What Inspires Me Today - Faith

 Inspiration: Faith

Or rather, those who act on faith.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately. I am inspired by people who find the strength and the gumption to act on Faith.

It's not just about a spiritual or religious faith - though that's important, but more so the idea of being willing to act without the certainty of what lies ahead.  

In some ways we all do this, every day. We drive by faith that our car and path will get us to our destination. We have faith in our coffee maker to brew a cup of coffee for us - good or bad.

But on a larger, grander level, it takes guts to move with power on a greater scale, putting faith in yourself, your colleagues, your family, and/or your higher power.

I think of the Biblical story of Issac, who on faith acted to sacrifice his only son trusting that what God had promised him - a lineage of his own - would come true another way.

I think of the Olympians who push themselves to their limits, following a coach's advice or direction without knowing for sure it will pay off in the end.

I think of those who change careers, move, or exit relationships knowing it's the right thing to do, but not knowing how they are going to even make it another day, or another paycheck.

People who take steps of faith to believe in themselves, and trust in their own future inspire me.

It takes a lot of faith to do that.

And all it takes is a little faith to begin training yourself to have a greater faith for things to come.

First Things: The magic of people

Last night I attended a memorial gathering for an old friend of mine from my early days in Detroit.

There are people you meet who, for good reasons, linger with you for the rest of your life. There is a magic about them that resonates with the universe and adjusts our molecules and energies in just the right way to change us for the better, if even we only spend a very short time with them. Chase Chapman was one of those people. My friend Andy Swan was another. Both of them were bright stars, snuffed out too soon.

We laugh, we smile, we talk for a while and then we're off to our own worlds. Before we know it the manufactured stuff of living overtakes us and that bill that you can't pay pushes away a caring word, the overdue report squashes a friendly hello, and the actions of an evil world pauses a confident gait.

We are more than those things. People like Chase and Andy, and countless others buoy us to be better... to not let those manufactured things pull us away from the magic of people, of living, of each other.