Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent… Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair… Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work… Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.

Mary Jean Irion, 1970
from “Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation”
available from www.alibris.com