A Little Faith is Worth Something

Meditations on Faith after reading Colossians chapter 1
-Chris Gonzalez

A little faith is worth something, spotted and tattered as it may be. It is worth something because it exists. There is no better case against the forces of Evil than the existence of faith…faith in any condition or size.

Evil has a no tolerance policy on faith and therefore any little scrap of it is an affront. A little quivering, gelatinous splotch of faith is all that is needed to throw Evil into a four-alarm emergency. Faith is so much a threat to Evil that it cannot justifiably and comfortably exist if even one person has one ounce of it. The threat that faith poses to Evil is so striking and so profound that it is like a giant lumbering through a land of tiny, tiny people. It could crush evil, even without trying. Faith, its mere presence, even in its weakest form, keeps Evil awake at night, mind racing, fearful of what to do about the problem. Frantic, manic and paranoid, Evil scurries about for solutions to this impossible problem of Faith.

What lie can be told to diminish faith?

What distraction can be concocted to have faith forgotten, even for a minute?

And yet, all Evil can do is defensively try to put out fires, all the while perplexed and frustrated as to how it is that these fires keep starting.

Evil’s endless movement to extinguish faith is merely a desperate attempt to justify its own existence. One instance of faith pronounces all of evil for all time irrelevant and meaningless. Evil loses when Faith exists. It is all or nothing. Faith may be beaten and bloodied by the wild and reckless flailing attacks of Evil, but Evil is constantly playing defense. Faith assaults Evil by existing. Faith does not have to actually do anything but exist in order to do damage to Evil. Faith with a sense of volition and agency sends Evil into a frenzied rush for the nuclear button. Faith in action takes Evil by the throat.

Oh ye of little faith, you wield a mighty power.

Communion

Breaking deep down;
Time interrupted;
Heartsoul – cracking…crushing
Body fails;
Cries and wails flinging from chapped lips;
Pinned down, exposed, and afraid…
But not alone

…In the company of billions;
Time quarantined;
We gather at one table
Our chapped lips wet with wine,
Our broken bodies strengthened by bread

Bodies as Body sustaining each other.

Novice Mentor

Strained ahead to see
A path worn, but empty
Walking unlead unnerves
No stopping, not turning – must walk.

Walk as though lead
Is how my mentor lead…
But how?

Those young eyes depend,
And I am not yet old.

The World Suffers in Ignorance of You

If people of the world only knew you,
How better they would be,
At living their lives
At finding their lives
Useful and healthy and free

They’d find uses and meanings,
For broken down things,
Life in old tables and chairs and screens;
Repurposing spindles and windows and doors;
(re)Creating whatever they touch;
Taking so little;
Making so much,

Let nothing be wasted

They’d find flavor and taste,
In surprising places;
Neither bags, nor boxes, nor even cartons;
Plucked from trees and vines or dug from the ground;
Close to the source;
Delicious indulgence;
No remorse;

Let health be tasted

They’d break some rules and customs and traditions;
Innocent Rebels;
Meaning for performance and movement and action;
Dancing through life on common senses;
To move is to mean;
Parroting? Waste!
Morally clean.

The world suffers in ignorance of you;

Sing.