Faith--January 1st

FAITH—January 1st
You place the fingers of your left hand on the guitar strings, hold down, and you know when you strike the strings over the hole with your right hand fingers, you will make the sound you want—if not at first, with practice, eventually.
You place the seeds in the soil you’ve prepared at just the right time and just the right depth and you know, given sun and water, a plant that gifts you with nourishment or beauty or both will arise.
You give your child love and guidance and you know, with enough patience and understanding, he or she will be someone to be proud of someday.
You receive a roomful of children who can’t read and who don’t know their numbers and by the end of a school year you know they will be able to read you a story and tell you how many eggs you’ll have if your chickens lay 2 eggs one day and 3 eggs the next. They may even cook you an omelet.
This knowing, this certitude in a world full of uncertainty, is faith. Even those people who are certain there is no faith are displaying a kind of faith, aren’t they?
When I was a teen-ager and unhappy, I looked out my window and imagined a white knight riding up to save me from my desperate life. As if, right? I had faith, though, and kept it going. No white knight ever came but something did come to save me from my desperate life eventually, and it was my self, the discovery that my ideas, intention, and action could change my life, that I didn’t need to rely on anyone else. All I needed was faith that my life would change. I set my goal and forged ahead.
I’ve done it this way many times in my life. How about you?
Five years ago my husband did not play the guitar or sing or paint. Then he decided to do those things because doing so would make him happy. He told himself he could do all those things and he began to learn how. He practiced every night, he took classes, he sang in the shower. Now he is a happy strumming, singing artist, thanks to faith.
You don’t need religion to have faith. Anyone can have faith. We all do. It’s what connects us all to one another and to all living things. It’s what joins us in unity and purpose and creativity. When you find your faith, you just know.
You know your intention will lead to action and from there to a result. You know you can make this world a better place, at least on the paths where you walk, for starters. You know your creativity will produce something wondrous. You know you are never alone.