I thought about changing the name of this Web Site yesterday. What would Joe think or say about ‘his faith’? Does the idea of ‘faith’ in some ways betray his message and life? I could imagine a dialogue something like this,

“What have you been doing Donnie?”, Joe asks.

“I have been writing about you on a Web Site, Joe.”

After some back and forth about what a Web Site is, Joe asks,

“What is your Web Site called?”

“The Faith of Joe,” I reply.

Joe digests this for a moment. Then he opens up,

“Belief in God is voluntary. Each to his own. But you cannot serial kill.” He says emphatically. “You should tell people that you have to have a prayer life, you have to have a prayer life. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Belief in God is voluntary, but Christians have it easier.”

I doubt very much that Joe would ever use the word ‘faith’ to describe himself. I do not think that Joe experienced faith in God. He had knowledge. He talked to God and knew God. Faith or belief is necessary for those unlike himself–people like me.

At conferences, before skeptical audiences, it was natural to speak about Joe’s ‘faith’ as a resource or strength that allowed him to ‘cope with’ or ‘overcome’ his schizophrenia and the sufferings that should have enveloped him. But if Joe had attended a conference, and listened to people talking about him, he would not have known what they were talking about.

“I live with God, Donnie. He keeps me busy. I never suffer.”

God and suffering for Joe seem mutually exclusive. The genuine presence of the former excludes the latter.

After being with Joe for thousands of hours, while he was alive and still in this world, telling me, showing me it is so, I did not understand him. Three years after his death, I must remind myself who he was.

Joe did not have faith, as I do, as we do.

He knew.