CARE HUMPHRIES

Navigating through a Dallas Green playlist comes with all the highs and lows. You feel encouraged, and excited, and then morose, and sullen. Then you’re championing. Then you’re cheering. Then you’re worried, and sad again. Dallas Green masterfully celebrates human emotion through a few strums of his acoustic.

And on today’s playlist – “Waiting”.

Song is 12 years old. It’s aged. It’s aged well.

“There’s no need to rush, we’re all just waiting, waiting to die.”

I’ve become fairly aware of my own mortality as of late. Suddenly, I’ve become cognizant that I am going to die. And what happens after that? I used to think I knew. At one point in my life, I was a 10-year-old kid at sleep-away camp, praying to the benevolent to wash away my sinner’s past and make me anew in His service and glory.

I was 10. What “sinner’s past” was I washing away at 10? I also remember being told that if I didn’t commit my life to Christ, I was going to go to Hell. And back then, Hell was a damning fire of terror and fear. I was so scared I’d go to Hell. If I didn’t get down on those 10 year old knees and pray for forgiveness of my sins and promise, promise, promise that I’d pray every day, and that I’d be Christ-like every day I could stave off going to the big H. Back then, it was H-E-double hockey sticks.

I really loved camp. No, really. I did. It pumped you full of adrenaline and serotonin and you’d sing with your friends, and raise your hands way above your head as you let the shininess of your new found faith wash over you, with the promise of Eternal Life.

I’m not knocking Christianity. Not in the least. I have a great deal of dear friends and loved ones who faithfully show up on Sunday mornings. Who bless their dinners. Who pray every day. Who are “fishers of men”, as Jesus instructed. Read on the Bible, pray everyday, and have faith as small as mustard seed; that’s all it takes to earn your ticket into the gates.

I consider myself to be a spiritual woman. I have faith. I live on faith. More often than not, it’s the faith bank I use for payroll. On the days I had nothing, on the days I had much, on the days I wasn’t sure I’d make it through, I would withdraw from my faith account, and lo and behold, I’d make it through another day.

I think I’ve always taken some issue with the human interpretation of Christianity, and what His teachings were. Whether you believe in Jesus, or Mohammed, or Allah, the end game is the same. We are all humans, and we are all struggling to use our human brain to understand something we all can’t seem to grasp – what happens when you die?

We understand right from wrong. And good from evil. We know that we should be solid humans; gracious, helpful, patient, loving. Time is a human concept. And I’d wager that faith is, too.

We exchange what we don’t know on the currency of faith. We take stock in faith. We buy shares in faith. We believe in faith when there’s literally nothing else tangible to write home about. We have faith that we’ll have our jobs tomorrow, that our children will make it home safely off the bus. We have faith that when we get sick, we’ll get healthy. That when we pull out of the driveway, we won’t get into car accidents; that we won’t get cancer, that we won’t go poor, or homeless, or …

or die.

Because the dying part is the end. And so many of us struggle to wrap our human minds around what dying means. Enter faith.

Some have faith that they’ll be reincarnated. I have a friend who believes we come back as Nature. Some have faith that when it’s lights out, it’s over and they’re comfortable with it being that simple. They have faith that it is that simple. Some have faith that we’ll walk alongside an all-powerful God and His son and the people who passed on before us.

Faith unites us. Where love checks out, where hate threatens, where rationality and panic collide, faith continues to draw our humanity together. We have faith, as a species, as a collective, we’re all just waiting.

— c ☆