My faith as a Christian--Part 1

Hello my dear reader.

During the last few years my life journey has taken me to very interesting places. Along the way I have met excellent human beings and I have learned many lessons about who I am as a person. In fact, some of these encounters have shaped the way I live and how I explore my faith.

As I was thinking about all this I decided to write a series of blog entries. These entries will be personal reflections and meditations on what is faith to me, how I understand my faith as a Christian, some of my joys, doubts and struggles during this journey, and how it affects my life and the lives of others. This is not really advice about how others should think about faith but rather more about me trying to put into words what faith means to me. If you my dear reader find something useful in something that I say and/or you have thoughts of your own please let me know.

I thought that for "Part 1" I would share with you a few of my favorite quotes about/regarding faith. Some of these thinkers are Christians and some are not; I have learned that wisdom can be found in unexpected places:

Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It happens in the center of the personal life and includes all its elements. Faith is the most centered act of the human mind. It is not a movement of a special section or a special function of man's total being. They all are united in the act of faith. 
--Paul Tillich

Faith without the practice of love is empty faith, not the faith that leads to the kingdom of God.

--Leonardo Boff

Faith is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith let’s go…
--Alan Watts

Christian faith occurs in the encounter of the believer with him in whom he believes. It consists in communion, not in identification, with him.

--Karl Barth

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase. 

--Martin Luther King Jr.

Faith is not a question of the existence or non-existence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable.
--Emmanuel Levinas

 

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
--First letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians 13:1-2

This is all I have to say for now. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series. BTW, if you my dear reader have a favorite quote related to faith please share it.

peace,

--Mario