Putting Beliefs into Action
Recently one of the minister's at my church has been focusing on putting our beliefs into action. She has been arguing that faith without works is not enough. She argues that we have a moral imperative to act on our beliefs.
This is a complex and multi-layered issue, but on the whole I have to say that I disagree. I see action as the flowering that spontaenously occurs out of the seed of belief. We do not need to force our hand. If we have sufficient self-understanding, when the time is ripe, we will act with conviction and with courage.
I think it is part of our culture is an obsessive focus on results, and I think that faith is a curative for this unhealthy obsession. If everything is only useful for the purpose it serves, then nothing is worthwhile in itself. I think the first and deepest spiritual lesson is that life is worthwhile in itself, and that we are worthwhile in ourselves. We should act not out of an anxiety to prove ourselves worthy, but from a graceful centeredness and a clear self-conception.
Emerson suggested that everything we are is present in everything we do. That is, our actions come from us; actions alone cannot define us. Prizing action over soul diminishes what it is to be human. If we measure each other solely by our actions, we are saying that the internal world does not matter, and we are suggesting that feeling, belief, and understanding do not matter if they cannot be capitalized upon. Actions become symbols and proofs, demonstrations to others of how we want to be seen - in short, actions lose their sincerity and genuineness.
Genuineness is the magic that makes our actions worth doing. Even a child can tell the difference between something sincerely done and something done for show. The difference between listening and hearing is not in the 'action,' but primarily in something unmeasurable, in the level of attention and concern we bring. Our presence itself is an action, an action that can demonstrate love or concern or reverence. The energy of our inner soul radiates outward and affects all those around us. When we act from our center, our actions have a resonance that actions from a sense of duty or obligation can never carry.
There are times when we hide behind our indecision or anxiety to avoid taking action. In these cases, forcing action can be helpful for curing the stasis of the soul. Action and experience are sometimes the best teachers, and delay can at times be our worst enemy. But for the most part I think we need not be too eager to act, for we have nothing to prove. There are so many things worth doing, and so few resources of time and energy. Rather than attack the world frenetically, it is better that we should take our time, and consider what it is in ourselves that needs to be realized in the world. When the action comes from within, it will have a greater power to sustain the vagaries of the world.
This is a complex and multi-layered issue, but on the whole I have to say that I disagree. I see action as the flowering that spontaenously occurs out of the seed of belief. We do not need to force our hand. If we have sufficient self-understanding, when the time is ripe, we will act with conviction and with courage.
I think it is part of our culture is an obsessive focus on results, and I think that faith is a curative for this unhealthy obsession. If everything is only useful for the purpose it serves, then nothing is worthwhile in itself. I think the first and deepest spiritual lesson is that life is worthwhile in itself, and that we are worthwhile in ourselves. We should act not out of an anxiety to prove ourselves worthy, but from a graceful centeredness and a clear self-conception.
Emerson suggested that everything we are is present in everything we do. That is, our actions come from us; actions alone cannot define us. Prizing action over soul diminishes what it is to be human. If we measure each other solely by our actions, we are saying that the internal world does not matter, and we are suggesting that feeling, belief, and understanding do not matter if they cannot be capitalized upon. Actions become symbols and proofs, demonstrations to others of how we want to be seen - in short, actions lose their sincerity and genuineness.
Genuineness is the magic that makes our actions worth doing. Even a child can tell the difference between something sincerely done and something done for show. The difference between listening and hearing is not in the 'action,' but primarily in something unmeasurable, in the level of attention and concern we bring. Our presence itself is an action, an action that can demonstrate love or concern or reverence. The energy of our inner soul radiates outward and affects all those around us. When we act from our center, our actions have a resonance that actions from a sense of duty or obligation can never carry.
There are times when we hide behind our indecision or anxiety to avoid taking action. In these cases, forcing action can be helpful for curing the stasis of the soul. Action and experience are sometimes the best teachers, and delay can at times be our worst enemy. But for the most part I think we need not be too eager to act, for we have nothing to prove. There are so many things worth doing, and so few resources of time and energy. Rather than attack the world frenetically, it is better that we should take our time, and consider what it is in ourselves that needs to be realized in the world. When the action comes from within, it will have a greater power to sustain the vagaries of the world.
Comments