Presumption, Charles Dickens, and Fumbling Towards Faith

Morning in the Cove

 It struck me yesterday while swimming my laps that behind every blog is the belief that there will be readers.  Or at least one! Which pre-supposes that the world is a (mostly) friendly and welcoming place.


Which is also called trust. 


So, what do you know, creating a blog turns out to be yet another excellent exercise in the development of faith. Which can be a bit of a struggle for those of us with less-than-trustworthy backgrounds.


This may explain why so many blogs are so upbeat! Because in order to create one, to put yourself out there, it helps enormously to have the kind of innate optimism that with every breath declares, "It's good that I'm here! I'm glad that I'm here! Others are glad that I'm here!" 


It can't be by accident that humans are born as infants, innocent of what their world may hold for them, unaware of the possibility that the very arms they are born into may not offer the welcoming embrace they need. Otherwise, given a choice, some might well kick up a ruckus-- "I'm not so sure I want to be out there. . . . "


Could this be in part why Charles Dickens titles Chapter One of David Copperfield, "I Am Born?" 
I am born.
With a pause before the opening paragraph, a breath, while we take in the enormity of those words. I am born.  Only then do we get the first sentence: "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."


It doesn't take pages. We already know. "I am born." That by itself is an act of enormous courage.  Proof enough for me already, David C, that you are indeed the hero of your own life.  


So, here, now, my act of courage for today. (More likely, for the week.) The birth of a blog, the birth of a blog that I hope will honestly chart thoughts on life, writing, reading, homeschooling, homesteading--and under it all, like the invisible power of the tide beneath the waves tumbling around all those tiny shells and and grains of sand , their constant motion proof it's there at all- - under it all, the ongoing fumble towards faith in life, in  people, in God, in - - something.

Maybe you'll share some of your fumblings, too.