I told my Grandmother that I don't really believe in God anymore, and that maybe I never did. "No evidence either way," I explained. "Mythology. Stories that the ancients told to explain the unexplainable," I rationalized. "Agnostic," I concluded.
She said, "You sound just like your Grandfather."
My Grandmother believes. Maybe not as much as some, but enough. Maybe not as much as she once did, but still. Even in the face of people who tell her that believers only believe because they are scared of reality -- or worse -- that they are merely hedging their bets. She still believes despite all the tragedies that she has faced in her life -- poverty, wars, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a child. Her faith comforts her.
I, in turn, am comforted by that.
4 comments:
Maybe the fact that faith comforts us is all we really need. Maybe nothing else should matter. :)
To a certain degree I'm with you here.
I don't have much, if any, faith of my own, I do find comfort in the ability of others to maintain theirs.
However, I can't help but wonder when someone "let's go and gives it up to god" or somesuch, is it really just an excuse to mentally check out and remove your individual responsibility to manage your life. A cop out disguised as faith.
Deantastic: I think we should all take comfort in whatever we can.
Annabelle: My grandmother is not the type to "let go and give it up to god." She is WAAAAAAY too "Type A" for that (understatement of the year, perhaps the decade). But she still believes that there is a purpose and a reason and it comforts her.
But yeah, I cringe when I hear someone with the power to affect their own circumstance saying that they're just going to trust in God and see what happens. It is a cop-out.
Awwww. You're grandmother sounds like a really good woman. I wish I could believe in something as strongly.
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