Faith ...by Heather

'You gotta have faith...'
So sings George Micheal.

Who am I? The honest answer is I simply have no idea.

I am 52. Married, happily enough, with 3 kids who I love as much as any mother could love. And I'm alive. Beyond this, if I think about this question, I end up feeling very uncomfortable, and my mind balks at it, and I move on. It's too much.

However, I keep coming back to it - like an obsession. If you have read Justin Cronin's 'The Passage', you will be all too aware of the smokes constantly asking, Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Well they are semi dead people infected with a virus which renders them almost souless and contorts them into something savage. Above that, there is nothing.

There is more to it than that, you know - in the same way, there is more to me than a chronological age and a scrap of family.

Some years ago, actually a lot of years ago - I was given one of these pseudo psychology tests to do, I've always been a sucker for these. I was asked a series of questions, seemingly unrelated - my answers were black, lonely and scared - and it turns out, these answers demonstrated my deep seated feeling about death.

I don't remember the questions exactly but I very much remember these answers, because what it said in that jokey pop psycho babble sort of way was a hitherto unknown fact for me, this really was my deeply felt view and this knowledge has stayed with me to this day, because however inaccurate the basis of the test, the bald truth was, that when I thought it through, that was exactly how I viewed death and that knowledge was terrifying - a thought to be avoided, because dark, lonely and scary it was.

Who am I?

Well I can tell you I am highly strung and  fidgety, I am introverted, (it took me a long time to work that out actually because I confused confidence with extrovertism) but I avoid  the social because I don't really like being with people all that much -  fundamentally  I don't really like people much at all. I like individuals, don't get me wrong, I'm not a sociopath; but I don't like large presses of humanity and I find it hard to be compassionate.

In fact I inwardly cringe at myself at how hard nosed, cynical and uncaring I can be - that's hard to swallow. I don't like these facets of myself, but I accept them, because there is no denying they form the core of what I am. But what I am is not the same as Who am I?

I find it far easier to feel compassion for animals, I don't know why; I would go out of my way to help an injured badger on the road side whilst I would not be the good Samaritan to a beggar on the street corner - I'm quick to see the bad in folk and think everyone is on the make. I wonder if this says much much more about me than it does about them.

My Mother, is the dotty old girl who gets on the bus and talks to complete strangers, she will know their entire life history between the short hop from home to town, she has this heady knack of getting to the crux of peoples lives and they spill their guts out to her and she absorbs it and crucially, is the very body of compassion and empathy.

I'm confused by how she does this, but more importantly, why? Is she just nosy? She shrugs, I don't understand her, nor she, me. Because I will huddle away in the corner desperate not to make eye contact let alone 'talk' - why would I be interested in someone else's sorrows? Why would I waste any time investing it in someone I don't know and truly don't care about?

That makes her the better person I feel, by far.

But I gotta have faith. Because I am truly not a bad person. I love the earth, and her domain, her animals and humanity at large, I would fight for a cause, because much as I don't really care about individuals I don't know, I do care they have the right to live their lives in peace and freedom, just because I don't care for them personally, doesn't mean I don't wish for them a life free of hurt.

I am presently reading a book by Eben Alexander, a neuro surgeons view of the afterlife. I have only just started it  ( I know it has its detractors and why) but I like this book because he is, undeniably, a neuro surgeon, therefore he is a scientist, far superior in scientific knowledge than I - a man immured in all things essentially secular - but this man, is I see going to show me heaven. (maybe he's turning a buck, says cynical me, but maybe, just maybe, there is a grain of truth...)

I want to believe
I want to find faith
and I want to somehow redeem this person I am - somehow find what makes me worthy, because I seem to have spent 52 years concentrating on me - and now I find, I really need to know who me is, because in essence I can see what I don't like, but I want to find something that I do, some worthiness and I want 'God' to know me too.

'God' already knows. But I need to know he knows.

I want Faith.

Spirit of Change...by Heather

October 2014

Well there is no doubt about it. Katy and I are pretty bad bloggers, almost as bad as we are weight loss campaigners.

We are failing.

But, we are failing with flair.

Because fattening and middle aged we may be - but done for? No we are not. Far from it.

We are I suppose either weak willed eating machines or victim to our hormones and age - maybe something of both - but whilst we haven't blogged of late, we have continued to live our kindred life-line; two souls, an Atlantic away from each other - yet strangely symbiotic. Divided by culture and even personality - we don't look or act the same - and often we look at something from very different directions. But the fact remains we are looking at the same thing, at the same time - and we know, almost telepathically, that the other, has reached the same point of reference in our life journey.

It's weird that someone so removed, so distant can be the person so close. And it has always been that way, right from our very first virtual 'hello',

Both of us are still fed up about weight gain - but we are finding that whilst our angst hasn't lessened exactly, we are approaching it from a different direction - our outlook has widened outwards in to how we interact with our world, and how we calm the inner storm - we are searching peace in our world, and if we can't look sveldt while we are doing it, then at least we can learn to be at peace with our new found selves, and maybe even start to like ourselves a teeny bit more.

This has been slowly unwinding for us; and as with everything, our approach to the same quest has taken slightly different path - Katy seems to be reaching outwards - and she is finding new positive energy whilst I seem more introspective and meditative.

Whatever it is - I am liking these new Heather and Katy approaches - and we will be sharing our thoughts more regularly, because there does appear to be a real spirit of change in the air.