Faith
IT’S THE KIND OF WORD wrapped up in religious experience, but when I watched robins at play in the snow, faith came to mind and I wondered.
Today is the Spring Equinox in my hemisphere. Our Earth, ever-rotating and tilting, will now feel the sun’s heat shift northward.
I sit at my writing desk and stare out my little window. The snow keeps falling.
Not heavily—just enough to cover what had begun to show.
The ground hesitates between seasons.
And there, on the branch of a cedar: two robins hopping, singing, and colliding together. A cardinal perched on a side branch watches them, not knowing what to make of these hopeful Spring intruders.
The word faith came to mind, so I traced it.
Its meaning accumulates in layers.
→ First, the earliest Hebrew emunah: steadiness, staying;
→→ Add the Greek pistis: entrusting oneself, confidence, trust:
→→→ Add the Latin fides—loyalty, keeping one’s word;
→→→→ Finally, to all of the above, add Old French/Middle English feid/feith—the pathway to our modern English faith.
(In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, it’s the Greek pistis.)
The robins don’t believe in Spring.
They lean toward it with steadfast song, trusting themselves and their innate sense of the seasons, ignoring the cardinal’s glare of disapproval.
Perhaps then, faith isn’t something we have or hold, but a way we stand: a quiet posture of trust, a staying—even as the snow keeps falling.
