No thought can be made outside the kingdom. No thing can be seen without the light of God. No life can be known without illumination. For all light is of one light, all thought is of one mind, and all we see and think is known to God.

          It is not possible to live outside of God. To really attempt to do so is to die. Even in the darkest night, there is the presence of God. Even the most mundane scene is illuminated with the light of the Supreme. It is not possible to look outside of God. Nothing is outside of God.

          We strive to be in the kingdom. But the kingdom is here. To say that the kingdom comes through faith, is merely to say that nothing is possible but faith. Do we not have faith that this breath will not be our last? Do we not believe that this heart-beat will continue? No moment is possible without faith.

          To be human is to have faith. To be in this world, is to become a child of greater faith. Faith "is," through grace. But faith "becomes," through will, through sincerity and persistence. Life cannot be, without faith. But more abundant life is possible, through more faith. As faith expands, so the universe expands. The Supreme whispers to the child of space and time, "come with me." The child of greater faith, goes.

          Nor will "greatest faith" ever be reached. Which is to say, that the limits of the experience of the Supreme will never be reached.   The Supreme – divinity shared with wo/man – is eternal and infinite, thus are the potentials of wo/man's faith eternal and infinite. To deny this, is to deny the omnipotence and omnipresence of God.

          We are born with little faith, which makes a little world. The adventures of faith are the adventures of a greater world. First we leave the mother's breast; then we leave our father's yard; then we leave our church's neighborhood; then we may leave our nation for another; then .... Each of the enlarging circles of experience is found through faith. If we do not believe we can cross the street, then we cannot. Each person that lives, has faith; the question is, how much?

          First we trust the mother for nourishment. Then we trust the father for shelter. Then we trust the church for guidance. Then we trust the One spirit, the spirit that was in mother, father, and church, for direction, even on the high seas of experience and adventure. We may look back and see how far we have come, and the first home we knew may be far away, and yet we keep the love of mother and father with us, and the power of the church's prayer on us.

          Greater faith leads to greater things, forever. Greater faith lets us see more of the kingdom. But to see outside the kingdom is not really possible. The child of little faith may fear the dark and imagine monsters in it but these very things, however unreal, are only possible through the gift of life in the kingdom. One may be in the kingdom and not know it; this happens to many. One may not, however, not-be in the kingdom, and know it; such is only fear of the dark. To confront the monsters of illusion, is the first step of the child in the kingdom.

          Even the dreariest day, even the most dismal shadows, still exist as a consequence of the kingdom. When faith is low, the light is low. When faith is high, a brilliant splendor shines all around and we can see a great distance.

          That which we see from the depths of our gloomiest despondency, is still a reflection, howsoever dim and far, from the kingdom. We may choose to have little faith, but we may not choose to see with a light that does not come from God. Evil may be done, but it too is done through the grace of God and reverberates in the kingdom. It is not that we "find" the kingdom; it is rather that we "know" it.   We simply look up and realize that we are in it, that it is there, and always has been, and always will be.

          To see the kingdom, though, is not to see all of it. No one but God has seen the whole kingdom. We may however see more of the kingdom. This occurs through faith. Faith is the confidence to explore the kingdom. Faith is confidence in God to lead us through the kingdom. Faith is also the increasing ability to hear from God. Those of little faith hear little, those of much faith hear much.

          Nothing can be seen without light. To see anything, is to be within the light. All light is One. All light comes from God.   Light is the love of God. No journeying is possible without light, and the purpose of light is journeying. To see is to be blessed with the fatherhood of God (and the physically blind "see" just as well as any in this spiritual context).

          There is a natural ebb and flow to human emotion, but no point is low enough that wo/man can feel, see, think, believe, suffer, without the upholding of God or without the One light that lights the universe. We may indeed reduce our faith to a minimum; we may turn the light down until only shadows remain; we may be overcome with fear and dread; but all such things exist only because we are faith-children of God, living in the kingdom.

          A mind may choose to deny that it exists, and yet it must exist in order to make that very denial. Free will may choose to use the light of the kingdom in many ways, even in foolish ways. But just because the mind can will itself to deny something, hardly means that it is necessarily so. The child says many foolish things, but one day must grow up. The child has many fears, but one day must learn to face them. It is the very love of the father that constantly urges the child to grow, to have new experiences, to overcome fear, to have faith. Love rules the universe.

          What was darker than the scene of the crucifixion? Yet the kingdom of heaven was even there, as Jesus knew. Men made the crucifixion through fear and ignorance. Jesus showed that even there, in that most dark and recondite corners of existence, even in that place of fear and shadow and apparent horror, even there was the kingdom. Such proofs should not be necessary, but when fear rules the child, the father must sometimes show great mercy and tenderness. The father may even choose to suffer "unnecessarily" so that the child of fear may be shocked out of panic, and the crucifixion of Jesus was just such a shock.

          Fear still rules many, but it is hardly possible for anyone to face greater fear, unbelief and enmity than did Jesus. Jesus faced the darkest fears of wo/man and showed that even there a man could find the kingdom of heaven. Certainly fear is painful, but it is hardly necessary. Certainly suffering is great, so why make it?

          Whether fear is great or small, the light of the Father can hardly fail. Fear is nothing. Light is all, for love is all. The concept of darkness could not even exist except for light. The very concept of darkness proves the pre-eminence of light, if such "proof" is needed. Darkness is only a relative absence of light. Light and love do not "fail." Consciousness "is"; only consciousness that is aware of its own consciousness can fear "not being." The very act of being able to fear, indicates the truth of faith. Without faith, there could be no fear. Fear is merely a relative absence of faith. Fear proves the faith potential of the child, even as the concept of darkness proves the absolute reality of light.

July 12, 1998
Note: The first twenty-two articles, from the fall of 1997 to spring 1998, are available free-of-charge on diskette (Windows 97, MS-Word 97). Simply contact me with a request, either by e-mail or regular mail at 206 N Bryan St., Shawnee, OK, 74801.
Ron Faulk [email protected]