Faith

Some of the oldest and most inspiring Buddhist and Shinto shrines in Japan exist in Kyoto. It was one of the best trips we had ever taken and even though it was over 25 years ago, I have vivid memories.

During our tour of this beautiful city, we saw an older Japanese woman kneeling at the foot of a large Shinto shrine, sobbing uncontrollably. This show of emotion is very uncommon among Japanese people and though I tried to look away and give her some privacy, I found myself wondering what could have happened to her to cause such grief. I was also struck by the many passersby, who walked around and ignored what was going on. I felt so sorry for her, but there was nothing I could do.

I had no idea that I would have a similar experience years later.

The night after my wife’s funeral, my family and I gathered at a quaint little restaurant in town before my brother and his wife returned to New York. I didn’t really want to go, but I was not the only one who was suffering, and suffering is much easier together. However, it was not a mournful, sad little dinner. On the contrary, there were tears, yes, but also laughter, love and shared memories. Just what Terri would have wanted. At the end of the evening, we all hugged and everyone walked one way to the parking lot and I turned and walked down the street…alone. As I walked to my car, I remembered the Japanese woman sobbing at the shrine.

Faith is easy when life is relatively normal. Sure, there is stress, setbacks, bills you don’t know how you’re going to pay. You see terrible things happen to other people and you pray to a spiritual essence or to the universe that it doesn’t happen to you or the ones you love. But no one gets out of this life alive and I think no one gets through it unscathed. Like good martial arts training, it’s supposed to be challenging and it’s supposed to hurt once in a while. You cannot learn, grow or achieve anything without suffering. Pain is the foundation of wisdom.

I consider myself to be a Christian; I believe in God and in Christ. I have no problem sharing my faith with other people and I love to talk about Terri’s undeniable faith until the day she left this planet. This week I’ve been going through some of her things and I came across her instructions to me on how to pay the bills. She wrote them while she was in hospice. There were no tear drops on the paper, no sad words of encouragement. Allow me to share some of the things she wrote. “Sorry you have to pay the bills now, hahahaha.” (Insert smiley face). “You’ll be fine. I’m Totally Fine. I’m with Jesus.”

If you want to know what faith looks like, that’s a pretty good picture. She was not afraid because she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt where she was going. And despite my initial failure of faith after she passed, I was presented time and again with moments of realization. Small reminders of God’s grace. Grace is usually presented as a gift we have not earned or deserve.

Like I said, I have no problem sharing what I believe with others. I do, however, have a problem telling people that their faith or lack of it is wrong. Beating people ever the head with your beliefs does not make for great conversions. Reference the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, what happened to many American Indian children, etc. Faith is not something you force on other people. Faith, is something you live...like Terri did. Jesus reminds us of this in Luke 6:43-45: “A tree is known by its fruit.”

Do all paths lead to the same end? I don’t know. Biblically, this would not be an accurate statement. I also don’t know what kind of grief that poor Japanese woman felt so long ago, but I do understand where it comes from and her pain and desire for answers. Were her prayers unheard because she didn’t pray to the same God I pray to? I simply cannot believe that. Here’s what I do know…when pressed about the most important commandments, Jesus could have said any number of things: Make sure you go to church every Sunday. Make sure you tithe. Don’t lie, cheat or steal. Be respectable. Tell other people how wrong they are for not following me.

Instead, he gave two simple instructions: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:36-40

As I see it, my neighbor is the Muslim who ardently practices his faith, the dude who cut me off in traffic the other day, the person who chooses the universe over a universal creator. My neighbor is the Japanese woman sobbing at the temple. We all suffer. We all struggle. We all make choices we later regret. We all mourn. And, we all die.

Every day we are presented with opportunities point our fingers at others and remind them of their faults, their failures and our superiority. We’re also presented with opportunities to show some grace. Grace is something you can only give to others when you've learned how to accept it.

Times are tough and uncertain. Let's try to show each other some grace.

Dave Magliano

Tatsu Dojo

Jissenkan Budo

Dojo Cho