Faith, Coincidences and Beliefs

Everyone sort of needs something to hang onto, right? Some sort of faith in what we've always believed is still somewhat believable. Over the course of the past three weeks or so, I've been loking for signs that show me that it's all right to live and smile and play and work and bitch about the WGAF things in life.

That light that flickered and went off. The door that suddenly opened in the middle of the night. That dream that had Jeff speaking to me as if he had simply left to get a gallon of milk and didn't really mean to scare us. How about the pull on the slot machine that won me $500 just after I glanced up and said, "Help out a brother?"

Do any of those things mean anything? Could the light bulb just have cut out on its own? Did the door suddenly open because the windows were open? Slot machines are blind luck, anyway, right?

I've been around the corner and back on this one - Blind Spot was a book about understanding loss and dealing with grief. I wrote it well before I knew what it really required, but found that I'm in line with the character - not blind luck, I was the character anyway, right?

One of my favorite lines of Mellencamp's is: People believe what they want to believe when it makes no sense at all.

Good old Mellencamp was speaking about George W and his less-than-forward-thinking policies, but it applies in a lot of places. Does everything you believe make sense? Do our limited abilities to understand serve to make the extra-ordinary non-sensical?

I've certainly felt less than intelligent over the last month or so - all the things I had written down as gospel truths have sort of slid off to the back corners of my mind.

I can't explain lights going on and off. I can't get my mind around winning a scratch-off when you never win on those damn things. I can only deal with the here and now and understand that the core beliefs that have served as the basis for my life are somehow still intact.

Keep the faith - people often say at a time like this. I suppose that just like everyone else I've searched for a true sign that God still exists and that He still cares.

I didn't find that sign in a flickering light. I haven't found it in a door opening for no logical reason. It wasn't about the magical pull on the slot machine lever. No, it was there in the eyes of three young children - John Jeffrey, Farrah Lynn, and Rocco Jeffrey. The light shining in those six eyes makes me believe.

"Are you going to write a book about my daddy?" John Jeffrey asked me yesterday.
"Yes, if you'd like me to," I said.
"I do," Johnny said. "I don't ever want to forget about him."

Me either, kid, and we'll see him again.

I still believe that. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense right now.