James Talarico

You know, part of being a seminary student is studying Hebrew and Greek so you can actually read scripture in its original language.

And one of the mind-blowing things that happened to me my first year of seminary is I was studying this word faith

And many translations, it is belief, you know, the idea of believing in a concept or an idea, which makes sense in English Western translations.

But it can also be translated as trust, which to me is much more experiential.

trusting that love is going to get you through the hour, through the day, through your life, that love is going to carry all of us forward, that love will ultimately prevail even when it's temporarily defeated.

To me, that's what my faith feels like.

It feels like trust.

Almost like I learned how to swim at our neighborhood pool.

And I remember my swim teacher telling me, don't fight the water.

Let the water carry you.

And there's so much temptation in our lives to control our surroundings, control other people.

And I think the opposite of that control is faith, is that kind of trust, letting life, letting the universe hold you up and not fighting it.

And so that's what it feels like for me.

Again, when I'm most faithful, it's a struggle on a daily basis to feel that trust and not to fight the water.

You know, I was really lucky that I grew up in an incredible church community.

I didn't grow up with my granddad as my pastor.

I grew up in a Presbyterian church, actually, in Round Rock, Texas, St.

Andrews.

Shout out to our church.

And our pastor, Dr. Jim Rigby, he married my parents.