I've been pondering over something over the past few days about something I never really came to see until now.

Faith.

Faith, apparently, is the act of believing in something with the knowledge that things will go the way you pray it will. Prayer. Communicating with a higher being to achieve inner peace in knowing that the doors will be open and all you need to do is step inside. Knowing that there will always be help no matter how hopeless the situation, how dark it seems to be all around you. That there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel, the one some people find themselves to be in for the most part of their lives before they finally find a purpose for themselves. Faith is different from hope. Hope is optimism put in a more profound shell. Optimism is good, yes. But optimists do get disappointed sometimes.

What is faith? Is it just an intangible form of divine belief, or is it a source of false hope?

How many people wake up everyday, take a short moment of respite from their daily routines, to kneel or to sit in silence, and pray to God, to honour their faith and to grant them safe passage, good health for them and their friends and family, a smooth working day, immunity from worry and sorrow?

How many people were in the World Trade Center towers thinking to themselves amidst their work "I can't wait for tonight, my son's just graduated from college and we're going to have a big dinner to celebrate!" or "I do miss mum, finally she's coming down from Chicago to see us!" or "I've been so busy I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye to my daughter this morning. I have just the thing to surprise her tonight."......and moments later a hijacked commercial jet comes crashing into the building. If they aren't ripped to pieces by the metal shrapnel, or crushed under collapsed ceiling supports or walls, they're burned alive to the bone by the ignited jet fuel, or choked to death by the smoke. If they survive...then perhaps we can say God had saved those who believed in him. For the non-God fearing who survived, perhaps we can say it was luck.

But what about those who believed in Him, trusted Him, prayed to Him for his Mercy and Protection, who had faith in Him and his power to safeguard them and their homes...and died a tragic, horrible death?

World Trade Center attacks aside, how about those elsewhere, who learned that his father had died in a car crash, whose mother was just diagnosed with last stage cancer, whose son was in a freak accident and shattered his spine, never to walk again. How about the evil who thrive on taking the lives of others, that guy who killed a priest or holy man, who set fire to a religious building, and lives? Why do bad things happen to good people? What have they done to deserve this suffering? Why did their faith and prayers go unanswered, and were punished instead?

Why are there wars, why is there an eternal cycle of suffering and sorrow; no perfect world for everyone to live in? Because people made it that way? Because God had a reason for letting this happen?

What exactly is faith?

I fear I will never know.

disclaimer : this post was not made with the aim to sow seeds of discord or to pull people from their faith. it was merely an outlet to express the true feelings of a spiritually confused person. Please do not use this as a basis to flame me, or to start a riot, or form an angry mob outside my house. If you have something to say, say it to a mirror. The guy in it probably cares more than I do.