Faith

I recently read a great little book on faith simply called "Faith" by Sharon Salzberg. It really opened my eyes up to my situation.

Sharon Salzberg is a Buddhist so much of her ideas on faith come from the Buddhist teachings but they ring a bell of truth that I had to share some of them with you because they certainly opened my eyes to my situation.

I'll begin with what really struck a chord with me the most was when she stated that "...seeing past the apparent randomness of "sheer happenings" to uncover layers and layers of connection...of knowing even in the midst of great suffering, that we can still belong to life, that we're not cast out and alone." That simple statement there that I can still belong to life, that I'm not cast out and alone really made an impact on me cause that's kinda what I've been feeling, is that I don't belong to life with what happened to me; that suffering is my world now and it doesn't have to be. I still belong to life and I'm not alone in my suffering; I'm not cast out because of my scars.

Sharon says that in Buddhist teaching, "suffering is considered the proximate cause of faith. The phrase "proximate cause" means the most likely or the nearest reason. How could suffering that can destroy a person with its implacability, its remoreselessness, be the most likely springboard to faith?...Instead this teaching says that deep suffering, even the night of despair when all faith is gone, can itself be the means to arrive at faith, uncovered, renewed." But when we are in despair and suffering, we feel devastated and alone but this statement says that suffering is the "springboard" to faith. I guess I can see that because with my suffering has come the questioning of my faith because of what happened and without this suffering I may never have known my true beliefs and faith. Suffering has actually brought me closer to faith, even though I am still questioning it right now.

Another thing I have had a hard time with is if I had done something so wrong that that's why my accident happened; as a sort of punishment from God. In the book Sharon states, "Suffering implied I'd done something wrong, hadn't handled my life right." That's exactly how I feel. That I'd done something wrong and because of that I must suffer. But could it possibly be that this happened to me for a reason to question my faith and in that questioning, bring me closer to faith? not that i'd done anything wrong. She says that "Faith began to grown, saying that if I opened my heart and mind big enough to take in the suffering , then there would be healing...Faith is about opening up and making room for event he most painful experiences..." That's been one of my biggest problems maybe, is that I haven't opened my heart and mind big enough to take in the suffering so that there would be healing. Instead I am letting suffering swallow me up without opening my mind and heart to it. This prevents any healing to take place.

And speaking of healing, Sharon also talks about several scientific studies that have explored the power of prayer and distant healing. "The preliminary findings are startling. Even when people were unaware of such efforts on their behalf, it appears that these inteventons have an effect. For example, in a study at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, AIDS patients who, without their knowledge, were prayed for had significantly fewer new AIDS-related diseases, less severe illness, fewer doctor visits and few and short hospitalizations than patients in the control group who were not prayed for." This I can relate to because I have people who pray for me at my church every Sunday whether I'm there or not. I also have friends on Facebook who pray for me when I'm in pain and when I'm going into another surgery and I can attest that it does help. For example, this last surgery, even though it was a "successful failure" the surgery itself went well and I had the shortest hospital stay I've ever had there. And reading what she wrote about those studies, it makes me want to believe that it was because of all the prayers I received from my church family and my Facebook family. So thank you everyone, thank you so very much for all your prayers. They truly do good work so please, I ask of you, do not stop. I have a very long road ahead of me and I humbly ask that you don't stop praying for me.

Zen master Suzuki Roshi expressed: "Sometimes, just to be alive is enough." I need to remember this because despite all my suffering and pain, just to be alive should be enough to keep me going everyday and bring me closer to faith because I almost died that night. The doctors honestly don't know how I survived. For one thing, the paramedics did an amazing job in keeping me breathing because they couldn't get the tube down my throat to get me to breath so they had to manually airbag breath for me all the way to the airport, then to Portland airport, then finally to the hospital and that's nearly impossible. But they kept me breathing and I survived long enough to get to the hospital and undergo emergency surgeries that would also save my life.

So I must remember that despite all my suffering and pain, just to be alive, is simply, enough.