Reach out touch Faith

Faith…Reflections 19.10.2019

Faith can move mountains…but so can a Cat 797F…

A slight digression to the chapters I’ve been writing down (what I remember from the years working at Dunlop Tyres!)

This beast will set you back a cool 5 million USD, each tyre weighs 5.3 tons (and you need 6 of them) !

Fuel tank is 7500 liters (2000 US gal), Payload 360 tons.

I digress but I do love Mining Trucks and there is nothing like seeing them up close and personal!

Getting back to Faith.

Faith is something crucial to anyone who is going through some degree of trauma. Without some modicum of faith, enduring hardship or pain seems to be almost pointless?

I think a lot of people confuse Faith with Religion …a delicate subject as they are not altogether disconnected. To me Faith is a voice inside you that despite your best efforts to be doubtful is able to focus you to see through the noise.

Faith is also not “Blind Faith”…after all we are not lemmings. I prefer to think that my “Faith” is a blend of our life experience, character, knowledge, convictions, and believing in something…Purpose?

“Blind Faith” to me is simply following and believing in something despite knowing anything, lacking touch points of experience. This is not to say the one is correct and the other not – it is what makes sense for the person. I am always too stubborn, obstinate to simply follow. I prefer a combination of facts, research, experience, understanding AND a little “Gut Feel”

I have being following the “research” I found on the impact on Mitochondrial renewal via fasting (I have just today finished my second 96 hour fast) , I have faith that despite the challenges of watching the Cooking Challenge while fasting for  days 😊 …the logic makes sense. The act of fasting causes the body to “renew” vital cells and eliminates damaged ones…I have Faith that it is doing something positive for me. I also have faith that with all the research going on with Neurological degenerative conditions there will be a solution in years to come.

I may still benefit from these, I may not.

The positive is that when I was diagnosed there was “No cure”, now 5 years later there is “Hope” or as the neurologist puts it, ”Don’t do anything foolish, next year there may be something”…

I have also seen that many of my colleagues have been through really tough “life-altering” events where they really needed to draw on their “Faith” to see them through. I take great strength from their support and wisdom to buffer my own Faith.

I think parallel to “Faith” is indeed “Purpose”

I realise now how difficult I must have been when every time one of my girls was going through a really rough patch I always answered, ”You need to have faith” , not hope , not excuses …just Faith

Of course from the very first sentence all I can hear in my head is …Reach out touch Faith…or as we always sing “Reach out touch Jake “…so it would be absolutely criminal not to share a DM link !!!! (Violator, Personal Jesus-1989)

Conveniently titled the “Songs of Faith and Devotion” (1993)…another one of the Modes best (I think, although every album is special to me!). “Walking in my shoes”,…too good !

Enough of the distractions, so where I am going with this train of thought?

Faith, Hope …what drives us forward when we inherently believe we cannot go any further ? Hope seems the younger sibling of Faith. We used to constantly joke that ”Hope is not a Strategy” when discussing our company’s way forward. I think with business matters Faith doesn’t seem to quite fit, it feels more a personal thing. Strategy involves people doing what is expected of them subject to variability in the conditions assumed. Hope…nope, too many factual uncertainties.

Faith and hope are so closely linked but still there is a difference between them. The difference between hope and faith may be the following: Faith originates in the understanding, while hope rises in the will.

 Faith is the “now” while Hope looks to the future. Faith is the beginning of life before difficulty, while hope comes later and is born of difficulty. Faith says what is to be done. Faith teaches, describes, directs while hope exhorts the mind to be strong and courageous

There is no such thing as a coincidence. (Gibb’s rules #39), I came across this in my archives during the week…(written by a CJ Peterson)

They say that a “man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.”

Hope can be the difference between success and failure. You can withstand so much if you know you have people who support you and are looking out for you. You can face just about anything, as long as you don’t lose the hope that you can succeed.

Now, does that mean you will be successful at everything you go after? Absolutely not.

As Ralph Nader said, “Your best teacher is your last mistake.”

If you continue to persevere, learning from your failures, you will eventually succeed. Whether it’s running, walking, or crawling…progress is progress. Life is a journey not a destination.

Take things a little at time. As it is often said, “In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins…not through strength, but through persistence. Be the stream.

Persistence and hope are both keys to success.

And Faith…you gotta have faith !