I promise this blog isn’t going to go the way of religious posts all the time, but when I was offered a voice in the 5 Day Conversation on God over at Le Clown’s bloggy home, I wrote two posts. I wanted to share the second with you today.
The post I submitted was the one specifically answering the question that Le Clown asked– how did I get to where I was in my faith? If you missed it, you can read it here: http://clownonfire.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/god-and-me/
The other post is a fanciful explanation as to why I don’t delve into religious arguments, with a nod to one of my favorite motifs of Hinduism.
I hope you enjoy the fancy!
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I believe in the power of fairy tales, and it’s never mattered to me if someone else understands why.
It doesn’t matter if the forest was really as dark as they said, or how old Goldilocks was, or whether or not it was a wolf or a fox. It only matters that the story was heard and a lesson was learned. Stories make sense out of science and carve tangible morals out of mathematics.
My favorite story is the one about the universe, and how she came to be. I am a character in this story, and I am living my role. My thoughts, words, and actions have impact. When I die in this story, the particles that are me will scatter about the world and make more life, brighter stars, darker days, and new chapters.
I believe in faith. It’s powerful, a subset of love– and it gives me strength when I most need it. Strength is a complex thing.
People always talk about mothers who lift cars off of their babies. Science is what helps them accomplish the task. Love, and faith, is what makes them try in the first place.
I don’t confuse the concepts of faith and knowledge, though I do use them as words of equal value because they are of equal import in my life. My faith doesn’t spit at science, or laugh at math, or mock the wisdom of wise man no matter what label they took for themselves. My faith is thousands of years old, and preaches love and truth above all else.
I am a Hindu in a land of Christians, from a family of mixed faiths, married to an atheist. I know we are different. I know we love each other. I have faith in that love.
I know the moon is about 3,470 kilometers in diameter, and I have faith that she fuels me with coiled feminine power.
I like to tell people about the moon, and how I loved her before I chose my religion– back when I thought she could fit in the palm of my hand. Knowing the truth of her dimension makes her more real to me, but understanding that I am connected to her power makes me 3,470 kilometers stronger.
Created at the request of Le Clown by the inimitable TJ Lubrano.
I don’t feel the need to prove my faith, nor am I selling it.
I don’t mind when someone tries to argue me out of my faith, but what argument stands against love? You can tell me that my husband is 10% darker than the metrics of what is considered attractive or remind me of some terrible choices he has made. You could ask me complex hypothetical questions about rocks, and whether or not he can lift them, but it wouldn’t change my love for him, or my faith in him.
You wouldn’t expect it to, because love is a powerful force.
There are people out there who use the shields of love for their own personal gain and vendettas. Even someone like me, who believes in fairy tales of words and beliefs, knows this to be true.
These characters are written into the stories that build the framework of my faith– how could they be forgotten?
An unkind queen sends her step-son to the depths of the forest under the guise of an unsurvivable hero’s journey. His wife and her brother join him– bound by love. They fight monsters, complete their journey, and are guided home by the strength the moon has lent to her community of tiny families. There are no little characters in fairy tales, though. Unified, they are transformed into a giant pathway lit with small candles.
The dark sky hides from the welcoming brightness because there are no small lights in fairy tales, either.
There isn’t a good guy in those stories, or a bad guy. In Hinduism, good and bad are two constantly spinning dancers wrapped so tightly together that you hardly know where one starts and the other stops.
Duel, by Grayson Queen
There is bad in me and there is good in me, and science could probably measure them– but they are footnotes of my faith. The only thing that matters is whether or not there is love in me.
Sometimes I lose sight of love– it buries away behind hurt and fear, but fellow believers help bring it forth. The organization is rooted in centuries old love and it connects us the way leaves of a tree are connected to each other. Fellow believers talk to me. They write. They assemble their thoughts, and they re-light my spark.
I use that spark to light a candle, and I place that candle on a pathway, outside in full view of my beloved moon.
It’s a thank you to the universe for putting me in the presence of constantly refueled faith, and a thank you to the people who filled the world with particles of love. It is a beacon to everyone who needs to find their way home. It is a reminder to me that I am a piece of the universe, and that somewhere on the other side of the globe is a frightened girl lighting a candle to thank me for the things I did today that changed her world.
I am not a little character and it is not a little light.
It doesn’t matter to me if someone else doesn’t understand the reason I light that candle. It only matters that the person who needs the reminder sees it, even if that person is me.
It doesn’t matter to me why I could lift a car off a loved one, it only matters that I would.
My faith is like the moon.
It simply doesn’t matter to me if you can quantify her power or understand why she shines.
It only matters that she does.
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Do you feel attuned to any element of nature? I remember my little sister being enamored of blades of grass, similar to my fascination with the moon.
Do you remember the way you perceived the moon before you learned all about her? I remember thinking she was small, and a light source of her own, and that she followed me wherever I went. Now, we know more. In fact, just recently we found signs that we may have stolen her from Venus.
Still, facts and all, I love her the same.
