Feeling Grace

Today was the first time I took our son Taeyeongee to church in more than 3 weeks.  He recently graduated to a program that places him in a 3-5 year old age group, with more than 50 kids in the program.  It was nice to finally attend church, which I infrequently do.  I've been drifting away from church with my faith diminishing for many years now, in excess of a decade.  However, today I felt happy to have gone to church.

When I got home, I didn't feel enlightened or any closer to God.  That is, until I watched a random video that showed up on my feed online (on the afternoon of July 19th, 2015).  Not more than an hour ago,  Mick Fanning (an Australian surfer) was attacked by a Great White Shark off the coast of South Africa during a surf competition (Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3MsEMKrrZk).   While the shark attack was aggressive and, possibly, included more than 1 great white shark, it was nothing short of a miracle that he escaped completely unscathed.  Watching his narrow escape (which included a punch thrown from Mick at the Shark's backside) made me feel the Grace and Presence of God for some reason.  I'm not a very religious person, but I literally felt like it was divine intervention that day.  Not sure why it made me feel that way, but it's nice to know that I still have some level of sensitivity towards God.

The concept of faith has been fading for me as I grow older(and I'm sure I'm not alone on this one)  and the ease with which I put faith into friends, family, companies, and relationships continues to dwindle.  But today, a small part of me found a reason to at least put a bit of faith back into believing in God with a more genuine and innate reason.  The funny thing is, faith, like many important facets of belief, is not an independent feeling.  Once you start losing faith, some hope, optimism, zeal, trust, and many other factors start losing ground.  In the past few years, I've started to build back some hope and optimism (trust was one things I've never really lost giving it to people rather easily), and now, I'm starting to focus on faith.

In many ways, having faith is the most important factor in changing your view and attitude on life.  It's an innate feeling, but one that curiously aligns with your morals while also mysteriously manifesting your own belief on what you think the future holds.  While "hope," by many, is more revered, it is faith that truly allows us to move past the bullshit negativity and find reasons to push forward in our lives.  And the events (no matter how big or small) that inspire and provoke our faith to grow, emerge, and blossom are the very ones that we should try to embrace.  The jaded and pessimistic shells that we develop over time, many of them have come to us thru the various lessons in our lives serving (many times) as a protective layer.  But they also cloud our view on recognizing moments that will remind us and extend our faith.  And that is the most costly part of growing apathetic.  Some times, perhaps even most of the times, the events that will impact your faith (positively or negatively) will seem insignificant or out of place.  But that's the thing about faith....it doesn't necessarily make complete sense nor does it have an air tight rationale.  It's simply a leap that we take, proceeding with an instinctual feeling that drives us to view the world in a slightly more auspicious and promising light....allowing us to believe that the underlying factors that stir our lives are, in fact, benevolent.

I'd like to end this entry using a quote not from a book, but a movie that reminds me of what faith and feeling the grace of God.  This quote is taken from the scene near the very end of the movie (here's a link to the scene on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YujYTVQ4_S0) in the diner that is about to be held up by two amateur robbers and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) is speaking to Vincent (John Travolta) about leaving the life of crime and "walking the earth" because of an earlier incident where he and Vincent were shot at by a kid with 6-shots of a colt 45 magnum and neither of them were hit by a single shot:

Jules: Man, I just been sitting here thinking.
Vincent: About what?
Jules: About the miracle we just witnessed.
Vincent: The miracle you witnessed. I witnessed a freak occurrence.
Jules: What is a miracle, Vincent?
Vincent: An act of God.
Jules: And what's an act of God?
Vincent: When God makes the impossible possible. But this morning, I don't think it qualifies.
Jules: Hey, Vincent, don't you see? That shit don't matter. You're judging this shit the wrong way. I mean, it could be that God stopped the bullets, or He changed Coke to Pepsi, He found my fucking car keys. You don't judge shit like this based on merit. Now, whether or not what we experienced was an "according to Hoyle" miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved.