COLUMN: Modern day acts of faith
Faith is not dead, it is just unrecognizable since it got all that plastic surgery. Whereas our ancestors used to dance naked around fires all night to make the sun come back, we modern folks are more sensible. We take figurative and literal leaps with bungee cords tied around our ankles placing our faith in a device that was originally designed to hold a sleeping bag on the roof rack of a car. We put a whole bunch of old, questionably wired lights on a dead, dry tree and place a lot of paper and cardboard underneath it in celebration of Christmas rather than National Pyromaniacs Week. We let teenagers drive. Who could say we are a people without faith? There isn’t a day that goes by that you don’t rely on faith. We no longer beat on drums and worship golden calves, but the stuff we do from day to day is much more mystical. We put our financial futures on the line nearly every day with the hidden information encoded on the magnetic strip on the back of a credit or automatic teller card. People rely on airlines at fares less than a greyhound bus and don’t even get a parachute. Feeling the world has become too perverted and violent we turn to Hollywood and cable TV to set higher standards. This is roughly like going to a bar for marital counseling. What next? Ask the National Rifle Association for gift ideas? I occasionally have the need to test my own faith – not by trying to part the Great Salt Lake or calling seagulls down to eat the box elder bugs that plunder my house each spring, but rather with more modern day methods. I let myself be put on hold on computer tech support lines. However, day to day tests of faith are not so dramatic. In fact, MDAOF’s (Modern Day Acts of Faith) happen so frequently that you may not have even noticed. See if you recognize any of these: •Telling a St. Bernard to “fetch.” •Crossing on green without looking both ways. •Trying to maintain a long distance relationship. •Expecting a frozen pizza to look like the picture on the box. •Letting Uncle Bob work on your computer. •Saying “till death do us part” with a straight face. •Voting democratic for lower taxes. •Voting republican for peace and equality. •Putting your last 50 cents in a coin-operated dryer. •Buying clothes one size too small as a diet incentive. •Expecting people to actually stop at cross walks. •Putting stuff you really need in your airline luggage. •Betting on a stock market rebound. •Buying a home for the equity. •Counting on the Olympics to bring new revenue to the state.
See? You have a lot more faith than you thought.