Is It Faith?

Is It Faith?
Pentecost 17; Luke 17:5-10
Is it faith
that causes my heart to lift
as a pair of black cockatoos 
soar into my sight,
the slow surging strokes of their wings
in perfect unison?
Is it faith
that brings tears of joy 
to my eyes
and bids me cry out
in gratitude:
“Oh beautiful, beautiful!”

Is it faith
in the Creator
of these winged messengers,
or is it love
that recognizes in them
a spiritual connection
to me and to the Divine,
a link that I barely
have the awareness
or cultural wisdom
to understand,
but still I respond
in longing and reverence?
In that moment
faith and love dance together,
graceful in unison
like the black cockatoos.

I do not need to hope
that my faith might increase
enough to move mountains
or to plant a tree in the sea
or to attract a crowd of newcomers
from our secular society
to embrace formal liturgy
in a traditional church service.

Instead I dare to hope
that I will have faith enough
to keep on rekindling
the gift of God within me,
to strive and fail and still to serve,
trusting that my tears
of struggle and self-doubt,
of grief and painful empathy,
of joy and grateful insight,
are drops in the living water
Christ offers a thirsty world
beside our parching wells.
	Barbara Messner 30/09/2025