(Permission To Exist Sometimes?)

I don’t write about faith openly here

We can’t change the world.

How it sees and defines family (like my Sun and his dorky Mum).

How we snare those with chronic pain until they feel they serve no meaning in society without productive propaganda.

How we give space for minds that are as capable as ever of creating art in the world, or educating others in the arts (i.e. doing their job, whatever that might be) because we remain a “pay to play” place in most places, and wealth isn’t just health… wealth is like our ticket to having permission to exist sometimes.

But can you imagine anything more beautiful than a momma who always found her deepest worth in being one, and dreamed with her babies about this lifelong calling (cannot emphasize “lifelong” enough) together… then fighting back against the siege of ableism and ageism to give a home to just one more “baby” [older child] that we all choose and fall in love with together?

In fantasy land: Follin’s adoption ceremony would be ‘not that long before’ her future, maybe, hopeful, heart-of-a-heart that we cannot jinx, or name, or even overthink… because the daydream doesn't exist.

If I wish too hard on this star… I worry the galaxy will cease to exist entirely.

But why do our “life identities” matter more than just actually living one?

I think to all the positions I held so tightly at a time- with such pride and purpose- that it feels as if a toddler squeezing a tiny mouse too hard- not being able to reconcile the outcome.

“What is a life worth living?”

The person who asked me this a second time, recently, was actually a chaplain.

I don’t write about faith openly here and I am not sure I ever will. I am too scared, to be honest.

Faith- in my experience - is often a way for those who feel they known a somewhat-unknown something to tell you how much more they know about that something than you, and to make you feel the lesser for not subsisting under the same.

Should it be that way? No. Am I doubting that many in the world KNOWN it like a ‘known’; That it’s not an unknown to them? Of course not. But do a lot of people who are quieter about faith feel this way from those more vocal? Sadly, often, yes.

I have felt faith like a musicality in my heart, stirring up with drumbeats when I witnessed the way a local church performed their songs some time ago; Handling true trials and tribulations with actual grace in action.

As I brought more difficulty into their life… they responded with a turned cheek, and an outstretched palm.

But most people who display their faith do so without a sense of understanding of the blood on the hands of almost EVERY theology now known to man. Almost every major religion has waged a war on someone else if you go far enough back - not just been persecuted. Almost every major religion has made others feel othered; Have disregarded their rights and right to existence by taking historical context, culture, linguistic interpretation and pure kindness out of their current human lens. And most of all: most religions make it about the structure it’s housed within or the person who says the words up front… and if there is one thing I’ve learned in life lately: It’s that nothing lasts forever that was touched by human hands.

Temples crumble.

Holy humans are still just… human. (Most of the time)

But…

…

I have been living a life that doesn’t feel worth living.

How does that sentence sit right now?

How does that make you feel, as a person- here on this planet with me?

Maybe it feels like you too, maybe it doesn’t.

“What does a life worth living look like for you?” the words had read originally, black ink…

But if this was a staring contest, I’d be losing.

(Also, no metaphoric mice were harmed in the making of this writing.)

PART THREE. Continued tomorrow.