Chapter 3 - Faith, Flourishing, and the Future I Choose
From the book, Living as a Cathedral of Awe
Living as a Cathedral of Awe Book
For most of my life, "faith" was something outside of me.
Something given.
Something required.
Something weaponized.
Faith meant trusting that unseen expectations would somehow be fair.
Faith meant believing that suffering was noble and obedience was survival.
Faith meant surrendering my own experience to someone else's authority.
I believed for a long time that if I just worked harder —
if I just trusted more, obeyed better, sacrificed deeper —
then maybe I would finally belong.
Finally be safe.
Finally be loved without conditions.
But the harder I tried, the more invisible I became.
The more I disappeared inside systems that profited from my compliance.
I was not building flourishing.
I was surviving a maze designed by someone else.
The real breakthrough came not all at once, but slowly, breath by breath, choice by choice.
It came when I realized:
Faith is not about surrendering to power.
Faith is about choosing to build where no safe ground yet exists.
It is about planting seeds of flourishing even in the ruins.
It is about choosing to believe — against all odds —
that life can be good,
that dignity matters,
that love without condition is not a fantasy, but a right.
Today, I do not place my faith in institutions that demand my silence.
I do not place it in leaders who build their thrones on fear.
I do not place it in systems that call oppression virtue.
I place my faith in something else entirely:
In the inherent worth of every human life.
In the right of every person to experience Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement, and Health (PERMAH).
In the power of clarity, security, accessibility, fairness — the building blocks of the 12 Utilities — to change not just businesses, but lives.
In the sacred act of choosing awe, gratitude, skill, and goodness — the cornerstones of real Admiration — over worshiping power and dominance.
Flourishing, for me, is no longer abstract.
It is the daily, conscious choice to build my life —
not on inherited fears,
but on chosen values.
It is the decision to be whole even when the past tried to fracture me.
It is the decision to extend the grace to myself that institutions so often withheld.
It is the decision to let awe, not fear, shape the architecture of my days.
I still feel fear sometimes.
I still feel the old ghosts whisper.
I still feel the ache of loneliness, the pangs of survivor’s guilt, the grief for the people I once imagined could walk this journey with me.
But now I know:
I am walking it.
And I am walking it with purpose.
And every step I take builds a little more of the future I choose.
THX isn’t just a framework for transformation.
It is my declaration of faith:
That people are capable of more than survival.
That systems can be rebuilt to nurture human dignity, not erode it.
That flourishing is not just for the powerful — it is the birthright of every person who has ever been told they are "less than."
This is the future I choose.
Not one of silent compliance.
Not one of inherited fear.
Not one of crumbling faith in crumbling institutions.
A future of intentional flourishing.
A future where frameworks heal, where dignity breathes, where awe and gratitude lead.
A future I build — not because I was handed the right tools —
but because I forged them out of necessity, out of hope, and out of love.
For myself.
And for everyone who needs to know:
You are not broken.
You are not alone.
You are already worthy of flourishing.
Next: Chapter 4 - The Frameworks Were Always for Me First: How THX Became My Map to Freedom
How the 12 Utilities, PERMAH, and the Admiration Equation emerged from lived survival — not theory.
