. Latin root religio-to bind.  Example: Selfish materialism is the new religion. There is a perfect word for its replacement.

People can read the replacement word all over me, even if they can’t exactly label it.

To the world, I am the same person without my teacher label as I was before I retired, though I have lost weight, grown emotionally wiser, and gained immeasurably much more self respect and grit. The change is what I believe about myself. On the outside, it shows in that I never “dress down”. I do not use a pair of pants except for yard work. I stand taller. I smile more. I  find myself being kind and patient in impossible moments. I speak up boldly when I would have remained silent in the past. I sometimes use the words religion and religious.

However, now, if someone asks me if I am religious, meaning am I bound to a repeated practice over time? My answer is “No.”

If the same person changed the word to the perfect word, FAITH, and ask me, “Are you a woman of faith?”

I would answer, “Yes.”

Faith: Choosing freely to completely trust and have confidence in. Latin-fidere to trust. Hebrew-emunah belief, trust, reliance.

To replace completely the word religion-a binding practice

with the word

faith-a free and complete belief and reliance

This implies lasting results from change in moment to moment action and thought. To have faith means that you live daily what you believe. You act moment to moment upon what you believe to be true. Your acts of faith will change your life.

If you practice sitting in a three-legged chair, you will know how to sit in a three legged chair. If you have faith, absolute belief something is true, that the chair will hold you, you will sit in it without practicing.

Pretend you are about to make the world’s most delicious hot tea. Religion will have you practice making it over and over but never drink and satisfy your thirst. Faith teaches you how to make the tea one time. To drink and be satisfied with the truth. To have a cup that is full.

Faith is an absolute. You choose to believe, or you don’t. Make the tea. Now, take the tea bag and the tea out of the hot water so you have only water left.

The dry tea needs the water just as we need water for hydration. Water makes a reaction. Faith makes a reaction.

Take everything you believe to be true away from you so nothing is true or real. When you have nothing left, where do you go? Do you choose to continue to practice over and over what you already know and hope it works?

Or could you choose a faith in an absolutely freely-given Truth that you could trust and rely on that would satisfy you forever?