FAITH

Aztec, New Mexico

I have heard it said that faith is like a muscle.

It gets stronger with use.

Maybe this metaphor is true.

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mustard seed

Tanya and Tom on the River Trail

The old story goes that "If you have even as much faith as mustard seed you can move mountains".

...

Tanya and I have been walking a river path near our apartment for the last few months and one of things we have done to make the walk more fun is to identify all the wild plants we saw on our walks.

One of the plants we identified is the wild mustard.

It grows fast in spring and develops lots of little very bright yellow flowers--then as the weather dries it forms little seed cases, I guess you could call them--and now in July that they are good and dry we broke one of the cases open to inspect the seeds.

Those seeds are REALLY small!!!

Surely a person could develop THAT much faith in a lifetime!

Surely so!

Of course the mustard seed in the story is a metaphor and surely the mountain in the story is a metaphor.

BUT--also surely faith (whatever that means to you) is more than a metaphor.

So why not?

...

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Pedrito Jaramillo

Don Pedro Jaramillo (-1907)

Pedrito Jaramillo, the "Healer of Los Olmos" Was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico and came to live near the ranch of Los Olmos (The Elms)-- in what is now Paisano or Falfarrias, Starr County, Texas-- in 1881.

After being self-cured of a serious illness in Mexico he felt that he was commissioned by God to heal others. He became a faith healer (curandero) and was able to help thousands of people in south Texas in the late 19th century.

He asked for no payment for his cures but would sometimes accept gifts if the patient wished to give something--over the years he fed and cared for large numbers of sick people using his own resources.

He followed his calling for twenty-five years until his death in 1907.

One hundred years after his death, he is still remembered as a "Benefactor of Humanity"

That's good.