Human Faith

Human beings are inconstant, mercurial creatures. This is the crux of almost every broken relationship and failed love. How can we trust, when the ones to be trusted are inevitably untrustworthy? To be called to love, however, is to be called to trust the untrustworthy. It is a terrible gamble, but the surety of it is this: though the risk of failure is great, the reward of success is infinitely greater and, while we may escape the possibility of misery, it can only be at the cost of every hope of appreciable happiness. So, a million might fail and one succeed, but this is the burden of human life, and a world in which even one can strive for happiness is far better than a world in which all are condemned to indifference. We love, and so we put our faith in others, and this is the blessing and curse of our existence. Only remember, the suffering of a broken faith is transient, but the happiness of a proven faith eternal. Search always for a worthy human faith, no matter how often your confidences are abused. Accede to no less and, while you may endure much suffering, you will find, in the end, extraordinary happiness.


Human Faith

My faith I put in winter and the frost,
in summer and the rampant meadow-grass,
in things begotten, even as they pass,
and so my merriment imparts a cost

of mortal and perennial decline;
this is a mild charge I gladly meet,
for treasure freely tendered is deceit,
but death and reawakening, divine.

My faith in sempiternal loss and gain
is sound; these underpinnings shall abide
through age and age, long after we have died,
and, with another certainty, remain,

for, of the fleeting fancies I pursue,
I put my final human faith in you.