To be a ‘‘believer’’ to me, until recently, had closer meaning to a phrase used to describe a giddy teenager in awe of a chart-topping pop star. But as life has a habit of doing, (thanks to what a family friend described as me being served a ‘‘sh*t sandwich’’ this year) I’ve found myself humbled and in need of ‘‘faith’’.
And although I’m not sure it’s actually what I’m doing, I’ve been praying that something or someone might help me, after I, too, started this year metaphorically on my knees.
A week before Christmas a relationship that I’d put my all into and believed was going to last forever, fell apart.
The grief, and loss of someone I believed and trusted to be my best friend, along with a sense of failure, shame, shock and betrayal, left me with a permanent sickness that has yet to pass, no matter how much friends and family tell me it will.
In the same week, as one part of my life fell apart, so did another, in a far more traumatic way.
() Much of what i ask for is selfish ()
My father, who has been enduring cancer and has had to face the most gruelling and unforgiving treatment, was given a pessimistic assessment by his doctors and then told that, in a best-case scenario, he’ll have another two years with us.
Most people only have to face one of those life-changing things at a time, and if they are lucky they have the person who meant the most to them to support them through the challenge.
So, maybe it’s the impact of facing both simultaneously and the feeling, every morning, that I’m being hit by a double decker bus, that has naturally brought me to a place where at night I lay my head on my pillow and I pray.
It is not on purpose. I’ve never done it before and sometimes I don’t realise I’m doing it until I hear myself inside my head.
I’m not sure who I’m talking to, I’m not sure you can even call it praying, but the voice in my head is certainly asking someone, or something, to help.
It is going out on a whim and asking to make my dad better, to end his pain, and not to rob me of the time I so desperately want to share with him. I tell it I’ll do anything if it can just do this one thing for me.
Sometimes it’s angry and it asks ‘‘why me?’’
A lot of what I ask for is selfish, and it comes from a place that I’ve never been before, a hopeless, frightened and exhausted place, where logical thinking and reality has run out.
I know that because in normal circumstances I wouldn’t be inside my head asking for help. I’d be rolling up my sleeves ‘‘not being ridiculous’’ , "toughening up” and "getting on with it’’ as my dad would stoically advise.
I’ve never believed in a God in the formal sense, but I probably wouldn’t call myself a strident atheist either, or at least not in the faith-hating sense.
Faith to me, instead of a belief in a set of rules or a book, has always been more of a hope, a calm belief that things always work out, so it is best not to spend valuable emotional energy on worry.
I’ve never been taken by the ritualistic nature of any religion, the dos and the don’ts in order to be rewarded at the end.
But growing up I was surrounded by it, with one set of devoutly Catholic grandparents and culturally observant Jewish ones, I’ve always understood what having a religious faith was.
It was their faith that informed my strong respect for it, all be it along with a critical cynicism. I’ve admired religious people’s devout belief in something more important than themselves.
That selflessness, however naive I might have judged it to be, is something I think all people should aspire to. And instead of following religious tradition myself, I’ve identified values of both my cultural faiths that I admire and have tried to use them in my day-to-day life.
While with them on holiday the dedication of my Irish Catholic grandparents to get up rain, sun or snow and go to an 8am mass while I hadn’t even had a shower always amazed me. It’s similar to the motivation that now gets me to a yoga class at 6am.
I was never interested in the hours that Jewish children my age put in to Hebrew classes, preparing for a batmitzvah, although I always quite fancied the party.
Some might say it is only those people who earn the right to pray when they hit rock bottom, and that I’m a hypocrite for finding myself in a dark place and asking just in case.
But it is the way life has the ability to humble you that has helped me to understand my faith a lot better and why even secular cynics like me turn to it when they are going through a hard time.
My everyday faith might not be the devoutly religious kind, based on a higher power, or the one that follows the rules, believes a book or belongs in one place.
It’s the food in tupperware with native dishes from cultures across the globe that has been hand delivered to my door.
It is the offer of a warm and loving home whose door is always open, it’s the family that when push comes to shove supports each other, and it’s the daily pep talks, true friendships and ‘‘just checking ins’’ that have covered me in a cloak of kindness and compassion, and given me, my faith.
And while some might say asking for anything extra is silly, I think what’s the harm?
