Asked, “what is faith?” I .. hesitate. /A tiny voice / alive in me, raises itself / just enough to whisper, /”faith is life.” // Curious, I lean in to see, and /earn a smile. /This tiny bud beams at me. There /beneath its childlike form, crayon in hand, /a drawing, incomplete /but shining.

So I’m playing with the idea of pauses, line breaks, my relation to the words written and reflecting on them.

I wrote these before the shutdown …. before …. well, before.

Faith has been on my mind frequently the past few years. Divorce, breaking a life, learning to open, look inside. Not wanting to see. Some places are dark, a little bruised, torn, struggling to heal. Some places still unexplored. It’s hard to venture into the unknown. Trust. Especially hard to trust myself.

I made a mistake, entered into a relationship that wasn’t one. I am the one who stayed and stayed, who had to move away, shift, push my mind, my heart and my body off the known edge. I am the one.

Those are hard words to say. Words I once knew as insult or assault, now given some time and space, a little faith allowed some elbow room. These same words ‘the one’ become freedom.

I can let go of the accusations  Told there’s always ‘the one’. Oh yes, always the one who …. fill in any sin, error, wrong that could be dredged up.  An odd turn of phrase yet clear judgement and penalty. Faith. It was often the source or reason for anger turned against me, for judgement, for penalty. Faith. Having it too often required me to forgive,and  forgive again. To be the one who lived faith, who walked it out regardless any truth in the actions being forgiven.

Still. Faith hopes. It’s hard to kill hope. Faith comes with every new day, a light in our darkness. I think it’s stubborn, like me. Faith insists on living, even in the darkness, even in disaster, even in hatred and disgust, demeaning moments that try to beat me down. I may pause, let tears come. But like the image, though tiny in form, faith stubbornly sees colour and light; draws hope where there is none.

Faith. Is willing to be the one.

Faith.