Faith

Faith is conviction towards action upon incomplete knowledge. Therefore, faith is an emotion, a passion, siphoned toward some active end that would seemingly require knowledge, but where full knowledge is unavailable. This directing of passion, according to a hope, is not solely religious, but it is always intellectual.
I watch the squirrels jump in the poplars outside my parents home, (where I am still welcome, thank you Lord), and they jump sensing that they will land. It is not a perfect sense - sometimes they miss and scrabble down the bark a bit (I've never seen one completely fall) - but most of the time they have perfect precision and grace; their senses of space come upon them and they act perfectly. But this is not a faith they have in their actions. It is sensation and reaction.
They do not hope that tomorrow they will be able to make the jump. Tomorrow comes and they sense the space and they make it or they don't, depending upon their bodies ability to correctly sense and react. As they age, I assume they stop being able to correctly sense and react. My assumption is largely based on my experience with other animals, one dog in particular, named Major, who is pratically dead, lanky, skeleton white, with black eyes smearing down to his nose. He huffs about in circles with confusion hanging in his face, bumping into end tables.
Humans deal in sensation and reaction as well - we become hungry, and we eat. We see a obstacle and we move. We sense pain, and we distract, avoid, cover over in words. We feel good in a moment of happiness, and we laugh.
Faith begins with intellect, and not sensation. I say "begins", because I grant to all human beings an equal sensation of the world - a sensation of self, though perhaps without cognizance, a sensation of world, and the divine nature inherent in the world - all not necessarily with awareness (because many die before awareness of the world is achieved through language). I use "divine nature" based on english translations of Romans chapter 1, but could also say "otherness" or "supernatural qualities".
From these sensations, we begin the examination. For this examination and interior rearticulation, we must use our intellect. Metaphysical reality is an intrinsic assumption of this act.
Faith is born from this intellectualization of the world, and intuitive thoeries drawn where complete knowledge is not had. A aesthetic incarnation should be favored in evidence.
Um, I've got to go to work.

"Come down, my pride;
stand back my passions;
for I am wicked & I wait
for the Lord."

Home

Suburban Soliloquy #5

Out from the people I slipped
intending to think my way
through colored concrete squares
of pink and wine.

Hundreds within footsteps hunched
and clicked or watched the slick surface of the
screen flicker images, as I do now,
so then, I walked unseen

holding my mind aloft like a light.
There is no condescension in this movement
amongst the dead who are not dead,
but stealing their songs.

"Forgetfullness" says the ancient King,
"And I am going the way of the world."

But as I walked to the beat of the silence,
feet meeting concrete slabs in soft-soled soliloquy,
I came upon a place missed by mistake -
but for their sake, I will allow for the chance of
purpose.

A breathing space, formed by four misdrawn corners,
the blank box left ajar:

and the world's song, full and wild,
rich and wet, was winnowing up into suburban sky
like a series of glittering fish.

Suburban Soliloquy #4

O citizen,
press your ear to the fresh paved road
to hear how close the coming herd of gleaming chrome
has now approached.
They will be hungry when they arrive.

O citizen, to be alive upon the road
that splits the knowing fields of cultivated wheat
from the gods of chaos flinging by
toward bread & bluelight,

is to be divided, o citizen,
in half. For even I, the Self and Voice,
cannot decide which world to condemn
as one world ralleys forth with flags of righteousness
to pull like blankets out over the
breathing parts of the other.

O citizen, here is a bare spot,
come quickly and place your ear
here, as well. Learn the song of breath
before we decide otherwise.

Suburban Soliloquy #3

Signicantly, the shanty shacks of urban sprawl -
the tall, baby blue-beige or salmon stalls of sterile pleasure -
can be lifted from the suburbs of los angeles
to the urban curbs of new hampshire
and not suffer any crisis of identity.
So featureless! So perfectly blank!
Ah dearly beloved,
we are gathered here today
to totter about in nylon shirts
and designer shades.