Faith

This year I suffered from post-holiday depression I could barely fathom. It was bad, and lasted through the entire month of February. (Which had an extra day in it this year in case you hadn't noticed). I kept praying (Buddhist chanting in my case, though I don't like to label my spirituality), begging for relief, release, comfort - anything to change the way I was feeling, the circumstances of my life, etc. This led me to an examination of Faith. My faith initially, then just the nature of faith in general. I tend to be so emotionally driven that ideas and experiences based on not having to feel it for it to be true don't sink in very well.

While I haven't come up with any concrete answers about faith, my sense of it today is that it is a gift, like grace; a soft, glowing flame within that only comes clear to my suffering mind when it burns through all the pollution created by my ego. When I feel so terrible that all I can do is scrape my way through minute after minute, breath itself is faith expressed, whether I believe in anything or not. Whether I am feeling hope or despair, the very act of being alive is faith enough. It doesn't seem very comforting in words. In fact, the feeling that accompanies it is often rage, frustration or hopelessness. And in the moment I become sure that this is the new 'normal' so I'd better just get on with it, the hard shell I've constructed around my heart cracks a little - (how could that shell ever hope to contain the flame in my heart?) and I experience faith as indestructible, and myself as human.

Well, that's it for today. What an adventure, don't you think?