There are mornings when I wake before the light has reached the fields. The kettle begins its low murmur in the kitchen, and the silence in the house feels less like an absence than a presence waiting to be acknowledged. At my age I have stopped expecting revelation. I no longer imagine that God is waiting around the next corner with a trumpet or a commandment. Instead, I have come to believe that faith begins much more quietly. It begins with a small opening.

Not a certainty.

Not an argument.

An opening.

I think that is what prayer has always been for me. Not speaking to God so much as becoming available to God. There is a difference. One is an activity. The other is a disposition. One is something I do; the other is something I allow.

When I was young, I imagined faith meant believing the right things. If only I could hold the correct doctrines firmly enough, God would surely reward my diligence. But life has a way of wearing away certainty. Love does it. Grief does it. Illness does it. Watching people you admire fail does it. Growing older certainly does it.

Eventually you discover that faith is not built from certainty at all. It is built from consent. It is the quiet consent to remain open, even when you do not understand.

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