Celebrating Life

I recently read Jonathan Sacks' "Celebrating Life" in which he dips into all sorts of themes looking for, and finding, the positive. The book reflects its sub-title "Finding Happiness in Unexpected Places". Just a couple examples of the book's themes. One is faith. Sacks writes: "Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty. It is not knowing all the answers. It is often the strength to live with the questions. It is not a sense of invulnerability. It is the knowledge that we are utterly vulnerable, but that it is precisely in our vulnerability that we reach out to God, and through this learn to reach out to others, able to understand their fears and doubts. We learn to share, and in sharing discover the road to freedom. It is only because we are not gods that we are able to discover God.” He also writes about change, something which we all seem to find challenging. “Change is not threatening, so long as we keep firm hold of the values by and for which we live. We can travel with confidence so long as we have a map. We can jump with safety knowing there is someone to catch us as we fall. It is when we lose these things that change creates anxiety. It is when we think that, because technology is changing, our values too must change that we create problems we cannot solve, fear we cannot confront.”