When I was ten I had a great friendship. Admittedly we did things that I wouldn't be happy with my boys doing today but we weren't alone in making the mistakes; we were together. Learning together, in mischief together. It's wrong to steal. Do not drop live turtles down your pants only because you have the shop keeper distracted. It's wrong to swear without meaning or with malice in your heart. We did not have the malice and we didn't have the meaning either. It was just fun to smash as many curse words together in one sentence and run down the school hallways. It's wrong to play with matches despite the appeal of fire and light. Do not set your school bathroom on fire. We watched Sesame Street in its first season and during commercial breaks rode my mother's ironing board down the stairs.
The next year, my friend went to a different school but we would still have time together- to play on the weekends and for years to come. Only as life does, it didn't work out this way. Instead when I called or when G called me, he would ask a question that I was completely incapable of answering. With a seriousness bordering on an interrogation, he would ask about my feelings about God. Our friendship could go no further unless I told him. He was insistent and I was consistently puzzled. I did not know what to say. Looking back now, I can understand some of what he was feeling in relation to everything that was occurring in his household. I can understand the importance to be on the same path with someone you care about. I didn't have a path yet- I was just looking for laughs and being a stupid kid. I'm still looking for laughs.
We drifted apart. A phone call here and there but distant, in different time zones. It may have been six years later napping in my cold room in the garage when my mother woke me up to say that G was upstairs with his mother. Feeling half asleep-dreaming?- my mother had to come back down to tell me to get upstairs. It might also be that I was hesitant to go up. For them life had taken many turns but they were at peace and just wanted to see me, my family and to let us know their story. Their faith and love had carried them through turmoil and to a good place.
These are still my memories decades later with one more: we would correspond (letters, not emails) once or twice a year as G became a Doctor somewhere way up north. About 15 years after the last time I saw he and his mom, G wrote that he had a some business to tend to in San Francisco and would like to see us as well as meet Maria over dinner. We ate at a place that from one bad experience I referred to its' name as meaning "bad sausage" . This was a good meal and a better evening of old and new friends being friends, taking easy comfort in the presence of each other. We had finally arrived to a place where our memories and experiences were both seen as positive shared experiences, if the acts themselves were not ones we would recommend or do again. Twenty five years to be ten, on the same path.
I think about the things he experienced- how he got through as well as the process many people take to get through their conflicts and troubles. Different ways to do so but many choose the road of having faith to sustain, nourish, and hold on to. I didn't grow up with religion in my life; it was not put down but also the topic was never discussed. I am continually fascinated as to what f aith is. While recognizing the grays to every discussion and conflict, how I view the world has gotten simpler as I've gotten older. I see families and individuals that find joy in their lives having a good sense of self, enjoying laughter, not controlling others and having some type of faith. It may be a faith in God but also faith in something that is less tangible as a celestial concept; faith that provides a morality that they can hold on to, that informs and strengthens everything they do. It's a root of which all their decisions flow from. A faith that allows us to believe in our local team even though we know that the reality is that team will probably will be crummy again but this faith allows to believe and invest ourselves in that belief. And get up again, if the flower does not yet bloom.
Faith or Optimism? Optimism requires blinders and some delusion; an optimist always has the belief that whatever the situation is, it will get better. Faith has more of an acceptance of reality;
a bad situation may not get better unless we involve ourselves in providing a solution, all the while working with hope to get through. Optimism would not have helped most of those persecuted by the Nazi's but those with their faith may have found the will to continue on. Faith does not promise happy endings for the individual but it does value the courage of doing the right thing and the importance of a community.
I am not impressed with those who try to force others how to live their lives other than to encourage and inspire. I am impressed with those with a belief system, who go forward despite their fears, with courage, kindness and good humor. Rooted in Faith, they seek to plant the seeds of goodwill, care and love in their communities.
However the journey leads you to it, keep the faith, my sons.
I should note that although this is something i ponder, the idea to put these thoughts on paper came after watching a film called, "Higher Ground" by Vera Farmiga.
