On Faith

For my day job, I take people through the treetops on ziplines. In this job, people start crying for one of two reasons. The beauty of it all. Or the height. (Or, one on occasion, because they were going through a nasty divorce. But that was an anomaly). 

Our treetop course is incandescent. In between zips, you rest on whimsical treehouses, level with the tippy tops of the tallest trees. Yet you still feel small, because you are nestled in the cradle of a valley surrounded on three sides by mountains. The mountains are so far above you that you sometimes feel like you are resting in the belly of a giant mixing bowl, rimmed by ceramic blue-green peaks. Birdsong drifts in and out of your consciousness. On several platforms, you can hear a river. Like I said, incandescent. 

But then there are the platforms themselves. They are 60 feet off the forest floor. There are no railings. The platforms are made of wooden beams with two to three inches between each one, so that you can look between your feet and see all the way down to the weeds a plummeting distance below. (I have often wondered about the person who designed these platforms. Were they lacking in wood, or empathy?)  

Bad things happen if people look down. They don’t fall - they’re clipped in at all times. (We make people work for it if they want to sue us). But their legs begin to shake. They clasp an iron grip on their harness or their spouse or me. They make jokes about death. I laugh. They tell me they’re not joking. They cry. 

Bad things happen if people look down. 

Now, if you’ll allow me. We are going to set the image of the treetop platforms aside for a moment. Put it in a box with a ribbon around it, give it a kiss, and place it somewhere safe. We will be needing it later. In the meantime, let’s talk about religion. 

I do not identify as Christian, but I have great fascination, and often admiration, for those who do. I am especially intrigued by the way people reckon with truths that cannot seem to coexist. For instance, when good things happen - kindness is received, blessings are granted, none of the guests faint on the treetop platforms - people take it as evidence of God’s benevolence. And yet when tragedy strikes, it does not follow that we must take it as evidence of divine spite. Of course, there are many who would attribute it all to God’s grand plan. I personally find this an unsatisfying response. And there are Christians, too, who this answer does not quell. And yet they remain Christian. They remain people of faith. 

I find myself baffled by faith in this form. How does one draw comfort from an ideology based on unanswerable questions? How can one believe that God is good, and has the power to affect outcomes, and that bad things happen? I was perplexed by this because I viewed conflicting truths as a sign of untruth. I no longer believe this to be the case. 

I can feel my rational readership growing skeptical. Stick with me. I’lll give you an example. I have a vivid memory of sitting around the campfire with my brother and my Mom and my Pop when I was fairly small. I put a marshmallow on a stick. I thought “Wow. This is lovely.” I saddled the stick up beside some nice hot flames. I thought “Holy shit. Any one of my family could die tomorrow.” And then the marshmallow caught on fire. 

Both the comfort of the moment and its terrifying fragility are both technically true. And yet the truths conflict, or at least do not occupy space together well. Like bickering children, they need to be sent to their separate rooms. 

I used to think my job was to make these truths coexist. I tried to pursue all the mental paths of disaster and still be ok. I thought the alternative - refusing to ruminate on the possibility of a family member’s sudden demise - was to ignore truth. And ignoring any truth is certainly a sign of cowardice. 

And so I would think about it. Like my own ruthless personal trainer of the spirit, I would put myself through the paces of pondering potential tragedies. The goal here was to assure myself that I had resources, support, and fortitude no matter what. All of this was true. And yet, stunningly, the exercise did not leave me feeling relaxed. Because what I really wanted was to assure myself that I was not afraid of falling. And in this particular mission, I always failed. Everyone is afraid of falling. 

These days, I’m no longer interested in focusing on the fall. That is the point of faith. For the Christian Folk I want to learn from, faith is the ability to soak up God’s blessings and bask in God’s benevolence even while God’s relationship to tragedy is a mystery that persists. My own conception of God is a subject for another essay, but for now suffice it to say that there is a lot to love. Laughter and play and family and friends and stories and big tall trees. Faith is the courage to cherish and celebrate and let myself need these things, even if they can be taken away.  

In my book, faith has become nearly indistinguishable from courage. To quote my Dad quoting Iris Dement, it is the courage to “let the mystery be.” It is the courage not to explore every mental path, or prod the bruise of every place that provokes cognitive dissonance. I think of mental paths as trails through the woods. You can know that certain trails are there and still, every day, choose different ones. Keep the no-trespassing sign on the gate. Bend your steps towards the path that’s going to end up with you and a PB and J and a hammock by the river. 

Now, at last, we have come back to the treetops. Are you ready? Find the box wherever you left it, untie the ribbon, and remember. You are high up in a tulip poplar. The higher up you go, the further you have to fall. The folks who get their money’s worth are the ones who manage to be elated by the elevation anyway. 

It’s interesting how the advice comes so easily to us in the trees. No one lays a comforting hand on their child’s shoulder and says “honeyboo, just deny that your’re sixty feet up in a tree.” That would be a preposterous request to make of someone. But day after day, people tell their loved ones not to look down. Because we know, instinctually, that there is a difference between denial and choosing not to pay attention. This is faith. It’s figuring out what you believe in enough to look up at. And it’s choosing not to look down.