Having the faith to take life one piece at a time—to live it in
the knowledge that there is something of God in this for me
now, at here, at this moment—is of the essence of happiness.
It is not that God is a black box full of tests and trials and
treats. It is that life is a step on the way to a God who goes
the way with us. However far, however perilous.
The thought of life on a small planet whirling in space is
a recipe for despair. It is the source of human anxiety, this
thought of having been cut adrift alone and without meaning.
To the person of faith, it is this very mystery that pushes us
to the edge of our souls where life is the beginning, not the
end, and presses us down into the center of our souls where
God, the energy of space, waits for us smiling.
To the contemplative, faith is not about having lights turn
green before we get to the stop light at the corner or even
about having cancerous tumors disappear on command.
Faith is about knowing that life is the tabernacle of a living
God. . . . To the contemplative, it is clear that the many
forms of life all reveal in some measure the Life that is their
Ground. The life to come, the contemplative knows from
having lived this one, will be good. To be a contemplative, we must have the faith that is beyond
our need for magic solutions to daily questions. We must
allow the soul to soar far freer than simply to the thought of
a God who exaggerates the natural order in our behalf. Faith
comes only when we are willing to trust the Blackness that
is Light, the hard spots of a fragile world, each of which we
would rather have had made easy.

Sr. Joan Chittister, Illuminated Life
Joan Chittister, OSB, is the author of numerous books, an
international lecturer, and a leading voice in spirituality.