Consciousness & faith

Have you ever driven to the grocery store and not remembered one thing about how you got there? The brain does that. It follows a pattern and, if there’s nothing new, it will get us there. But if our regular road is blocked, our consciousness has to tune in to find a new one.

And that is true in our lives as well. The detours of illness or loss or loneliness can be the disruption that forces us into a higher, more conscious, way of thinking. Only our conscious mind can be original–evaluating, determining, choosing. It lifts our eyes off the beaten path at our feet. Only consciousness can “hold an idea in place” (Beauregard and O’Leary 33), or match it with another idea that is wholly unrelated. That’s why believing, having faith, takes root in the spirit of consciousness, not in the brain.