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Anachroclysmic

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A dollar bill, a baby bird, a prayer I can’t explain, and its answer which I won’t pretend to understand.

Started by vmarinelli · 3 months ago

Walking my dog today, while feeling especially weighed down by impossible questions, I slipped back into a mode I haven’t much occupied in recent years: what can only be called prayer.

If asked to explain my faith, I could only tell you, entirely in earnest, that it is first and foremost inexplicable. (Because it’s faith.) And [...] ... Continue reading »

6 comments

  • Pagan Magic

    3 months ago

    My interpretation of this would be that the universe has confirmed that it knows how you are feeling - you're something important that has become lost, or you feel discarded i.e. the dollar bill - especially given that it was a one dollar this makes me think it represents you - I'm not from the US but I seem to remember that dollar bills say 'In God We Trust' on them, but this bill has been lost - does this sum up how you feel? that you don't know which God to trust?

    Then we move onto the baby bird, the fledgling starting it's way out in the world - again I feel this is symbolic of you. Take the lesson from the bird, follow your instincts and learn how to fly. But follow the advice literally - just go with your instincts, find your own path - and don't let labels stifle your growth. You are an aspect of the creative force of the universe - you don't need to have any other faith than faith in yourself.

    Dawn x
    reply
  • Emily B.

    3 months ago

    I think you are very nice. Sorry -- I have this habit of keeping things under 140 characters these days. ;)
    reply
  • shawna.atteberry

    3 months ago

    The picture of the bird is stunning. I'm glad you got the picture and the message. :)
    reply
  • Mikeb302000

    3 months ago

    Dear Victoria,

    I love your writing. I've been reading your stuff for a long time without ever commenting. I especially liked this post about prayer and wanted to thank you.
    reply
  • mikeb302000

    3 months ago

    Dear Victoria, I've been reading your stuff for a long time without ever commenting. I like your writing very much and wanted to thank you for this post about prayer. Often bloggers and internet people seem to think atheism is so chic and that it's cool to visciously mock those who disagree. It's refreshing to read a post like this.
    reply
  • vmarinelli

    3 months ago

    Kind of you to comment, Mike. I have complicated feelings around atheism and around what is, to me, inextricably linked to atheism: cynicism. I'm actually a pretty caustically cynical person a lot of the time, for all sorts of reasons that make perfect sense but are also deeply disheartening. I've also been to the edge (an unspecified edge, it would be hard to precisely elaborate, and again it feels like a contradiction for me even to explicitly talk about faith as such) with faith, having experienced it in undeniably authentic, deep ways and then coming to grips, years later, with how psychologically malleable that faith had made me.

    And of course, so much evil is done in the name of faith. So I get why people are atheists, to be sure, but mocking those with deep spiritual beliefs, of course, is not about the expression of some higher, albeit grittier atheistic "reason," but simply about meanness. I think there's enough 'mean' on all sides to go around.
    reply

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