REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

Another seven dead near Dallas last night, Christmas Day. All members of an extended family. Money, disappointment, endless bickering. Everything ground to impasse. Heat built up. Something had to give. Unfortunately, it was patience, hope, good will. And some would say, faith.

What is this thing called faith? Where does it come from? What does it mean? What good is it? How do you use it? Where do you find it?

Some have said, "We are blind unless shone the light." But, what light? Any light? Some specific light? And, who doing the showing is actually worth listening to, reliable, trustworthy?

Is science the answer? The Bible or Koran? Buddha, Gandhi, or Plato?

If there is a god, and you were that god, what language would you speak in order that all might understand? What would the fishes understand? The insects? Cows? Seagulls? Chimps? All the varieties of plants? And what language would the multitude of mankind understand, the most arrogantly dangerous creature of all?

Could any creature misinterpret the wind? Is that not a language all might come to understand? Would they not see that it comes and goes with the heat of the sun? Would they not see that it stirs the waters and carries scents, flutters the grasses, and shifts the sands? Would they not all begin to see the patterning, the regularity? Would they not find that sometimes the wind is kind, gentle and appealing, while at other times full of furry, without mercy?

Would not all creatures eventually come to understand that there is safety and prosperity in cooperation, in pooling knowledge and resources, in coordinating effort? When two or more stand together against the wind, heat is preserved, resistant strength magnified. Would not all creatures eventually begin to understand such truth? Would not such a language ultimately be clear, unambiguous? Would not its message be learnable, useable?

The workings of the world are knowable. We need no authority to tell us so. True knowledge is useable, shareable, verifiable. False knowledge is not.

It is easy to have faith when what one thinks one knows works. When it fails to work, blind unquestioning faith will not change that outcome.

May your ability to question your way toward workable, reliable, charitable truth never fail you, no matter what self-righteous authority insists you are in error.