Faith.

I am sometimes reminded just how tenuously we are held together. Everything is mystery--God, love, life, and how all three work--nothing important follows rhyme or reason. All I know is that I am held, completely and utterly, suspended in love and saran-wrapped in mystery. I can feel its static cling all over me--tingling, waiting to spark.

All that is asked of me in return is Trust.
And how short I fall,


but how high I reach.

Faith, for me, is like reaching for a cookie jar set interminably high. Nearly on pointe I stand, calves flexed, spine stretched, brow furrowed in concentration, fingers splayed. I strain and stay in this position until my bones are on fire and my muscles tremor with fatigue. It is a master discouragement to see how very short my fingertips fall from my greatly desired prize. Still I stay, straining, seeming to reach but never grasp.

Then, just when I am on the verge of collapse, it happens! When my shaking becoms most violent, when the fire encapsulated in my bones reaches its peak, when my weakness seems to have overtaken my mass, I collapse...


only to find that, miraculously, what collapsed me was not my weakness but the weight of that big, beautiful cookie jar falling inexplicably off of the shelf and into my lap. With a wallop to the chest it sits me down hard on my rump. When I recover enough to sink my wonderstruck little palm inside, I pull out the biggest, warmest, juicyest, softest cookie imaginable. It's never the same flavor and even though there are always bitter portions to it, they only serve to add to the sweet of the whole. I am always left wanting more, but I am always left filled. I savor the cookie and get horribly messy with crumbs left all over my person, falling from my fingertips and smiling cheeks. And then the jar is replaced and it seems even higher than the last. The stretching begins, the doubt begins, and hope digs in its heels.

Help me, father, to fill the gap between my outstretched fingertips and the Heights with faith. (My child, my child--between your reaching and your grasping is Light. The very thing you reach for, though high, is yours so long as you reach. Remember.)