November’s afternoon sun was low and firing straight down Granville Street. My friend and I were walking toward the light. I knew that we were illuminated in a crazy intensity, but all we could see coming toward us were black silhouettes. Dark shapes with hard rays of gold glancing off their heads and bodies like magnificent auras.

We kept moving forward in spite of that near-blinding light.

Is that faith?

Is faith the ineffable quality of mind that says we have a knowing, a hopeful knowing that to keep moving (in spite of not being able to see our way) is the right course?

I feel that it is faith that allows me to begin writing each day. It must be faith at work in any act of creation, any endeavour, any life that includes an unknowing quality. But then, what is a life but a completely unknown quantity?

Recently, I watched a very old lady in her wheelchair. She pulled herself, her broken elderly body, hand-over-hand along the hall’s handrail, a painfully-slow journey.  Is faith then, simply that ridiculous will to live in spite of ourselves?

As a child I was often quoted the Bible verse to remind me that I needed to have faith like a child. The implicit message was that I needed to believe with a childlike innocence. Quit questioning and just believe!

Last week, a friend (another cultural Mennonite) said something that finally helped click a few things into place. “We weren’t raised with faith. We were raised with certainty.”

Her words stopped me in my tracks. Literally. I stood still and just stared at her.

That was it.

I had been told, over and over, and in no uncertain terms, that there was only one true way. I could choose not to believe at my own peril, but in doing so, I would burn in the everlasting pit of fire.  I respectfully suggest that those are fairly black and white parameters. You can quote that verse about faith like a child all you want, but the threat of brimstone blew that verse right out of the water.

Heaven and Hell were non-negotiable certainties.

And therein lies my problem, because the way I see it, certainty is the antithesis of faith.

If you have all the answers, and know exactly how it’s all going to happen, how is that faith in all that is the great mystery of life?  I submit that is simply dogma. Religion has dressed up our original mysterious soul impulse to seek the what might be called God or Divine or Allah or Jahweh, with rules and cultural customs that have hardened over time into soul-crushing institutions.

Because here’s the other thing I see in regards to certainty. Certainty breeds self-righteousness. And if there is any other trait I dislike more, in myself or in others, it is that smug knowingness.

If God is Love and Love is God, what kind of love is it to pick a few to float on the clouds and let the rest of the unwashed burn below?

For those of you who have patiently followed my rambling thus far, and are wondering, and  yes, perhaps even praying, that I will explain how on earth this pertains to travel…well, here it is.

Travel rips out all certainty. There have been few other experiences that have left me so completely suspended in the grace of faith.

I have been humbled by my faith in the goodness of others, no matter what their religion or cultural background. I have had to keep my faith that the airplanes will fly, the buses drive, the trains will continue to choo-woo, and that schedules will more (or less) be adhered to.

Travel demands faith in humanity, in knowing that most people will be helpful and kind. Faith asks that I take the next step in the darkness of unknowing, whether that unknowing is due to language or custom.

It also takes faith to follow my pen to see what I’m thinking. Faith to see where my questions might lead me. Faith to honour my own thinking. Faith to share it.

I suppose then, that my definition of faith is the courage to live with uncertainty. And perhaps, the only thing that I might so far be certain of, is that love is the answer.

I just sometimes wish I knew the right questions.