faith in action - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

How is it we keep saying that love and compassion are the answers, then letting the politicians fool us into pathways that are obviously neither. There are the small hiccups in living that build us stronger, then there are the calamities that break the brain, the body and spirit, forcing a survivalist and competitive culture that is counter to the messages of faith, of brotherhood, of caring for our global neighbours. Adverse childhood events cause damage to the brain, alter DNA expression and increase deadly illness. Love is love. Fear is fear. Indifference to the suffering of others is the first step into real evil. We owe it to ourselves, to our children and to our creator to see though these illusions of power and money, to learn to see the pain and fear, to ask how love can be our solution, how our faith has been giving us the answer all along.

I don't command an army, or a nation. Mostly I struggle to even command my pet dog. But I refuse to be powerless, to not even try to put my faith into action. My first task was to reduce convenience foods, all that extra transportation and packaging - plastic and heavily dyed cardboard - that's a lot of extra pollution. With a sac of flour, yeast, sugar, salt I have bread, pizza dough. Add some eggs and I have fresh pasta. Add some butter and cinnamon and I have mouth watering buns. I cheat a bit with my bread machine making the dough sometimes, but every step in the right direction is a good step. With a sack of rice and lentils, some spices, onions, I have many meals. It's more work for sure, but there's joy in that too. The kids are playing less shoot'em ups and making tagliatelle before dinner or whipping up a batch of butter-rich dough, or macaroons.

Instead of expensive entertainment we work together, jar pickles, chutneys, salsa and pasta sauces some weekends - enough to last months and it's good for a year. Our grocery bill has halved and we we eat more healthily than before - more fresh whole fruit, vegetables. Meat or fish is once a week if that, and even then we make sure it's from an ethical source. But once that was done we noticed something else - we were putting out less than half of the garbage we did before, less recycling too.

So over the next year I'm going to be working out how to get us down to as near zero waste as possible, scrutinizing purchases for their planetary impact, "voting" for the ethical products. It's about time the nice guys finished first, green-washing isn't enough. This is my faith in action, to show our Creator I care enough not to carry on in my old ways - buying plastic junk and disposable or short-lived products that will be in land-fill or in the oceans in less than a year.

It was time when the peoples of faith proved they were stronger in love, stronger in their hearts, than the men of science and logic alone. For nothing could be greater to them than a calling from above to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to show His grace and forgiveness in action. Who has low self esteem when God asks for help, when He says "You are as I need you to be, born with the exact talents My world needs to heal. You are pure of heart, strong of spirit and brave. Whatever your talent is, use it for love, peace and a healing world and know that I love you, no matter what."