From Maria at A Druid Thurible:
For me ‘faith’ is not blind acceptance of dogma regardless of appropriateness; faith is about trusting in the direction that life and one’s spiritual journey will take you – it is actually a perpetual process of losing and regaining one’s faith and trust, moving into those moments of hopelessness that we might touch upon the mystery of Grace in our lives.
And Sannion:
Fate, to me, is like a busy one-way street. Once you turn onto it you’re pretty much going to end up following it until you reach your destination or turn off somewhere else. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from opting not to follow that path. You can abruptly stop your car and refuse to budge. You can turn around and go against the flow of traffic, weaving in and out of oncoming vehicles until one of them smashes into you. Or you can get out of the car and run screaming into the woods by the side of the highway. Granted, all these are difficult, dangerous and undesirable choices – but it’s still within your power to make them.
sightless among miracles 
I really resonate with that first quote. It describes my journey and my current feelings perfectly.
I’ve ebbed and flowed with my beliefs and worldview over the past 10 years – in and out of Christianity and Druidry – and now I feel I finally have a picture of what I mean when I say that I have “faith.” It’s not something I can easily explain to others, though, because it is so different than what the majority (imo) of Christians mean when they say they have “faith.” We may have faith in similar things, but not for the same reasons.
Doubt that makes sense. Heh.
Happy Holidays!
I can see that… for me it has been a process of learning to trust my inner voice (or “leadings”, to pull out another bit of Quaker vocabulary that I learned from Cat…)
I’ve been reading a few Quaker authors lately for that exact reason. They place an emphasis and a trust on that inner voice, which I really appreciate.
Yep. I am led (y’know, I really like that vocabulary – it sounds so much better than “the voices say…” ;) to be Pagan; this is my spiritual baseline, my Truth, whatever various forms of expression it may take. But I am also, apparently, led to maintain a link to my monotheist heritage, to try and bridge those worlds. This is not a membership, but a participation – and while it may look odd from the outside that this link moves through Judaism rather than the Christianity I was raised in, this is also a Truth to me… I think because it is emotionally possible for me to be there both as something of an insider but also still an outsider, and to maintain that balance in a way that I just can’t do with Christianity.
If that makes any sense at all… I’m not sure it does, but I don’t know that I can express it better at the moment.
It makes sense to me. :)
I tentatively explored the idea, years ago, of attending synagogue. My hubby lived in NYC for 20 years and many of his friends were Jewish, so he wasn’t a stranger to it and probably would have attended with me.
Ultimately I’m esoteric and mystical in my framework, so I see very similar ideas within many traditions – the spark of God within.
Perhaps I’m being led to be a Druid Christian? I think more Christians should see God within the Willow and Elm. :)
And why not? The Druid Revival was full of Christian Druids at the beginning…