A couple of weeks ago, I climbed a volcano – fortunately, the main risk was sunburn since the volcano in question has been extinct for many thousands of years. It’s called the Puy de Dome and it’s 1500 very steep metres to the top. For the less athletic, there’s a train!
Some people, when they reach the top, jump off! They are paragliders – using their brightly-coloured canopies to catch the updraughts, they can actually gain height before descending, and get a very long way from the mountain.
For a fee (quite a large one!) some of the paragliders will take a customer down with them. The passenger is strapped in front of the paraglider, and over the edge they go.
The paragliders must have great faith to jump off the volcano – not some mystical ‘religious’ thing, but faith that their equipment is up to scratch, faith that their own skill is equal to the task, and faith that the other paragliders around them are taking care to avoid collisions.
Those who choose to ride pillion have to have all this faith, and more besides – they are not just taking their life in their own hands, they are placing their life into someone else’s. They must have faith that other person really does intend to see both of them safely to the bottom of the mountain.
The word “faith”, when used in a religious sense, has gathered a lot of ‘baggage’ around it which unfortunately hides its real meaning – that is, simply, “trust”. Christians trust that God really is how Jesus revealed him to be – a God of love and forgiveness. Christians trust that Jesus, by dying and rising again, has dealt with our human imperfections and opened the way into God’s eternity. Christians are those who strap themselves to Jesus and leap into life, trusting that Jesus is willing and able to see them all the way to a safe landing.
Are you ready to jump off the volcano?
(Parishes’ magazine letter for September)
The Quotidian Cleric 
brilliant. Why can’t I write magazine letter like that. They are always such a struggle.