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FaithJune 25, 2006 Have been thinking a lot about faith lately. Faith as in "faith-based community" -- this seems to be a euphemism for a form of Christianity that the current denizens of the White House find acceptable. One can't help but find it odd that the current denizens of the White House find any form of Christianity acceptable, given their low ethical standards and given the high probability that if Jesus managed to get through White House security he would be overturning desks, chairs, and credenzas in disgust. In reaction to this "faith-based community," specifically to the preference of the current White House and certain Republicans in Congress for turning social welfare programs over to acceptable religious institutions, some liberals claim to be members of the "reality-based community." Reality: right. These liberals pronounce themselves shocked! or at least very very disappointed that I am not registered to vote. They wax so eloquent on the subject of elections that I feel the spirit, I really feel the spirit; I'm ready to go down to town hall and be baptized -- uh, registered. Then my common senses reassert themselves. I understand the electoral process. I understand the market economy. I understand that in a market economy everything is for sale, and that includes elected offices. I understand that when I go into the secret ballot booth, my choice is between Nacho Cheese Doritos and Black Pepper Jack Doritos. (The Green alternative is organic refried bean and rice chips.) More, all the information I have painstakingly gathered about my alternatives is crap. That eminent democrat Otto von Bismarck noted: "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." To this I would add "the news." My reality-based friends, in other words, are taking an awful lot on faith. This is OK. I can't live without faith; probably they can't either. I just wish they would stop looking down their noses at people who have faith in a deity. On the whole, faith in an omniscient, omnipotent, here's hoping compassionate deity makes more sense to me than faith in a transparent, deconstructable human-rigged system fueled by fear, greed, and unenlightened self-interest. What bugs me about the "faith-based" people is their assumption that non-deists, non-believers, and out-and-out heathens can't have faith. Faith = faith in their brand of god, period, full stop, end of report. They're wrong. I have faith. Without faith I wouldn't be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other. There is no rational reason in the world for me to believe that I'm going to get my novel published and have time to write another novel and a whole bunch of essays and maybe a play or two. Quite the contrary: I know enough about the publishing industry to understand that it's at least as screwed up as electoral politics; probably more so, because no high-minded watchdogs are paying any attention to What Goes On. I have no faith in publishing, and though I (finally!) have considerable faith in myself, I also know that I have absolutely zero influence on the publishing industry. I have faith in my muses that they will continue to speak through me, and that I will continue to be able to keep the channels open. My muses, however, neither have nor wish to have any clout in publishing circles; they seem to conflate those circles with those of Dante's Inferno. Keep writing, they say; it'll get out there somehow. I have faith. Damned if I can figure out why, or in what. On good days faith looks like confidence, self-belief, and a dash of guarded hope. On bad days it looks like obstinacy, denial, self-delusion, and stupidity. Whatever it is, it enables me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, looking for minute chinks in the monolith's armor, believing that I really am going to get to where I'm going.
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