The staircase of life

We live in challenging times right now – which is an under-statement really. Every day we are bombarded with new guidelines and restrictions in our lives that leaves, me at least, feeling confused and demoralised. When our daily lives are dominated by such fear, I am not surprised that I sometimes wake up each morning with a head full of frantic thoughts. So much seems to have been lost and forgotten. I miss human greetings, like hugs and handshakes, simply just standing next to someone. I miss shopping without the anxiety of mask wearing, I miss going to the cinema, seeing a theatre show. More than anything, I miss conversations which aren’t almost always focused on talking about coronavirus. I miss living. I miss the big beautiful world which is so full of hope, love and beauty when each day, my iPhone, laptop, desktop and television are constantly pulling me in to engage online rather than see the wonderful world around me. Each new day we are given on this unique planet is truly a gift but how do we live each day to the full when we are constantly scrambling to get over the huddles that we are faced with every day?

Today I have been thinking about faith. Martin Luther King Jr once said “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” When I read this quote, it always resonates with me. The whole staircase….. for me, this is life. We worry endlessly about what is going to happen. We want the end product of something immediately. We want it now! We are so focused on our goals and worries, large or small, we forget the process, the small steps, the first step… Life is really a series of small steps that follow each other. Only with hindsight do we see we may have taken a wrong step but that’s the frustrating thing about hindsight. In every moment we have, that’s all we have, each step. For me, I repeatedly have to remind myself that life is about being truly present in each present moment, because that’s all I have. And it’s also a wonderful thing to live fully in the present. To be frank, it’s no use wishing the world, our lives were different, because right now, this is our reality and we only really have moments to live… we never know what’s coming next. Part of the problem here is that we are so used to living in our heads that we lose the opportunity to really be present in the here and now. We are so caught up with doing, with resolving problems, with averting problems that we never really look around us and take in our reality with senses that are fully alive. There are so many things around us that de-sensitise us; technology, the media, social media…. That, it seems, we go through our lives not really knowing what it’s all for. We live to get through the day and for some, that might be it. For some, the general lack of awareness about the beauty and uniqueness of life is completely lost. To be alive, to know that life is happening and how wonderful it is, when are we ever championed to feel this way?

So, faith…. I believe Martin Luther King Jr wasn’t just talking about faith as a religion, although he was known to be a deeply religious Christian. Faith is more than just religion. Faith, to me, is trust. Trust is the firm belief in the truth of someone or something. In today’s technologically driven world, faith may seem a little outdated and unreliable. It’s easy to dismiss or not even understand anymore. We may have faith and trust in a few people around us, but when we look on our phones and see a deeply and humanly disconnected and cruel world, faith is really one of the last things on many people’s minds. I believe faith – or trust – is vital to our human journey, to our lives. To living each day trusting that everything is and will be okay. Trust in ourselves, trust in the universe. Trust that our life is full of meaning and joy. And, faith…. in each small step that we take in each present moment. Knowing we are where we are meant to be and to seeing fully where we are on the whole staircase of life. This doesn’t mean that we are resigned to our state of affairs, to the reality of our lives, but through faith – in whatever is important to you – for me, it is the awareness of my place in the world right now and knowing I have everything I need to live my life fully and meaningfully – I can meet the challenges of each day with a calm alertness; with a sense of the bigger picture of life. Of course I will get stressed, I will be anxious, afraid, demoralised, you name it… but I will experience these things knowing that this is a part of life, and what a wonderful thing it is to be a part of life.