Looking Ahead.

 I tramp a perpetual journey.

 -- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

If you've been hanging around The Overflow lately, you may wonder what I have against Elder Holland. The answer is, not a thing in the world. In fact, I have a warm fuzzy memory of him speaking at a fireside at my home when I was a child. I remember sneaking down in my nightgown, crouching outside the hushed living room...and thinking there was something about him there, something in the sound of his voice that was quite remarkable. 

On top of that, he's given a couple of the talks in recent conferences that have been my favorites. So I think it would be fitting that we should look at those too, starting with the one from April 2013.

I felt a personal connection with his talk, Lord, I Believe, because of the second half of the famous scriptural line from which the title is taken..."Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." 

For me, that second part is key.

The idea reminds me of the opening paragraph of a book by (who else?) Anne Lamott -- re-reading her work this summer has it on my brain. She begins her book Traveling Mercies like this: 

"My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear. When I look back at some of these early resting places, I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made. Yet each step brought me closer to the verdant pad of faith on which I somehow stay afloat today."

A series of staggers...sounds about right to me. Or two steps forward, one step back. Or a roller-coaster ride of faith. It goes up, but it can also rush downhill with breathtaking speed. This is because it's subject to the crazy, unpredictable path of our life experiences. And the resulting challenges to our faith can be dizzying and discouraging. Rather than enduring to the end, some days it sounds easier to just step off the ride.

But as Elder Holland says, "Remember, in this world, everyone is to walk by faith." Darn.

His talk begins with the well-known scriptural account of Jesus being approached by a man seeking a blessing for his teeth-gnashing, foaming-mouthed son. 

"'If thou canst do anything,' he said, 'have compassion on us, and help us.'
Jesus said unto him, 'If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.'
And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, 'Lord I believe; help thou mine unbelief.'"

Elder Holland explains, "Observation number one regarding this account is that when facing the challenge of faith, the father asserts his strength first and only then acknowledges his limitation. His initial declaration is affirmative and without hesitation: 'Lord, I believe.' I would say to all who wish for more faith, remember this man! In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited...The size of your faith or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue -- it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you do have and the truth you already know.'"

A brilliant discussion of faith and its relationship to knowledge is found in the writings of gospel scholar and educator Lowell Bennion. He compares the two, readily admitting that knowledge is superior and when it's available, should always be used. For instance, when driving a car, it's better to know by the gauge how much gas is in the tank than to merely have faith that fuel is there. But he describes faith as the means of reaching out to gain additional knowledge, like a searchlight casting its beam into the darkness ahead. While knowledge looks back, faith looks forward. 

In Alma's famous discourse on faith, found in Alma 32:14-43, he encourages us to experiment upon his words, exercise a particle of faith, even if we can do no more than desire to believe. He compares the word to a seed, asking us to plant the seed, tend it carefully (there's the important part -- we cannot neglect the seed after it's planted!) and pay attention to what grows and to how it makes us feel. Alma's object in recommending this experiment with faith is that it will lead us to knowledge.

When scientists gain knowledge, they begin by asking a question. They research. They experiment. They control the variables carefully and then pay attention to what happens. Then they take that knowledge and use it to project a light further into the future, to formulate another hypothesis, to take another leap. 

Sometimes they learn what they wanted to know. Sometimes it's back to the drawing board, re-examining the facts, looking for things they might have missed or searching for other possible ways forward. Sometimes they have to wait for knowledge in other areas to catch up with them so they can supply missing components in order to take the next step. Basically, science is lily pad to lily pad. Just like faith.

The use of the word experiment suggests that we may need to keep trying. When one looks at the innovators who succeeded in creating the world's modern miracles, the most striking thing is how often they failed. Turn on a light, take a photo, fly in a jet, watch TV, talk on a cell phone...the inventors who gave us these life-altering advancements found their way to success through a maze of wrong turns.

Thomas Edison, for instance, failed repeatedly before succeeding with the light bulb. Prior to that magical moment in October 1879, Edison had worked out no fewer than 3,000 theories about electric light, each of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true -- but in only two cases did his experiments work. "Many of life's failures," he said, "are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Hence the value of that difficult little phrase, Endure to the End. Unfortunately, faith is not a destination. Even if it sometimes seems that the other folks on the pew have already arrived, it's simply not true. Because faith is an ongoing experiment in which we are required to engage daily. 

Lowell Bennion asserts that, "No matter how much knowledge a person gains, he is increasingly aware of how much of his life is lived by faith. Faith is an hypothesis, suggested by the existence of some facts, but projecting beyond these to the realm of what might be or could be. Faith then is not cut and dried, is not fixed and static, but is something as dynamic as life itself."

If faith is a product of one's total life experiences, as such it can never be one-size-fits-all. My faith doesn't look like yours. It looks like me. We can borrow a bit and lend a little, but in the end we all have to grow our own. We have to engage in our own experiment upon the word. We have to hope and work and ask and want and wait. And then do it all again.

All of this made me think about running. In my life, running is probably the number one thing I love to hate. Running is inherently about progress, but also about never arriving. Basically, it's a hamster wheel, but one that throws off enough positive results to trick people into doing it. I started running about 15 years ago when I got tired of walking. I wanted to get there faster. Over the course of the years, my running has changed. Due to injury, joint problems and age, I'm no longer able to run as far or as often as I once could. But the challenge and the process remain the same, and the rewards I find from engaging in that process compel me to keep at it. That and my love of baked goods. 

Of course, some days I am just too tired to imagine running, or trying to stay in shape, for the rest of my life. I simply know I can't do it -- it seems ludicrous to try. Why bother when there are donuts in the world and I know darn well I plan to keep eating them? On those days, I have to shorten my vision. Because sometimes the big picture is just too big, and makes me want to kick my sneakers into a corner and nap.

One of my favorite literary characters says that if a woman could see all the dishes she would do in her lifetime piled up in one heap, she would lay down and will herself to die on the spot. Sometimes that's how I feel about running -- like I'm looking at a mighty big pile of dishes. But running happens a day at a time. That's the only way it's sustainable. Luckily, life comes to us in one-second increments. Our progress can be measured in single steps. 

On whole-sinkful-of-dirty-dishes days, we can make the goal be running up the street to the next mailbox. Sometimes when I really think I'm going to die and I must stop NOW, I tell myself I'll just run to the next mailbox. Almost always when I reach that mailbox, I'm able to press on to the next mailbox. I've been known to run 5 miles from mailbox to mailbox. Because if I don't break it down that far, I won't move at all.

Knowledge is the mailboxes in the rear-view. Faith is that next mailbox. The experiment is putting one foot in front of the other. The goal is to keep running to the finish.

Elder Holland draws a second observation from the scriptural account in his talk. He says, "When problems come and questions arise, do not start your quest for faith by saying how much you do not have, leading as it were with your 'unbelief.' Let me be clear on this point: I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have. I am asking you to be true to the faith you do have...Be as candid about your questions as you need to be; life is full of them on one subject or another."

Did you hear that? We need not fear our questions or doubts! As with science, they can serve a useful purpose in propelling our faith forward.

Lowell Bennion describes it like this: "Faith is adventurous and creative. It not only is the sphere of the possible, but is also the power which often makes the possible come into being. Faith is that remarkable quality of the human spirit which first envisages the possibilities of life, then lives as though these possibilities were realities, and by this action often makes them real. In the realm of knowledge, one conforms to what is; in the realm of faith, one creates life after the image carried in his heart. Faith adds another dimension to life. Recognizing the borders of knowledge, it transcends them."

In other words: Fake It 'til You Make It. Act as if you have it, live faithfully, and...Bingo! I love that idea, because it makes it seem like I may have just a bit more control over the state of my own faith. 

If I want a testimony of prayer, pray.

If I want a testimony of tithing, pay it.

If I want to love others better or more, show more love to others.

Get work done by working.

Move forward by taking steps. 

Sound easy? It isn't. But it isn't rocket science either. I know how to get there. I just need to begin. And tomorrow, begin again.

No matter how tough the road gets, I can always desire to believe. I can use that desire to fuel my experiment, thereby progressing through faith toward knowledge. 

And yes, even I probably always possess more than I think I do.  Mailbox to mailbox. One lily pad to the next. Throwing my own puny light ahead into the darkness, but then following it with a step forward.

As Elder Holland concludes, "Hope on. Journey on. Honestly acknowledge your questions and your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all things are possible to them that believe."

Bingo.

- S.