PISTIS

You walk into a hall of fame. You are not yet sure what kind of fame it is with which you are dealing, but you venture in nonetheless, open, curious. This hall makes its visitor feel as though one is out at sea, and each of its heroes ships that have sailed high seas in times past. Strung along the walls are ‘nautical’ portraits of men and women, with an accompanying description outlining the reason for their being here. The soft clack of your shoes betrays your presence as you slowly pass them by, one by one. As you do, you realize where you have come, the hall’s name arched directly above you in large letters: ‘Explorers of the Unknown, Natives of the Beyond’.

One man who had never seen rain before built a boat for a great storm that was coming (everyone thought him mad). A woman who bore a child long past the scientific point of no-return (everyone thought it a joke). Another man packed up all his belongings and moved country, not knowing exactly where he was going, only that he was going (everyone thought him mad, too). Wait a minute, you realize all of these people have pistis in their descriptions. It is almost as though pistis is the name of the shipping company that produced all of them, the common figurehead on all their ships. ‘What is pistis?’, you wonder. Yes, you realize it is a Greek word, but the Greek from your school days is like cheese and one of the holes in it is where pistis used to be.

As you continue to explore you begin to discover that all of these people were led into the Unknown by their own, individual experience of pistis. Pistis is the evidence of things not seen, the proof of that which was, as yet, invisible. First one knows something to be true in one’s heart, and then one gets to see it come to fruition in the ‘real world’. Pistis is proof of the invisible. Hm… All of these people were moved by their deep conviction in the truth of things they saw, even when no one else did. It was truth that moved them, truth being That Upon Which One Can Rely. Pistis, the central locus and very heart of their being, is what drove of each of them from within, the source of their identity, integration and integrity. Their unwavering commitment furnished them with the ability to follow their paths courageously no matter where they led, no matter what they cost. Each of them had their own path, different from the rest, and yet none of them had an easy path, all involved sacrifice and seeing what others could not. They all did extraordinary things and all by this implanted navigator on the seas of the Unknown. But still, you puzzle over this pistis, feeling there is more to be unearthed. You continue to meander down hallways that are much longer than you had anticipated, surveying the impressive array of portraits.

Like an object that seeks to be united with a magnet, so pistis acts as an internal ‘motor’ that steers each person – sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently – towards the Unknown. You realise that the Unknown is the Beyond by the mere fact that it is beyond us, our domain. So pistis is the Beyond internalized, that then manifests as a living ‘thing’ within us. We are the Known and live in the Known, but we have the capacity to house a marvellous and precious part of the Unknown within. It does not originate in us (the Unknown is not native to the Known), but it becomes part of us as we embrace it. As such, it always moves us about in a way that seeks to bring us nearer to the domain of the Unknown. You see on the wall a drawing that captures your thoughts precisely.

Ever approaching the Unknown is how each of these ordinary and simultaneously formidable people grew, how they expanded to become their enlarged self, incorporating ever more of the Unknown within themselves. The more one is in tune with one’s pistis, the more pain and discomfort there is, as one continues to live in the Known. Yet one cannot live completely in the Unknown, so you come to understand there is a constant and inherent tension in this state of being, like the subtle buzzing of an air-conditioner. This inherent tension means that they are never quite at home, for many times they are more at home in the Unknown than in the Known (and the Unknown is invisible...). You realize they all had in common a longing to reach the Port, the place where they all belonged, where they could let down anchor in the safety and solace of their native town and country. And while they all seem to have been at peace with who they were, they were to forever inhabit two worlds, to be simultaneously completely at home and yet never fully home.

Question marks dissolve into commas and full stops in your mind. You feel you have understood. Those who feel pistis most strongly in society are those who house within them a much larger proportion of the Unknown compared to others. They, by their mere existence, point to a reality beyond the current one, the norm, the possible and expected, inhabiting both the Known and Unknown, the Visible and Invisible, for all to see (for those who can see). Deep in thought you reach the end of the line up on the wall and the last portrait catches your eye. You realise it is not a portrait which you are facing but a mirror and suddenly within you rises the unbidden question: who will you be?

(c) Belinda É. Samari 

* For those of you who are curious, today’s article is the result of my exploration of the biblical text known as Hebrews 11.