Published 2-7-11 - The Religion Network publishes every Monday
ON TODAY'S SITE:

Ellen Sanna, Helen Keller, Dan Hamrick, Blaise Pascal,
Huston Smith, Wayne Teasdale, Margaret Witter Fuller
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Photo by Chuck Bowman - All rights reserved


Your heart is beating with God's love;
open it to others. He has entrusted you
with gifts and talents; use them for His
service. He goes before you each step
of the way; walk in faith. Take courage.
Step out into the unknown with
the One who knows all.

Ellen Sanna
Christian author

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Dark as my path may seem to others, I carry a magic light in
my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the
way, and although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I
walk unafraid toward the enchanted wood where the
foliage is always green, where joy abides...
in the presence of the Lord.

Helen Keller (1880-1968)
Blind, deaf & dumb American author, lecturer

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What is faith? We must know first what it is not. It is not a belief by itself.
It is not a hope by itself. It is not a collection of thought. It is not reason.
It is not a set of facts. But it yet may be a part of all of these.

Faith is, in a way, the beginning of the beams of the rainbow. We see
the rainbow and, therefore, it is. We choose faith and, therefore, it is.
We choose faith and, therefore, we possess it. Faith combines both hope
and belief. It is at the light at the end of the tunnel, but it is the conviction
that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel…

…If faith has an enemy, his name is Doubt. When faith appears,
doubt disappears. Doubt flees from faith; and faith from doubt
It is up to to each of us which we would choose
to accompany us, faith or doubt...

Excerpted from the essay, "Faith,"
by Dan Hamrick
Former AP Topeka bureau chief & newspaper editor

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In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe
and enough shadows to blind those who don't.


Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosophy

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A vital faith is more like an organism or a work of art
than it is like a cafeteria tray.

- Huston Smith
Religious studies scholar

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...A faith that really means something in a person's life,
a faith that nourishes and inspires, that is a source of insight,
strength, encouragement, and guidance, needs to be cultivated,
protected, never taken for granted. Such a faith doesn't happen
without sufficient effort and commitment. In this sense, it is similar
to a living being. Insofar as we cultivated out faith and permit it to
be the center of our lives and the animating core of our being
and value, it becomes, as Smith says, "a work of art."

Excerpted from "The Mystic Hours,"
by Wayne Teasdale
New World Library, 2004