The connective tissue of existence is faith. There is little else holding it all together. We have (or do not have) faith in ourselves, our community, societal adherence to stop lights, and value for fiat currencies. What causes recessions? Many things, but often largely loss of faith. What feeds their eventual inevitable recoveries; yep, faith.
What do you believe in? The goodness of your fellow traveler? The malevolence or laziness or ineptitude of your boss, elected official, or neighbor? Do you believe in lotteries or sunsets? Will the San Diego Padres ever win a world series; will the Seattle Mariners ever play in one?
Are you best days ahead of you…..are the best days for our country, society, and planet also in the offing? Will you or your children get to see those bright days? How do we keep mountain streams free of debris; how do we fail at this?
Nothing is predetermined, heck, there is not even such a thing as tomorrow. We wish tomorrow into existence through devote patience manifesting as a ceaseless march of moments strung together by hope. Marriage and parenthood and childhood and airplane boarding processes are all as real and temporal as Sunday sermons.
Do you believe in justice? How about racism or even the existence of race for that matter? We calmly climb into cars and drive on the right side of a certain strip of paint, or between a couple other stripes….unless we are believing that our fellow sojourners at this local are traveling on the left side of those same dots of color. And that is when viewed from above, not below, correct?
Cooking chicken (if you do that kind of thing) to 165 (Fahrenheit, not Rankine, or Celsius, or Kelvin, or electron-volt for that matter) is widely believe to be a safe thing to do…..I’ve been told that and I believe that. The bus will leave at 10 AM, I really don’t believe that, and it doesn’t. Did I and my fellow com-padres create this delay via our lack of faith? Maybe we could all be happy if we just believed that we could? Maybe we could live forever, or at least live as long as we want. Maybe we should try? Maybe you already are. I have faith that someone out there is willing this into existence if for only a moment or at one particular street corner somewhere in a land that I am unable to recall the capital of.
I believe that I am good. I believe that I can be better. I believe that I will be, but that I will also go backwards many many times before I breath my last sweet breath. I believe this for you too! I believe that we are our largest impediment. I believe that we can joyously challenge this. I believe and believe and believe. I believe that the world is already a better place because we have spent this time connecting through an unknowable yet inevitable series of determined happy connected flashes of compassion, curiosity, faith, and wanderlust.
