Procrastinating Christian December 26, 2009

It wasn’t with much excitement today that I accurately labeled myself a “procrastinating Christian.”

It’s that feeling where you know you have tons to do–There’s all that homework, and the messy kitchen, and the living room floor because you have people coming over, and what is the source of that awful smell?!–but there is always something to do before you can get started on all that. But, at least you’ve made the list of things to do, right? I’m not sure whether we consciously or subconsciously decide not to do all that work, but somehow it just never gets done. Am I right?

There is so much that I need to do and figure out before I could do something like devote myself to a God about whom I know relatively nothing. It would be like ordering a bride in the mail! Still, the longer I wait, the more I feel like a seamstress (in keeping with the mail-order bride analogy). I feel like I’m going to expire for God. …And now I’m resisiting the urge to go for a cheese metaphor.

Anyway, I know what I’m waiting for. I have zillions of pseudo-answers lined up for when people ask me why I haven’t accepted God into my life yet and confirmed myself as a Christian. They are all true, because there are SO many things I’m waiting for, but there is only one for which I would ignore all the others. I am torn, knowing that I will be forever waiting in vain, but knowing that I can never turn my back on the remote possibilities, and also knowing that the remote possibilities would be less remote if I was a confirmed Christian.

It all comes back to Love, which apparently I am not familiar with anyway. If I knew God, then I would know Love. If I knew Love, perhaps I would know God. Which comes first?!

The Vault. December 25, 2009

You know that part of “The Polar Express” where they’re trying to slow the train down before it hits the lake of ice, but the piece of metal flies out of the brake lever, so they can’t stop the train? For what seems like minutes, they grasp and grasp for that piece of metal, while it slips out of their fingers, down a grate on the floor of the train, down a man’s throat, until finally it is coughed up… only to fly out of the train’s window and puncture the ice, causing gashes in the surface that nearly signal the end for every passenger.

That little tiny piece of metal, and that moment where they’re so close to losing it… that’s what Love feels like to me, too much of the time. It’s exhilarating, and it’s definitely a rush of adrenaline, and that piece of metal is so precious and valuable… but it never really feels safe. It seems like it’s always something I’m trying to grasp, something that I need to hold on to but just can’t seem to get a grip.

I can’t remember the last time I really felt safe in Love, but I do know when it all fell apart. Ironically, it’s one of my most meaningful and cherished memories. At that time, I learned what it would take to fully be able to relax into Love and let it be my life.

Why is it so difficult to take that challenge? I hate feeling like I’m missing something, or like I’m too inadequate to be able to hold on to it. That’s not the way this is supposed to work. From a Christian perspective, if God is Love, and God made man in His own image, are we Love? I know we are capable of Loving and we are meant to Love, but what in the world does it take to access that? Why do I feel like by being born, I was given the key to this secret vault and told to open it and use what is inside to create and spread Peace, but I can’t use the key or access the vault or something?

WHY do I feel like I’m missing something?!

And why is it that whenever I receive a gift from people who mean so much to me, I feel like I’ve been given a clue?!

I want to give clues! I want to be a strong person who knows how to tell people to Love!

__________________________

Trust me, I know what this allegory is about, and it’s not Harry Potter. Or the Matrix. I wish it were that simple!

Optimism in Vogue December 19, 2009

I can’t decide whether “waiting on the world to change” is pessimistic or optimistic–not as a song, but as a concept. When my mom first heard the song, she did not approve. She said, “why would we just wait for the world to change? What an odd thing to promote. You’d think people would get up offa their asses and actually do something themselves.” Okay, she didn’t quite say that. Anyway I told her, in absolute defense of John Mayer, that the song was supposed to be ironic. John Mayer was trying to tell everyone that we shouldn’t just sit around all the time and wait for the world to change. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I guess I like it.

The point is, it’s an odd phrase. Pessimistic because regardless of what John Mayer might have meant by it, it sort of implies that we’re at a complete loss as to what to do or how to accomplish what we think needs to be done about our world. But it’s optimistic because at least we know something needs to be done, and we know that change is good.

That optimism is hard to find lately. I’ve been noticing with my friends that sometimes we tend to only bond when we’re complaining about the same things or bitching together. When we agree, we agree and leave it at that. I hate it. I’ve even brought this up to a couple friends, who agreed that they found it frustrating as well, and then we started bitching some more about it.

What is wrong with us, that we can’t find joy in even the lowliest sparrow, and share that joy with others?

Why is it so easy to find things to complain about, when really there is an exponentially greater number of things that we could choose to find fascinating, outstanding, awesome (in the REAL meaning of the word), or touching?

Why is it that in thinking about this problem, all I can do is blame some people (like the media, for only reporting on negative news and issues)? Current events can be depressing, but why have we trained ourselves to never look at the subtexts? For instance, The Copenhagen discussions that have been going on about global warming– for a while, we were learning the facts about what was getting done. Suddenly the conference is over, and all we can do is talk about what didn’t get done. People don’t realize that we are so lucky to have come out on the other side of the conference with even more questions and topics at hand. For one thing, we’re strengthening our international relations. But also, it is so easy to forget that science is all about asking questions! When we did science experiments in middle school, the goal was to prove our hypothesis correct through our experiment. In high school, the goal was simply to explore more about our hypothesis. If it turned out to be right, we needed to know the variables that could actually make it true or false in difference cicumstances. If it turned out to be incorrect, we learned how to ask more questions to narrow down what might have gone wrong, what we needed to improve on, and what else we could consider for the future. The latter was so much more of a learning experience than simply proving ourselves right through the same steps that had been performed countless times before.

Why are we so afraid of asking questions and being unsure of ourselves? I do not operate under the belief that ignorance is bliss, but rather, that the road to enlightenment is paved with doubt, and the only way to recover from that doubt is to be optimistic. And the only way to be optimistic is to have hope. The only way to have hope is to have faith in humanity. The way to have faith in humanity is to have faith in yourself, as a member of humanity who will make a difference. And the way to have faith in yourself is by being the change that you wish to see in the world.

Be.Love.

S.O.S. – An open letter to my mother November 26, 2009

Dear Mom,

I really wish you didn’t know so much… I wish you couldn’t read me with a single glance, sum up my feelings, and talk to me like I already know how I feel.

I don’t. Or I didn’t…

But, thanks to your offhand confusing statement, I’m even more confused, and now I’m worried about being confused! What do I do now?

I, of course, sit worried, wringing my hands and paying way too much attention to my feelings.

So seriously, you should help me out. Cuz it wasn’t so helpful when you laughed off “love” like it was nothing. It most certainly is… I think. Clearly, you know more about it and you’re able to identify it. Help?

Love,

Your girl.

“S.O.S.” by Abba:

So when you’re near me, darling can’t you hear me
S. O. S.
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me
S. O. S.
When you’re gone
How can I even try to go on?
When you’re gone
Though I try how can I carry on?

Love? Love. Live. November 12, 2009

Ok, so there are some songs that make you cry, right? “Let It Be” is one of those for me, as is “Imagine.” That’s why, even though I love love love those songs, I don’t listen to them very often.

But, have you ever just loved the experience of listening to music so much that it just made you want to cry? Maybe I’m just overly emotional, but that’s what The Mountain Goats are doing to me.

Two nights ago, I liked tMG a lot. I’d listened to probably 30-40 songs of theirs, and I definitely had a few favorites memorized. I definitely liked them enough to spend $20 on their concert in Seattle, but was unfamiliar with them enough that I would have second-guessed getting that ticket if I knew that it would really turn out to be over $30.

I didn’t think John Darnielle was particularly attractive.

I even have to confess that I didn’t like his voice all that much most of the time.

Also, one of my two favorite songs was pretty much their most famous single, which always makes me feel like a bad fan, because I always feel like I should know more obscure material, especially if I like the band enough to go to one of their concerts. It’s like how die-hard Jason Mraz fans (such as myself) hate it when people who only know “I’m Yours” go to his concerts. I want to tell them to sit down, shut up, and listen to Curbside Prophet.

Anyway, there’s also a ton of tMG history that I am still not familiar with. Like John Darnielle’s time in rehab… or even his age. I don’t know if it’s weird that I don’t want to go to someone’s concert without knowing this stuff first, but it’s true. I felt especially bad going with someone who knew everything and was just about as mesmerized as a person could be.

I’m not really sure whether to make this long story short or not.

There’s so much that I could say… about the openers, the crowd, the songs, the performance, John Darnielle, my friend’s bordering-on-religious experience (he’s probably so euphoric that he won’t eat for days…), about how they played my absolute favorite tMG song, “Love Love Love.” And actually, he played my other favorite song also, “This Year.”

Here’s the setlist:

[band]
1. 1 samuel 15:23
2. letter from belgium
3. isaiah 45:23
4. cotton
5. romans 10:9
6. love love love
[john]
7. orange ball of peace
8. sign of the crow
9. woke up new
10. thank you mario, but our princess is in another castle
11. 1 john 4:16 [w/ final fantasy]
12. going to fucking bristol [w/ owen pallett on violin and john on vocals; no guitar]
[band]
13. hebrews 11:40
14. hast thou considered the tetrapod
15. psalms 40:2
16. against pollution
17. this year
[break]
18. ezekiel 7 and the permanent efficacy of grace
19. no children
20. the best ever death metal band in denton
[break]
21. see america right

And ever since I saw this concert, I don’t really know what to do with myself. Granted, it’s only been about 24 hours, and I’ve kept very busy, but still. It was an amazing show… and I don’t really know whether to laugh, or cry, or just listen to their music continuously, or hold off on listening to it to savor the memory, or what.

Some moments last forever, and some flare up with love, love, love.

Some Goals October 19, 2009

1) Wrap up my old freelance writing job that has been hanging over my head. I can’t keep up with it, don’t want to, and it’s just making me feel guilty all the time.

2) Buy some food with which I can efficiently make meals and have leftovers for lunch the next day.

3) Start reading some stuff for fun.

4) Write reviews on here about what I’ve read.

5) Review music, like I’ve always said I would do.

6) GET OVER BEING HOMESICK ALL THE TIME.

7) Write write write. For fun. Submit an article to the newspaper (it shouldn’t be too hard. I mean, we ARE the newspaper.)

8) Make an appointment with my teacher to talk about her class, which I have recently come to despise.

9) Catch up on French. Pouvez-vous practiquer le francais avec moi?

10) Sleep.

11) Clean room.

12) Watch movies that enlighten and inform.

13) Light more candles.

14) Figure out what I want. What do I want? I know what I don’t want. Isn’t that helpful enough?

15) Call my poor grandmother who worries about me all the time.

16) Love love love.

[Something]’s Gonna Change My World September 11, 2009

I have about ten saved drafts of other posts I’ve started over the past couple weeks… but on this day, I feel more like starting anew.

You know how they tell you in high school that once you get into “the real world, then blah blah blah”? I never knew whether the Real World started after college, or before, or during, or at the moment of graduation from high school, or right when you became financially independent, or what. Who knows whether any of us are in the Real World at all. (I know that statement is a little too Matrix-y, but whether it’s a metaphor or not, sometimes there IS a world (or many other worlds) out there to which we are blind or deaf).

Occasionally, I know that I’m living in the world in my head. Occasionally, I know that I’m living in a fantasy world created by the media. Occasionally, I know that I’m living in the Real World.

This is what the real world is like: In college, they don’t hold a moment of silence for the lives lost during 9/11/01. I remember in middle and high school (gawd, I’m old) when we would stand with bowed heads, and I’m sure it happens still. But I’m not in an environment where that’s done, and I don’t know why. It’s not that I want that moment of silence…

I think I just want to comprehend the suffering of others. Or maybe I don’t, but I feel like I should. For instance, I have a friend who is in Ghana right now (her blog is at http://heidigroover.blogspot.com/. She updates often and her insight is really great–check it out). She’s sort of a participant observer in the third world/developing country scheme there, and she witnesses first hand the conditions in which the natives live.

It seems like things like that are really valued in our society, because we like to think we’re pretty privileged (when it’s put in perspective). On the other hand, being able to step back and have an honest, solid empathy for those who are suffering is “good.” When Hurricane Katrina happened, the rest of the United States felt sympathetic toward the victims and their loss.

When 9/11 happened, people all over the United States empathized and mourned (partly because it was a threat to everyone, not just those in NYC and the Pentagon).

But what if I can’t comprehend that?

I end up feeling completely heartless simply because I don’t understand suffering. I know what it is, of course, and I’ve experienced a tiny bit myself on a very small scale, but I just haven’t been able to look at suffering in terms of feelings. In other words, I can listen to specific stories of people’s losses around 9/11 and genuinely feel bad for them, but I can’t share their sorrow.

I look at Katrina as a mass loss of homes, pets, belongings, finances, loved ones… but not as a loss of hope or a loss of esteem.

I look at 9/11 as a mass loss of lives and loss of assets (buildings, money). I know it is symbolic, but I have some sort of emotional block from knowing what that really means for our country and for the people more directly affected by the attack.

And I won’t lie; I feel quite awful about all of this. It’s not like I’m apathetic toward everything. It’s just that I guess I have no way of translating that sorrow, so far removed from me, to something closer to home.

But how important is it, to share that burden of sorrow? I feel like it’s a duty for me as an American citizen to feel personally hurt and scared by the events of 9/11. I don’t. But is that something around which the United States really needs to rally?! Do we really need to take on some more pain, and remember it every year?

I may not be very adept [yet?] at feeling empathetic toward others’ pain, but I can sure as hell share their joy.

Heidi, my friend in Ghana, said that she witnessed a funeral procession in one Ghanian village where one of the elderly men in the town had just died. She says, “It was strange to see the way they celebrated the life of the 85-year-old man who had died instead of mourning the fact that he was gone. Even the signs posted around town announced the ‘Celebration of Life,’ not the ‘Funeral ‘or ‘Ceremony.’” (http://heidigroover.blogspot.com/2009/09/830-first-little-big-adventure.html).

I think joy is more universal than sorrow. Even with all the famine, disease, poverty, and other misfortunes ailing many parts of the world, those trials only make small things easier to appreciate, therefore creating more joy. Why don’t we rally around hope? Didn’t Barack Obama’s campaign prove that hope is a much more effective tool?

For a while, I remember plans being laid for an “uplifting” memorial to 9/11 at Ground Zero. While I do think it’s important to keep such an event in our history, I remember a line from one of my favorite movies saying something like, “the best way to forget something is by commemorating it.” Are we afraid of seeming heartless if we just move on? Are we not saving the victims still suffering from the effects of the attacks from enduring further strife?

In a way, it’s not so bad to not comprehend suffering. In fact, I think it’s pretty normal. I think confusion is a more natural and positive response than anger and hatred (but that’s not saying much).

How long did the people who started blaming others for the attacks stop to ruminate on what had actually happened? Life should not be a grand “whodunnit?” setup. Some things are mysteries, including the human brain, heart, and soul, as well as their feelings and functions.

I am not saying that we wouldn’t need to find out who was responsible for something like 9/11. I’m also not saying that anger is not part of the grieving process (i.e., anger IS part of the grieving process). But what do we need to do (personally and on a larger scale) to ensure that compassion is ALSO part of the process, enough to the point where we realize that anger and hatred are only bred from not understanding. We don’t understand death; it has always been mysterious. But we also know that to every time, there is a season. In the heat of the moment, it’s impossible to recognize something like that. I just wonder when blame has solved a problem, and whether it’s reliable enough to keep trying.

Though I may live in a bubble, and only venture into the Real World occasionally, my bubble does facilitate some self reflection. If I’m honest with myself in admitting that I don’t understand suffering and I don’t understand death, I can also realize that I share more common ground with people in joy than in sorrow. Rather than using ignorance in a way that is harmful to myself and others, I would like to exploit the similarity of joy, and breed compassion, hope, and love. Love can penetrate any personal bubble.

“Limitless, undying love which shines around me like a million suns, it calls me on and on, across the universe.” -The Beatles.

New Directions July 19, 2009

The downside of introducing your blog to lots of people who know you is that then it’s very awkward to actually blog about them.

So in other news…

I changed my desktop background. Boring, no? But it’s a gorgeous picture I took at the Grand Canyon, and it reminds me of the amazing trip my mom and I took last year. Good times.

Went to Caleb’s again today–we sorted and resorted bottles of soda. No, really. It was tons of fun. But of course, if I were with Caleb I’d probably think watching the stock market change was fun, so that’s not saying much. Church tomorrow, and I’ll probably blog about that.

Besides my simple goal of blogging every day, I’d like to develop some trends. Sundays and Tuesdays can be faith days, and if I go to church or something like that I’ll talk about the experience. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are music days. Thursdays are random, things-on-the-street days, and maybe movie reviews, and Saturdays can be fiction days.

Ahhh this is so exciting! I feel like I need to catch up for every week I’ve been blogging and not done this. wow.

Also, I have a few resolutions that are not to be mentioned outside of cyberspace, just in case:

1. Get up earlier. Wake up at 9 and stay awake, even if I do just read in bed.

2. DO more. Get out. See stuff. Maybe take pictures of it or write about it to prove that I’ve gained new insight. ha.

3. Read more. This includes others’ blogs, the magazines I have piling up, and my ever-expanding book list. But mostly the books, I think.

4. Say “yes” more. It may be just because I just finished “Yes Man,” but I want to feel better about trying new things. I thought about shooting a bb gun today at nothing in particular at Caleb’s, but I’ve never held a gun and I’m not sure I want to. And… I suppose there’s nothing wrong with it if it’s just target practice, right?

5. Listen to more new music, and review it.

6. Pick one thing each day to love in my life.

7. Pick one thing each day to think about. (This sounds really dumb, but I like the idea. Some problem to solve, or something to pray about. It can’t hurt.)

8. Pick one thing each day to better something/someone other than myself.

9. Do one thing each day of which I’m proud. It has to be something that I didn’t accomplish on the computer (unless it’s a set of articles or something).

10. Blog about something that has potential to influence others or be meaningful to someone.

I think this is about the time of year where people really do start to slip on New Year’s Resolutions, so maybe it’s time to revamp. What are your resolutions? Are they ones you’ve tried before? Why are they important to you?

Turning Hearts Back to You, Again. July 17, 2009

I was just talking with a friend I haven’t talked to in quite a while–months, probably. We were never extremely close (in fact I mostly felt like his acquaintance), but we talked every once in a while and he was always very upbeat, if a little cynical and more focused on getting laughter sometimes than any actual meaning in a conversation. But, that just tended to make him more fun, even if we didn’t have a friendship that was really rooted in something.

As I regained contact with him, I braced myself for his humor and the old nature I remembered. But instead of random, detached jokes, a real story greeted me: a sobering one. While he’s been staying in the east for a while, his recently divorced mother had decided to shut him out of her house upon his return, and made it impossible for my friend to see his father. My friend has no money and still has two years left of high school to manage–needless to say, he doesn’t have the resources to figure out how to negotiate his situation.

Through the conversation, the optimist inside of me tried desperately to cling to other options for my friend and possible things to distract him. Finally, I claimed that “if nothing else, there’s always the youth mission, or whatever it’s called.” Without having any idea of how he would react, I think I was kind of buffering the statement (or myself) with the “whatever it’s called” part. And sure enough, my friend would hear nothing of it.

“You know I don’t accept charity,” he said. I didn’t, in fact, know that about him, but I would soon enough. “I need to work for it somehow, and, more importantly, that people worse off than me should take that opportunity, not me.”

I guess I still don’t know what to make of that. Some of those places to make kids work for the privilege to stay there, and they’re run by volunteers who are happy to dedicate their time to the shelter or whatever place it is. I said, “it’s all relative,” but he disagreed.

You just can’t argue with some people. But that’s not the point.

The point is that sometimes, all you can do is pray. And what I’m slowly realizing is that as I and my friends grow up and start encountering things that we’ve never experienced before, we can’t always act according to “best interests” or “the right thing to do,” because we just plain don’t know what those things are. So I guess people pray that some other force can guide them. I don’t know why that’s better– either way, we feel like a situation is out of our control; sometimes we ask for help, and sometimes we don’t.

I’ve never really been very good at prayer or interested in it, but I’m starting to think that the most meaningful part is not necessarily the connection one makes with God through it, but the connection one makes with fellow humans through it. Whether we think anyone “up there” is listening, we feel good about it. If we pray for someone else, we are comforted by knowing we may be doing the only thing that’s in our power to do; if we pray for ourselves, we’re comforted knowing that even if nothing comes of it, we’ve asked for help.

Maybe that’s my gut feeling about what my friend said to me about charity. Personally, I like to be asked for help. It makes me feel capable, loving, and needed, as well as a mutual nurturer. And I know there are other people in the world like that–some of them work at youth hostels, I would bet. (As I side note, I just happened to wonder if God likes to be asked for help… interesting.) So besides the fact that hostels and other “charities” exist to be taken advantage of by anyone (just like how anyone can pray, not just those who “really need it”), the people involved might actually feel privileged to help.

I don’t want to see my friend suffer, but I also don’t want to undermine his beliefs–I have the utmost respect for his opinions about charity (and sympathize with them, to some extent). But we, his friends, would probably rather see him swallow his pride than pitch a tent on a street corner.

I rarely, if ever, pray. But whenever I do, the thought or wish that usually surfaces when I’m grappling for something to pray “about” is that most of all, I would like some guidance in prayer itself. This time is no different. Do I pray for my friend to find a roof over his head, no matter what the conditions are, as long as his beliefs are upheld? Do I pray for him to, just this once, abandon his rules and take advantage of the charities that are available to him? Do I pray for his mother, who can really be seen as the root of this problem?

As usual, I can’t decide… and luckily, I don’t think it’s for me to decide. The prayers I do come up with can usually be boiled down to one theme: peace. I know, hippieness blah blah blah. But really, is there anything more powerful that I can pray for than for my friend to be at peace? The actual events at stake here are out of my control; they’re out of my friend’s; and they’re out of the control of everyone else who is praying for him. So ultimately, I would like to pray for him to be at peace with whatever ends up happening, whether it’s his will or not. And for all of us to keep love in our hearts first and foremost. ((w&f))

Title courtesy of Jon Foreman’s, “Again”

Declaration of Faith December 10, 2008

This is an essay I wrote for my senior high school lit class. The prompt was to write our “creed.”

*___*___*___*___*___*

Man’s mindscape in the dawn of time: questioning everything from his five fingers to why his fish died. From how to balance on his two feet to why plants grow, or even why he’s alive. Questions flood man’s mind–some questions have answers, but some will still remain mysteries thousands of years later. Grappling with potential answers becomes man’s main priority. Answers form the basis for his faiths, because he has the need to believe something.

It’s inevitable that at some point, man will discover new things that nix his original theories. Man will have to reform his beliefs according to these new ideas, because some instinct tells him that it is reasonable for his faith to be at least somewhat based on fact. 

Faith is a very personal topic, unique to every human being. But even so, we use external conflicts and situations to strengthen our beliefs. Our spirituality is shaped by the events and people around us all the time, and therefore it would stand to reason that it is constantly changing. Part of change is the process of doubt. True faith can never exist without doubt.

When someone is able to justify and defend his or her beliefs, it conveys the impression that those beliefs are powerful and well though-out. It also usually heightens the sensation of wanting to agree or disagree, which fuels argumentation and so continues a cycle of conflicts that strengthen one’s faith, as well as one’s doubts.

A period of doubt and questioning will lead to an even stronger feeling of faith. Once a person answers his or her own questions, wouldn’t they feel stronger, like their ideas were more powerful? But each phase of doubt is harder to overcome, because with the maturity of answering questions and even more (and more important) questions and responsibility to answer them. This, I believe, is the natural process of gaining one’s own unique faith. Every person has to go through it personally.

Faith has no reason or strength without a background of doubt. People need the balance of doubt to reason their way to faith. Doubt gives man the least sense of security of any other aspects of faith, so of course men would want to avoid it. But actually, doubt and questioning give and unmatchable power to a man’s faith. Men always have the choise to accept doubt, but most will ignore it, thinking that it weakens them or gives less meaning to their faith. In fact, it’s the opposite. Doubt offers more depth to a man’s understanding or journey to understanding religion or the possibility of a higher being.

It is part of human nature to doubt, argue, and solidify one’s own beliefs by any means possible, with the help of other people and situations. Having faith is part of human nature as well, but I believe that people don’t want to go through the process of questioning to achieve true faith. They feel that questioning would weaken them, or they’re afraid of the answers they may arrive at, or they’re afraid of not finding answers.

Also, I think that Christians play a big part in making questioning taboo. Many Christians believe that when people question their own spirituality or ideals in faith, it’s really the devil trying to tear apart their religious beliefs. This is wrong mostly because questioning is not evil in any way. But even if this is so — if the devil exists and is trying to break people’s faiths — it only makes it more meaningful when people overcome doubt. People might feel like they’ve defeated an inner demon. Regardless, regaining answers and beliefs should lead to an even more powerful level of spirituality.

Questioning never ends, so perhaps the time of strongest faith that humans ever have is at death. Even though there are very few people who claim to understand death, many have ideas about what happens when we die or about the possibility of an afterlife. Though these beliefs are mainly shaped by religious teachings, some are influenced by raw faith, strengthened by doubt.

The most faithful people are characterized by not only their moments of weakness, but also by times of undying love. This could mean love and optimism for mankind, or a vision that includes peace and happiness for the world. These people are also very well-balanced in their journeys through doubt and questioning, and strong in their beliefs and faiths. When people recognize that faith and doubt are inseparable, is becomes much easier to realize their full spiritual potential.