In the Name of Faith
Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the things people of “faith” do in the name of their respective faiths…Just take a moment to think of some of the latest things groups of people have done in the name of their faith (need a hint: how about protesting soldiers funerals, suicide bombings, flying planes into buildings, etc).
Most of you know by now that “faith” is extremely important to me. Yesterday, in reading “Oh, the Things I Know!” by Al Franken, I came across a passage that he wrote on faith that I find both humorous and truthful.
“The Hopis say that man is closest to God when he reaches out his hand to help and furthest from God when he raises his hand to strike. This may explain why the Hopis were overrun by the far more warlike Navaho, who have a different saying, which is that your neighbor’s corn will not fill your belly unless you take it from him. I could fill an entire book with these sayings. But most of them would be pretty useless. The point I’m trying to make is that faith in something is better than no faith at all, a lesson the Navaho learned when they were forced onto reservations by white Christians who firmly believed in forgiveness, mercy, and the principle of loving thy neighbor as thyself.”