RF is not a belief<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A belief is something you can point at: a or b or c. RF is different \u2014 it\u2019s not about the content, but the presence behind it. Belief doesn\u2019t feel. RF does. The difference becomes painfully clear when someone loses his belief and discovers that his RF has been hanging from it, like a coat from a hook. And now the hook is gone. Suddenly: nothing in any usual sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RF is personal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To me, it’s always person-to-person, one way or another. That doesn\u2019t mean imagining a bearded man in the sky, or a crowned goddess, or an ailing sufferer on a cross. It\u2019s more like a personal presence \u2013 able to take any of those forms, or none \u2013 with me on the closer side of the relationship, although not much closer. The religious feeling is one of being very near.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It flows across forms, and remains whole<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Since I adhere to no fixed belief system, my RF can jump from one image to another and remain intact. It\u2019s a question of seeing through the symbol, like looking through an orthodox icon, not at it. The icon is a symbol, and a symbol is vertically one thing and<\/em> the other at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like: the human person and (the) God simultaneously. Of course, it is the one. RF contains no fear. But many people feel fear in its absence.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That fear often arises from a perceived distance \u2014 a felt exile from the nearness that RF actually is<\/em>. This distance, though only apparent, can feel terrifying. And so they cling to doctrines, to rituals, to jars that are far too small. But the more tightly one tries to hold it, the more RF quietly fades \u2014 not out of resistance, but because it doesn\u2019t fit. Not even the known universe is vast enough to contain it, conceptually. RF is not shape \u2014 it is the space between shapes. It is not belief \u2014 it is the light behind belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It can be shared, fully and freely<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The religious feeling can be shared. Not explained. Not convinced. But shared \u2014 and if this happens, it tends to be full and unconditional. It happens in silence more than in words. In being rather than saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I see it in another\u2019s eyes, I know it again in myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not separated from thinking or feeling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n RF lives in a domain where thought and feeling are not divided but flow into each other. It\u2019s not that one leads the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather, both arise from a depth where bowing is already happening before anything else begins. I feel it, and I follow it \u2014 in silence, in words, even in thought. All these are forms of the same bow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn\u2019t need a church, but a church can be lovely<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n RF doesn\u2019t require a sacred building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, sometimes, a church is beautiful \u2014 like an autosuggestion<\/a> in stone. Not the stone itself, but the way the stone listens, the echo it allows. Nature does the same, in her own way. A leaf falling in sunlight can resemble a cathedral. A dog\u2019s gaze, a holy invitation. RF doesn\u2019t discriminate. It just whispers. And if I\u2019m still enough, I hear it. In someone\u2019s breathing. In the space between my thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or: the piece of bread and the Holy Body simultaneously.
Or: the seashore horizon and the ethereal goddess of the sea.
Or: being part of the universe and of the Universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, it is the other.
There is no contradiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n