Fear and Faith

"It's a combination of fear and faith," I say sitting at the counter of The Breakfast Club.

The question was, "How do you live?"

John's contemplating retiring but doesn't have the money ... or at least not enough ... so he keeps working until some magic moment arrives when he knows it's time to enjoy life ... or he die before getting around to it.

"Faith," he muses over ham, eggs, hash browns and orange juice.

"Well," I interrupt his thoughts, "fear too."

"Faith," he says again, not listening.

That's as it should be.

Fear and faith are a constant dance but faith should always win.

But we're not especially a faithful people.

Meaning ... what faith we do have we place in the wrong things ... Republicans or Democrats ... Catholics or Baptists ... Banks or Business ... Group Counseling or Self-help.

What we don't have faith in is ... ourselves.

And whenever we do something just for yourself ... it scares the Hell out of us!

So we rarely do much motivated by faith.

More often it's fear motivating us to do exactly what we're already doing ... forever maintaining a status quo that leaves us unfulfilled ... doing the same old thing ... waiting for a magic moment that never comes.

Faith is too explosive a thing for most to handle ... so we don't.

Yet the times we remember most in life are those when we acted in faith and it worked out just like we believed.

We quit the job, left the spouse, stopped believing in politics, cashed everything in and spent it all, discovered God mostly doesn't go to Church or said "I love you" out loud to the right person in the wrong place at the wrong time!

Those are the defining moments we cherish and never forget.

It makes me think of Moses who got to see the Promised Land but never actually set foot on it ... but he had one Hell of a good time ... getting that far!