Reagarding Faith......

[flofrog]

You got a main part of what I had in mind with that metaphor: inner life having changed greatly, comparing a few before-and-after stages. In not really being clear where I am going, at present in life, I've also been thinking of that as currently moving through a "corridor of change" of uncertain length.

One detail leads things around in a curious circle, the idea of "faith in the general process". Before the current stage of growth of faith, I had something else. I was very deeply, and rigidly, devoted to the best abstract ideals I could find; that was my spirituality before mid-2015. It was all personal discipline while pulled between abstract hopes and fears. What I called faith back then is very abstract, concerned with the big picture of everything and not something which greatly touches life in practice.

The change happening after that is impossible to describe well in writing. But the newer personal process which began resulted in the destruction of the old main hopes, fears, and discipline. In their absence, there's now the current stage of growth of faith. The faith is almost like something which is there instead of a vacuum.



 

so about faith...  [...] So you know I have a feeling  that that kind of faith is very close to unconditional love, and it is faith because our dad was always, always an optimist and he used to tease us saying, you are not going to be a pessimist, it is such an easy way !!!

It is quite a contrast to the mentality I've had. Maybe it is not really pessimism which is the big difference, but rather being very deeply alienated and, even though caring a lot when relating to individuals, being very cynical and misanthropic when considering humanity in general and the big picture.

Your family story is one more story where one of the themes is that some people can go through a lot of difficult things and still be really optimistic.

A kind of counter-theme is in the distanced, weird nerds who, when asked how they arrived at their bitter, cynical and disillusioned views, simply respond that they have because they have been thinking. (It may not be a very good response, the word "thinking", but it is a honest best effort at a good response.) That's how I was in the mid-00's.

One of several possible keys to such differences may be the "sense of self" that a person has. My guess is that, in the case of your dad, it was large and well-developed, with a good sense of personal identity.

I think there was something deeper than just staying positive about my dad but he was very reserved about speaking 'spiritually'  instead he would be witty and want to make us laugh.  There was a certain elegance to the way he was, or something where he wouldn't infringe and we would not in reaction to him, and love passed through wit and jokes. I think these long months in Germany made him think and feel deeply about life, I could be wrong.  But when he passed away,  my brother just had had a brain tumor,   so I was the one to clean up his office which he still had outside. One closet had three shelves of written cards and letters, all thrown together haphazardly.  The lovely woman who had worked with him as his secretary said to me it was all the cards or letters sent to him by people for whom he had found a job, his door was always opened to anyone, so he was like a little job agency to himself.  Lol,  looking back at him I guess he was aiming to polarize STO,  lol.

Asolsutsesvyl,   I so love your sentence  ' In their absence, there's now the current stage of growth of faith. The faith is almost like something which is there instead of a vacuum.'  That it ' is almost like something which is there instead of a vacuum .'   That strikes me a such an excellent subtle image of faith.

Exactly happened to me too  around early 80s, such a great image, thank you