Every other Wednesday I go to a jail and do a "Bible study" with some of the people who are detained there. I put "Bible study" in quotes because we're not doing a traditional Bible study where we have a structured program over an extended period of time to study, say, John's Gospel. That wouldn't work in a jail, where people are typically held for a rather-short period of time before being released on bail or something. So, what the folks in jail and I do is discuss the prior Sunday's lectionary readings, which are basically the same in Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. That seems to work pretty well. This last Wednesday the discussion was particularly interesting, with folks opening up about the losses they are facing and their need to rely on God. There was lots of discussion about the Holy Spirit and the Trinity, since last Sunday was the feast of The Most Holy Trinity. In one of the groups there was a guy I hadn't seen before (not that unusual since folks come and go) who sat there and listened to what everyone was saying. Finally, about a half hour into our one-hour session, he raised his hand. "How do you get faith?" he asked. He explained that he never had faith as a kid, althoug he was raised in a faithfilled family, and thought religion was dumb and silly. He had last gone to church years ago. But things were beginning to change. He wanted to believe in God-- but he just couldn't. He'd never been to any kind of religious programming before, but something told him to go to this "Bible study" and so he went. "How do you get faith?" He wanted to believe, but he didn't. So he was at the "Bible study" I was leading to ask that question. Talk about seeking the Kingdom of God (Mt 6: 24- 34) ! He was seeking God in the most fundamental sense, and it was the mot important thing in his life, that quest for belief in God. it was real and true and raw, his desire for faith and the reality that he did not have it. I wish I had been able to give him the perfect response which would have given him faith, although I doubt that's possible. I told him that God was clearly working in his life, and that the challenge he faced was one that many great saints had also faced-- the "dark night of the soul" where God seems so distant. I mentioned that Mother Theresa had struggled at the end of her life with the sme question of belief. I said that he should try to hang in there, to life with the struggle, to pray and read the scriptures, to act as if he believed event if he didn't because that was the way to live. I told him that faith was a gift, and it would come to him, that he just had to trust. There were probably better things to say, but they didn't come to me. The other men in the group chimed in along the same lines. I don't know if any of that mattered, and I'll probably never know. The odds are he won't still be in jail the next time I'm in the part of the jail where he was housed. But I do know that he was doing what Jesus tells us to do-- he was seeking God. He was taking risks, and following the promptings within himself. His quest for faith mattered deeply to him. Most of us take our faith for granted, possibly because there isn't anything that causes us to look beneath the surface and assess what we really believe. We aren't in a crisis or in jail. The reality of our faith isn't being tested. Maybe that's a shame. Maybe we'd be better off if things were difficult. Maybe then we'd have to seek the Kingdom of God, not just coast along going through the motions of faith. Do you truly have faith, and how did you get it? What does it lead you to seek?