On the Word for "Faith" in Masai

"I was sitting talking to a Masai elder about the agony of belief and unbelief. He used two languages to respond to me -- his own and Kiswahili. He pointed out that the word [we] had used to convey faith was not a very satisfactory word in their language. It meant literally to agree to." I, myself, knew the word had that shortcoming. He said "to believe" like that was similar to a white hunter shooting an animal with his gun from a great distance. Only his eyes and his fingers took part in the act. We should find another word. He said that for a man to really believe is like a lion going after its prey. His nose and eyes and ears pick up the prey. His legs give him the speed to catch it. All the power of his body is involved in the terrible death leap and the single blow to the neck with the front paw, the blow that actually kills. And as the animal goes down the lion envelopes it in his arms (Africans refer to the front legs of an animal as its arms), pulls it to himself, and makes it part of himself. This is the way a lion kills. This is the way a man believes. This is what faith is." Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, p. 48

Ecclesiastes for the Middle Class

Several years ago, I bought a provocatively titled book by Douglas Coupland, Life After God. Coupland's writings have had some degree of influence; it was he who coined the term Generation X. I initially bought the book because I wanted to understand the thinking of those who considered religious belief to be completely irrelevant; indeed, the given theme is, "You are the first generation raised without religion." (something which would resonate more in some parts of the West than in others) As it turns out, Coupland's collection of vignettes about rootlessness and irony ultimately seem to be pointing to the emptiness of seeking solace apart from God. These little interconnected stories and observations culminate in a confessionastories and observations culminate in a confessional paragraph. His protagonist narrates,

Now--here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love (Douglas Coupland, Life After God (New York: Pocket Books, 1994), p. 359)

I see this as reflected in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, in which the author laments on the meaninglessness of life without God, even with all the wealth and pleasures a fabulously wealthy king had available. It is famously reflected in another famous passage as well, which I will reproduce here, from Blaise Pascal's Pensées. The author writes,

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

And yet, after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions.

A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform, should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us little. No resemblance is ever so perfect that there is not some slight difference; and hence we expect that our hope will not be deceived on this occasion as before. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us and, from misfortune to misfortune, leads us to death, their eternal crown.

What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself. He only is our true good, and since we have forsaken him, it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature which has not been serviceable in taking His place; the stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, pestilence, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since man has lost the true good, everything can appear equally good to him, even his own destruction, though so opposed to God, to reason, and to the whole course of nature.

Some seek good in authority, others in scientific research, others in pleasure. Others, who are in fact nearer the truth, have considered it necessary that the universal good, which all men desire, should not consist in any of the particular things which can only be possessed by one man, and which, when shared, afflict their possessors more by the want of the part he has not than they please him by the possession of what he has. They have learned that the true good should be such as all can possess at once, without diminution and without envy, and which no one can lose against his will. And their reason is that this desire, being natural to man, since it is necessarily in all, and that it is impossible not to have it, they infer from it...(Blaise Pascal, Pensées (tr. W. F. Trotter), (1660; English translation 1944; , accessed July 13, 2007), Ch. VI section 425)

Augustin said it more concisely, but perhaps with equal elegance, when he said, "You have created us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Interesting Prophecy in Ancient Jewish Literature

The following is from an ancient Jewish book usually referred to as the Wisdom of Solomon, though written not by King Solomon, but rather by an unnamed philosophically minded Jew. Most likely in Alexandria, Egypt, the same city which produced Philo, whose writings carry a similar flavor. The excerpt below is not only a writing of great beauty, but of deep spiritual and perhaps supernatural insight. Wisdom as a whole shares elements in common with both Philo and with the writings revealed to John in the Injil Sharif, particularly in presenting an understanding of Wisdom as being a personification of the Uncreated Word of God as Savior and Creator. In the passage below, however, it adds something more: A prophetic description of the Death of the Living Word and Wisdom Himself on behalf of humankind. It was most likely written in the late 1st century B.C.E.

"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."
Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
for God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity,
but through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it. (Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-24, RSV translation)

True Fana fi'llah

I posted the below earlier in the comments of an earlier post, but I thought it worth presenting in its own right:

My personal favorite analogy of a proper perspective of concept of Union with Allah is the description given by the great Sadhu Sundar Singh nearly a hundred years ago. He wrote:

Seeker: Is the goal of prayer to lose our individuality and dissolve into oneness with God?

Sadhu: We have been created in the image of God. Our destiny is to be restored into that image. God came to us in the Master to restore us to God’s divine nature. In this way, the Master transforms us into flames of spiritual fire. To become spiritual fire means to become like God. Even the smallest flame of fire is fire and has all the qualities of fire. This does not mean that our spirit is God’s spirit, as some pantheists and philosophers suppose. We are not fragments of God’s spirit. We are not God. God is distinct from us, but our souls can only find peace in oneness with God.

A sponge lies in the water and the water fills the sponge, but the water is not the sponge and the sponge is not the water. It is the same when I immerse myself in God. God fills my heart and I am in complete union with God, but I am not God and God is not I. We are distinct though not separate.

People are very different from one another – in character, temperament, and abilities – even though we are all created in the image of God. Indeed, if all the flowers in the world were of the same color and scent, the very face of the earth would lose its charm. When the sun’s rays pass through colored glass, the color does not change, but the sun highlights and reveals its varied hues, its true charm. So the sun of righteousness shines through the varied characters of spiritual men and women, revealing God’s boundless glory and love." (Sadhu Sundar Singh, The Wisdom of the Sadhu (E-Book)(Kim Comer, ed.; Farmington, PA: The Bruderhof Foundation, 2003), pp. 121-123)