Final Faith Reflection

A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it. -- I Corinthians 12:14, The Message

Imagine for a moment that you have been asked to write a reflection in which you detail the manner in which your right eye contributes to the ways in which you live your life. You might naturally write about vision, perhaps describing the process by which your eyes take in the beauty of creation, or allow you to read a compelling story, or to watch your children at play. Certainly, in writing about the eye, the author must address what is perceived visually. However, simply articulating what is known about vision would not be enough. The assignment is, after all to reflect on the RIGHT eye. What is it that your right eye alone perceives?

Imagine further that in writing about vision, you are successful in describing the function of just one eye. Has the topic been adequately covered? What about the contributions that eye makes to balance, to the ways in which the things around you are preceived - the depth and breadth of the world, the simple act of reaching out to touch an object - all would be changed by the loss of the right eye. It is possible to live without that eye, but the totality of the body is affected by the loss of any part.

For me, writing about my faith is comparable to writing about the functions of just one eye. My faith is connected to every part of my being, to the ways in which I move through the world. To consider my faith as a solitary element is impossible for me. As with the loss of one eye, I would continue to perceive the world, but my balance would be thrown, my ability to reach out and touch would be disturbed.

In fact, the integration of my faith is so ubiquitous that there is no part of me that does not incorporate and consider my relationship to Christ, so completely that I rarely notice its effects on my day to day actions. For this reason, I cannot say perceptible changes to my faith have occured as a result of taking a class in qualitative research. Conversely, I can say with certainty that my faith has informed the manner in which I perceived the content of the class - in ways that I may never fully understand or articulate.

Throughout the semester, I have seen glimpses of my faith at play in the research arena: The moment during an interview for another project, in which I was almost desperate because I could not reach out to a hurting person who had rejected all thought of the healing God whom she needed. The realization that Truth comes in many forms, and that even as I receive the gift of Story from participants, I must offer the gift of trust. The involuntary admission during an interview that I, too, serve the living God. Those moments clarify for me the differences between a researcher, and a Christian researcher.

My very nature craves and serves Story. Transmitting ideas, making word pictures, is an art I continually practice and admire. Skillful storytelling trumps reality for me. This makes the world of qualitative research a dangerous one. I have come to realize that I belong in this place, but that I must always be on guard against the temptation to embellish or to serve the art rather than the Story itself. For some, methods that ensure rigor are but the final touch on research design. For me, they will be the failsafe that catches me before accuracy is sacrificed to art.