I'm not a religious person. I wasn't raised for any particular religion and I've never had a strong connection to spirituality. However, recently, I've found myself invested in religious imagery. Angels, cherubs, seraphim, Heaven, Hell, good, evil, God, falling, sin, grace...
I've never been someone with a lot of faith. What I see is what I know. I've never felt spirituality in my life, as much as I tried to connect with it, as much as I tried to have faith. Despite that, I have found other things to find faith in.
"People are my religion because I believe in them."
For some reason, this lyric sticks out to me. Andrew Jackson Jihad's song People. Once, I read a book where two characters were discussing spirituality and one girl said that she prays to trees, because trees are reliable, you'll always see trees, there're usually trees somewhere, you know that they're there, they're concrete. Well.
Regardless, I consider that. I have faith in people. More often than I should. I'm far too forgiving, far too lenient, far too trusting, constantly trying to make excuses for people's behavior, that there truly weren't foul intentions there.
But this year, I think that faith was broken. Or at least tested. I'm not sure if it would be considered sacrilegious to compare the testing of my faith in people to the testing of one's faith to God.
Over, and over, and over, I've seen people hurt beyond compare and I've been immeasurably wounded as well. I so desperately wish to believe that this is worth it, that within the pain we are made to endure there is a concealed positive. I so desperately wish to believe that it gets worse before it gets better, that the good in life is swarmed by negativity before it can be illuminated to us.
YOU ARE READING
An Assemblage of Stories
Short StoryI have a lot of stories and lessons I've learned from them. I guess these short essays are simply self-reflections about what I've experienced.
