Reflections on the resilience of youth

And if you lose your faith babe,
you can have mine...
And if your lost I'm right behind,
'cause we walk the same line...
---Everything but the girl

It would seem that faithlessness is rampant these days. I find it hard to have faith, say, in humanity when our voting public opts for the reality of mass destruction of others, while claiming to love their neighbor. It is a deeply painful paradox that we Americans (there I go linguistically usurping the identity of two entire continents because my language has made it so) have to face. And yet. And yet... In the unraveling of the mystery we must combat FAITH with faith, in ourselves, in our ability to make a difference, to break through the silence, and the misunderstanding, and mistrust.

It is, perhaps, a false dichotomy to equate atheism to lack of spirituality. I believe that humans are deeply spiritual beings, and that we are searching for meaning, and failing, and searching some more. I recently felt as if I were enclosed in an enormous stainless steel cylinder, surgically bereft of nicks and scratches and the possibility of infection, and the possibility of escape, no notches upon which to settle one's fingers, to grasp, to scale, to rise above and see the light. Of course this is not a metaphor for the alienation of modern woman... it is just how I felt, overwhelmed with the tiniest of tasks, and not being able to start. But, the dam has broken, and I have initiated myself, only to find that sometimes you don't need even the tiniest crack in which to dig your fingers, but rather, rubber boots, gum and sweat, to fight against the slippery steel encasings that surround us.

I believe in faith but not necessarily in God. I believe in the comfort of community but not necessarily the binding conformity of Institution. I believe in myself and in others, and that is enough for today. And I believe in the resilience of our children to overcome the failures with which we have saddled them.

This morning, while I was working (yes, finally) and cooking and making a pot of coffee (multi-tasking is not only for the electronic) Isabella and her little friend Mae were playing just outside the door. I took preventative measures and actually clothed my nether regions, against my desires, but for the sake of propriety, in a soft-heather grey skirt. I lay belly down, as I am now on the brown institutional carpet, data entry in the early morning... Mae commented that she could not come over into the house until her mother came back from doing the laundry. Isabella then asked, "is your daddy home?" and to what I can only imagine was a non-verbal response (outside of my visual sphere) she continued, "Oh, do you have a daddy?".
Mae replied, "yes, I have a daddy. But he doesn't live here." And then Isabella knowingly questions, "Oh, did they break up or something?" Mae, without emotion, maybe four, not wanting to go in and dress warmly. "Yes, they were divorced." And then the two girls hold hands and giggle and make a craft to pay homage to the dead rat from Isabella's classroom.

I think that as adults we forget the resilience of youth precisely because we are so resistant to change and renewal ourselves. Children are more capable of understanding the inner workings of the human heart than we. Wherein lies the moment of change? When does the innocence and the acceptance die? I can remember the first word I read, I can recall exactly where I read it, on a restaurant sign, in front of the Acme in Wallingford, next to the bookstore. I remember the pride I felt at sounding out the word, decoding the letters myself. But I can't remember when I lost my innocence. Perhaps it was a slipping, slowly, a leeching away of essence. I remember, too, the first time I felt the spinning sensation of being *in* love. I must have been 6 and we were playing "kick the can" and hiding in the woods and a little blond boy, Marc, my age or thereabouts, caught me as I was running, and we sized each other up, and he showed me, in sign language the sign for "I love you" and the world spun and my knees wobbled in a swoon. But there was no pain then, there was no loss in loving, there was no destruction of one thing to replace another. Just the smell of the goats in their pen, and the earth, and the knotty roots and dirt beneath my feet. I don't think I saw Marc after that year and I never missed him. Again. The resilience of youth, the lack of regret and nostalgia. Is there a way to recapture that, I wonder?

In the meantime, now that my work-break is drawing to a close, I insist that as humans we are responsible to one another, and if one of us loses faith, there should be another of us, to step in and support, like a Jacob's ladder, always alternating, always aspiring to the sky.