Innocence lost is where it begins. And innocence attends and holds open the door to childhood trust, which is likely lost soon after. But innocence does not take flight of its own volition. Neither does trust. These are changes brought about by early interactions with the world and its realities, and often associated with the first assaults on ideas or ideals thought immutable, or the loss of persons thought immortal. Then, too often shattered is the trust in some foundational, defining beliefs and values that the world so often refuses to honor or affirm. And too often among them is faith, hope or love. But my interest, my story, is about innocence and trust found again. And it is the rediscovery of hope, faith and love that carries you there.
Having already talked much of hope, let’s talk more of faith and love. But if the spiritual virtue of hope is our spiritual gift for dealing with the often deceiving, misdirecting and disappointing nature of the world, and the memories of our own failings in it, then how do the spiritual virtues of faith and love serve us?
Faith gives perspective and spiritual balance to our thinking and reasoning. It culls out specious, deceiving arguments about whom or what we are, arguments that rationalize worldly overindulgence in service of vain, temporal wants. Faith makes personal and sharpens the clarity of our encounters and experiences with the voice and path of God. It also neutralizes the power and effect of evil, and its ability to use our intellect, our reasoning, to subvert pursuit of our best interests in a life lived right and well. And with a balance of faith and reason comes something closer to wisdom in our walk with God in the world.
And then there is Love—charitable, unselfish love of God and mankind—the highest, most sublime virtue of all. It harnesses, reins in, and redirects rightly and honorably the selfish desires of our eyes and passions of our covetous hearts. Our will and willfulness are tamed and bent to a more unselfish attitude and service of what is right, good and helpful to others, as it is conformed more to the will and Love of God. And with love comes other good things: a heart that desires greater identity with God through Jesus, and also obedience to love, which includes forgiveness, compassion, unselfishness and, as a result, wholeness and peace. For, in some real and palpable sense, God is Love; it is His very substance and nature.
If you can find—or, find again—faith, hope and love, you will also find notably subdued and muted the worldly siren songs of power, money and sexual gratification. Subdued with them will be those personal expressions of spiritual failings that mark our distance from deeper relationship with God (and many people, too). Among them would be hubris, selfishness, greed, fear, jealousy, anger and resentment, the things which usually attend a life too centered on power, money and sexual life. But in a balanced, earnestly pursued life of faith, all three can represent necessary and responsible expressions of a life lived well and wisely, a life that honors God.
It is the addictive preoccupation with these three realities of life, making them ends and measures in themselves, which causes us to express ourselves in ways inconsistent with a life seeking and honoring God. And even in a balanced and measured life of faith, unwelcome temptations and responses to some extent remain. They become spiritual thorns in our side, nettlesome but humbling factors that persistently remind us of what we are and are not, of the limits of our abilities to transcend the less attractive, less worthy qualities of our humanity, of our need for a reference point in Jesus, in God.
But if the three great spiritual virtues are necessary to finding the more balanced, fulfilled life of peace with God, then how do we find them, or find them again?
The answer lies first in allowing yourself to be found by God, and prayerfully seeking an authentic relationship and identity in Him. And through that relationship, in that changing identity, you will encounter His invitations and His gifts of faith, hope and love. And under the protection and guidance of these virtues, you can again find and reflect innocence and trust, but now an informed innocence and mature trust born of associative identity with Him, and tempered by experiential and spiritual wisdom.
First written: October 2006
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
