Trusting your Faith?
By Seán Mullan
(From the April - June 2020 issue of VOX)
My joke repertoire is limited. It usually contains one solitary funny story. When I hear another one that I like it expels the previous occupant of the funny slot in my head. If I’m trying to be funny, and it usually involves a good deal of trying, I watch for the sign that my listener has heard my joke before, that facial intensity that shows energy being exerted to appear interested. That’s the signal it’s time to find a new funny story.
One joke that occupied the funny slot concerned two nuns. Out for a Sunday drive, their car ran out of fuel on a country road. They walked to a nearby farm and found a farmer with a kind heart and some fuel he was willing to share with the stranded sisters. But, a bit embarrassed, he told them the only container he could find to hold their precious cargo was a child’s potty. “Not a bother,” they exclaimed, gratefully. Back at the car they were carefully pouring the fuel from the potty into the tank when a well-known Protestant clergyman drove past. Winding down his window he called across the road, “You know sisters, I don’t agree with your religion but I certainly admire your faith.”
“I admire your faith.” Even in post-religious Ireland, it’s not an uncommon term. “She has wonderful faith.” “I’m glad you have your faith for a time like this.” The assumption behind such statements is that faith is something you either have or don’t have. It’s like a talent or a character trait. “You have a wonderful voice.” “You’ve got great style.”
“Confusing religion and faith has been one of the great failings of our recent history.”
But unlike style or a great voice, faith is something all of us have and we all use every day. I don’t mean we’re all religious! And confusing religion and faith has been one of the great failings of our recent history. Nor do I mean that we all believe in a “higher power”. We don’t. But we all have and use faith every day.
Stick with me for an explanation. I use public transport a lot. I have never yet asked a driver for their licence or for a vehicle safety cert. I trust that both driver and vehicle are up to the job. So far that trust has never been disappointed. They may turn up late occasionally but I have never boarded a bus worried that the driver is going to practice handbrake turns or drive us into a wall. I trust the service on the basis of what I know and what I have experienced. In other words, I have faith.
All of us exercise this kind of faith all the time. We trust doctors and baristas, gardaí and checkout staff, electricians and waiters. Without this kind of faith, the world as we know it stops functioning. Bus journeys are interminable because every passenger wants to see the driver’s licence before boarding. Checkout queues stretch the length of the supermarket because everyone is running the sums on their calculators. People would end up afraid to leave home. Life requires faith to make it work.
Here is a big question. Why have we taken the issue of faith in a god and put it in a category of its own? Why is that particular brand of faith a quality that you either have or haven’t got and really can’t do anything about?
If faith in God, like all other forms of faith is based on what we know and experience then it is possible to have conversations that don’t end simply because one of us says “I believe in God” and another says “I don’t.” I recently saw Tommy Tiernan and Bob Geldof on TV chatting about life. During the conversation Geldof declared, “there is no god so I can’t go to him.” Later Tiernan came back to the topic and asked, “Am I naïve to believe that if the heart has a hunger it’s because that food is there somewhere?” He understands that what you believe can be linked to what you know and what you have experienced.
If faith in God has a future in everyday life in Ireland it will be based on what we can know and experience. If not, it may become the remit of the “enlightened” few who are dedicated to what they believe but can’t really explain why. Like the nuns with the potty the rest of us might admire them but won’t feel able to participate.
Seán Mullan has been working in church leadership for many years. He has developed a project in Dublin City Centre called “Third Space”.
