Faith.

Faith.

Faith. Kneeling in the chapel. Pinned behind the steering wheel of my BMW. My little sister’s wedding. Standing over my fiancé’s grave. Visiting a holy shrine in Israel. Still birth of my first child. When did it happen? There are a thousand places it could have happened, but there is only one place it did. December 22, the south bank of the river is illuminated by the evening sun. Bare cheeks exposed to the cold chill in the air. God wasn’t watching. Couldn’t have been.  Abandoned someone that day, even if it wasn’t me. The river was fuller and faster than the previous winter. Little chunks of snow passed through the rapids like tiny white vessels falling over the edge of the world. Spellbound by the spinning and drifting white, I was never prepared for what came into focus. Small shriveled up pink beneath the surface, visible through the clear water. Almost floating along, a ball connected to a thin pink chord. An unnaturally miniscule and odd misshapen ball with ten little fingers attached to thin tentacles. The current spinning and pulling the bundle along with minimal struggle. Pink dancing in a circle three feet away at the bottom of the icy river bed.  Tiny dancer. Baby boy. Submerged into the chilled water of the winter river. Baptism. Soul purified and released into the world. Downstream. Away from life. Away from an unwanted home. Away from the unwed teenage mother. A cruel punishment for something innocent. Where was God when his mother put him into the water? His mother, the unknown dysfunctional Mary that misunderstood his premature birth, shoves the tiny carcass into the frozen waters of the river in chilly December before resuming life. Delicately the mysterious offspring came to rest in a pool of shallow water along the bank. Calmly I walked towards the lifeless child. Without thinking I removed my scarf and bent down to pick up the small body. As I wrapped the oddly shaped body inside my scarf, I realize that there was never hope for this unwanted creature. Senseless. Faith can’t explain one life over another. There is no master plan. God abandoned him long before. Left him, along with his mother among the flock of unprotected. My unwavering faith now hanging by a thread of hope. A hope that has been dashed away by the absence of life that rest in my hands.

400. Blasphemous. I can not and will not explain my religious convictions. There is more coming. And it isn’t a surprise, but I’m knee-deep into things and pushing through this evening. Wanting to give more, but until I can… Enjoy. M. A