I Don’t Want to Talk About Faith Here

But I will say this:

I used to associate faith with humans and thus I associated faith with fault.

But lately… the worse and worse my physical body has become … the more and more I’ve found myself searching like a fish in an oxygen tank; gills aching for water I cannot find.

I also associate faith with fear too… because I know by writing this, by sharing this, by even putting this electrical crack of tension into the air - someone is out there waiting with a whip.

“I am Chronically Cynical,” I joked when the hospital chaplain asked about what I identify with and as… but my brain hummed backwards to the familiar pulse of the connection felt in the pastor-containing pastures of my past or the completely heathen heyday of one of my other 9 lives.

I have always felt beauty from connection with others… but I have never felt that impulse coming from inside.

And so, here we are: A woman with 9 lives and hundreds of stories more to live out in her future, but the meaning to my marrow has been tinctured down to what I can’t do right now… not what I can.

I’ve been in a riptide for a long time. And, even though we’ve faced those for real growing up in the warm waters of the south Atlantic and my momma taught me to swim sideways until I can find my way to safety… I have no strength left to swim.

I don’t want to talk about faith here because humans confuse faith with the humans who talk about faith… so why would I talk about faith when I’m also just a human?

But I will say this:

I’ve always connected with scientific people who don’t dispute the blood on the hands of most organized religions (historically), and thus worried that if I admitted to needing something more… I’d somehow appear less learned. (I love saying ‘learn-ed’ really pretentiously in public.)

I feel as if I will be left behind by scholars- Dramatically closing a large, aged book in my face so that a tiny puff of dust blows aggressively upward. (Drama and dust: I will accept nothing less.)

But when I think about the riptides of my life as of late… I think about the ocean. My favorite place. I think about the fact that humans always feel they know every single fact there is to know, yet – as I write these words this very second – there is some fish in the deep dark wild of the sea that is yet to be seen for the first time by the human eye.

Despite the many faithful experiences of my past (none of which I’m here to denounce or anything), if asked, I have always said that I look no further than the ocean to remind myself that we still know so little about this place where we live.

There’s some thing about that endless-uncover and nameless-discovery that is comforting to me. I used to say that “the ocean is my church’”, and in a way… That sentence still stands.

But what about when I can’t stand?

What about the currents pulling me out to sea?

I’ve been treading water with a weighted vest… then, a hand upon my shoulder.

I don’t want to lose friends here for going into further details for now (my Chronic Cynics: don’t leave me, please!!)… But I have always believed in other’s right to believe in what felt right for them. There is a version of the golden rule is present in almost every major religion regardless of culture or creed (Pastafarians? Not sure yet. Shall review, report back).

If we ever feel inspired to hurt, judge, or threaten someone because of our beliefs - then our beliefs do not match “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. No faith should ever make us crush the hopes of another… break a heart… take a life.

I don’t want to make you believe what I believe (unless it’s “protect the oceans”).

I am still learning how to swim, and I will not be writing about this all the time so that my Pasta-worshiping pals must run for the garlic-bread hills. BUT… if I’m already writing about all the things someone shouldn’t share in one go - mental health, imperfections, grief and loss, children the world might not view as biological - why not dive into another?

So, I’ll go this far: I’ll say that I truly was going under water, with no air left to breathe, and I kept saying the words to my partner: “It’s just too much to hold. Too much to hold.”

Too much loss. Too much pain. Too much much.

Then…

PART FOUR. Continued tomorrow.