March 29-A, 2023

If you take something, anything, on faith,
you can't say that's the way it is--
it is the way you believe it is.

The distance between the way things are
and the way we believe they are,
and the way we wish they were, 
is the distance between here/now
and the other side of the universe.

But, we don't let that stop us.
We are always taking the way we believe things are
to be the way things are.

It is a trick we play on ourselves
and any un-savvy others who happen to be 
in the neighborhood.

We see something we would like to be so
and declare it to be so,
and it suddenly becomes so,
just like that.

Of course, nothing changed
except the way we think about the things
we believe to be so.

It is magic in action.

When people start talking about 
the things they take on faith as being real,
like hell, say, or "the plan of salvation"
(Which we believe to be so as a counter weight
to our deserving to go to hell,
which we also believe to be so,
because we angered/disappointed God,
which we also believe to be so...)
we have to either walk away,
or step right in and say,
"You only believe it to be so.
It isn't so or you wouldn't have to take it on faith."

Being clear about what's what
and what's not
is steady work between this world
and the made-up imaginary world
of things we believe to be so
because somebody told us they are,
when what they really told us 
is that they believe they are.

"Fair winds and following seas"
sailing the course that is set before us
all the days of our lives!

–0–