Faith. From my current perspective it looks as if it is this which lies at the heart of my spiritual crises. And my approach to the problem has been rather analytical, a matter of sorting through mental and emotional associations to isolate the key issues -- if only I can find a definitive answer on "this" then I can walk forward, establishing myself in a framework of faith, and "life will then be good". Of course, I rarely admit to myself that I am quite so naïve, but at some level there is this child-like hope that if I can only have this one thing -- the answer to my question -- then all will be well. Call it "mental acquisitiveness".

Let's take a look at Abraham -- this time straight from Genesis 22:

It is no secret to those who are close to me that I have been suffering through a crisis of faith for the last several months. And to be completely honest, it seems to be a pattern with me. There are at least two ways of looking at this: the first way, my natural inclination, is to look at myself in something of despondency and think of St. James, the Brother of Christ, when he writes:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

James 1:5-8

But a friend of mine recently pointed out to me that there is another way of understanding this--that of healthy skepticism. Unlike cynicism, a healthy questioning has it's proper place within cycles of growth--it serves as a pruning of our spiritual life, an opportunity to remove dead-growth so that new-growth may take its place.

I have been seeking for some little project, and in the process I have landed upon Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. In this book, Johannes de Silentio[1] is considering the Biblical story of the testing of Abraham.

I would like to quote two sections: the first is from the Preface, and has to do with the nature of faith, that it is a lifetime's work and not some small act like passing through a gate; the second is from the Preliminary Expectoration, and has to do with the real anxiety (or "dread") of the story.