F is for Faith

From the memoirs of Billie Harper, looking back on her learning journey.

“Fear looks backward. Faith reaches forward.”

Faith isn’t the absence of fear. It’s what helped us keep going despite it.

When I was a child, I used to think faith belonged in temples or books. But over time, I learned it had many faces—quiet, stubborn, sometimes trembling. I saw it in the people who voted yes in the Referendum of the 2230’s, even when they didn’t know what would come next. I saw it in those who planted seedlings into scorched soil, unsure whether rain would return.

Fear said: this is the end.
Faith whispered: not yet.

Change follows faith

It took faith to believe a more caring society was possible. To open our communities to the idea of change. To imagine family, gender, and governance differently. The Referendum didn’t succeed because everyone agreed—it succeeded because enough of us had faith that we could learn our way into something better.

In our learning circles, we often said fear and faith were two sides of the same coin. Fear looks backward; faith reaches forward. Both can exist in the same breath, but only one can shape the path you walk.

For me, faith has always been tied to memory. To the voices that came before and the children yet to come. I don’t mean blind optimism—I mean the kind of faith that listens deeply, acts carefully, and holds on through uncertainty.

The world we live in now wasn’t built in certainty. It was built in faith.