Real Faith is Dirty

Posted Thu Jan 20, 2005 in

Daughter was born on 12Feb79, a Monday night, at about 2030. I was in undergraduate school at the time, working on my BSCE. We’d returned from a term in Kansas City where I worked for Black and Veatch.

When she was a baby, I used to love to lay back in the recliner and hold her on my chest, her head cupped in my sternum, sleeping. Often I would drift off to sleep as well, and we’d both nap. I took a lot of naps when I was in school—I worked a lot of hours between job and schoolwork and it was those naps that helped keep me going.

I remember a particular time we were sleeping in Wife’s folks’ living room, Daughter on my chest. I was probably half-sleeping, because I distinctly remember the feeling of something warm and sticky on my hands, holding her small body up against me.

I looked down and from the top of my belly to my waist I was covered in yellow, sticky, baby-shit. Yep, she had done the job well and we were both pretty well in a mess. I got up, carefully, and called for Wife to take her. MiL came in and asked “Do you want me to change her?”

“I think I can manage it.” I replied (straight, not sarcastically), taking off my sweatshirt and then turning to change Daughter’s diaper. Of course, I had to change her pretty much from the skin out.

“So what?” you might ask. “Yeah, it’s a cute story alright.”

Well, I’d then ask you, “Have you ever had any shit on you?”

You see, in my mind faith isn’t tidy. It’s not the clean, dress-up Sunday mornings that makes faith. It’s the dirty, got-shit-on-you, day-to-day involvement with loving others where they are that makes faith.

Faith isn’t afraid to get dirty, in fact, I believe that faith grows best in the dirt. It grows best when there aren’t easy answers to tough questions and we can’t see where we’re going, but we have to move ahead anyway. It’s dealing with tough times in our loved ones’ lives, be they family or friends.

James says: Show me your faith without works and I will show faith by my works.

As I’ve said before, faith is an act of will, just like love, and real faith will work itself out in the things that we do, not in just what we say. It isn’t about knowing the right words or about a beautiful four-point sermon; it’s about determining to do what is right regardless of what you might want to do, even it if hurts.

So, don’t be afraid to get a little shit on you. It’s just a sign of your faith.