Faith ...or Belief?

Location: Small town outside Lisbon, Portugal

Time: July 2013

"And there under the roof, was the place where "Our Lady of Fatima" appeared to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, the children of the house. Now if you will go there, pray, burn a candle, and have faith, Our Lady will listen to you. Don't forget, this place is very, very special," says the tour guide getting of the air conditioned bus with an "Our Lady of Fatima" super-souvenir-store ticket which offers a gift of a glowing little statue for every 15 euros you spend there in her hand, walking towards, along with many people, the grand church standing at the end and the highest point of a vast, concrete area.

[caption id="attachment_438" align="alignright" width="300"] "Sanctuary of our Lady of Fatima"-Where the first sighting took place. Millions of Christians flock here every year.[/caption]

This is Fatima, the "Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima", to be more precise, where, supposedly, Virgin Mary appeared to three little children for the first time in 1917 and first told the children to build a small chapel for her. Later came the "secrets", directed mainly at Lucia, the youngest of the three; "Our Lady of Fatima" told Lucia in one of her apparitions that World War I, which was going on at the time, would end in a year if Lucia, her brother and her cousin prayed to her. And, in fact, World War I ended in 1918, a year after these apparitions began.

Later in her life, after another "secret" from Our Lady of Fatima, stating that Lucia would be the only one to live through her teenage years, was "proven" to be true, Lucia had a dream. In this dream, a bishop dressed in white was tumbling across the market place, and seemed to be in distress; and when there was an assassination attempt at the Pope, also known as the Bishop of Rome, a few days later and he survived a  gun shot wound "which should have killed him", as his doctors put it, he stated that he "became a believer" - along with many, many other people.

Now what stands where Lucia supposedly saw Our Lady of Fatima for the first time, is a poly-carbon room, with a statue inside so deeply embedded behind the bullet-proof glass and the stone walls, risers, and all sorts of assortments, that it is barely visible. And also some three million people who migrate there every year who believe.

 

These people believe in the power of their prayers, and they do not only believe, but they have faith in it. They may believe the story of "Our Lady of Fatima", but they have faith in her when they buy candles in shapes of various body parts which they or someone close to them needs to survive, they have faith in her when they close their eyes tight with tears welling up around the corners and ask for forgiveness, they have faith in her when they travel thousands of miles and walk 100 meters on their knees to the church.

Faith is a subset of belief. Faith entitles power and hope. Belief entitles a set of mind.

Lucia had faith in "Our Lady of Fatima" when she sat on her knees in front of her bed before going to sleep and praying that the bombs and the crackling radio broadcasts her parents always listened to nowadays and the death all around and the men disappearing from around her to stop. But whether WWI ended because Lucia believed "Our Lady of Fatima", took her word for it, or because the nations were far past emaciated, is up for discussion.

And the main difference between belief and faith is that belief doesn't require the participation of the single most important bundle of muscle in our body pumping red hot liquid through our veins and into our souls; the heart.

Homeward Bound

"Home is where the heart is."

 

Have you ever been "homesick"?

It's not like any illness you've encountered and fought your way through until now.

Its symptoms are excessive longing for particular things, the blues syndrome, watering eyes, a sense of despair, among many others.

You know you've caught it when you wake up somewhere else in the morning and wish that you were home, wish so hard that you don't want to go to bed again that night without knowing that you will wake up at home.

You know you have it when you get up at night and can't find your way to the kitchen in the dark and something, something deep inside, feels seriously wrong.

You know you have it when you miss the view from your living room window, when you miss the smell of your house, when you miss everything and everyone inside it. And it hurts.

 

Homesickness is nothing pleasant, and its only cure is to GO HOME.

But going home...Ah, that feeling is one of the best ones in the world.

You unlock the door with out even looking at the lock, you swift open the door just enough so that it doesn't hit the shoe stand behind it, you step into your sanctuary, and that feeling of "being home" swoops over you and you're just feeling ecstatic.

Then the smell hits you. The smell you longed for while you were away but you didn't know so. You take off your coat, settle in your place on the couch with the optimal view of the TV yet also the perfect place to enjoy the sound system.

You finally know where everything is (at least most of the time), and you don't feel out of place. You're standing in a room which was formed and developed around you, by you, and for you.

 

Today is the last day of our vacation. Tomorrow, school -the seemingly-endless obstacle-race- begins. Today, lots of people return to their houses with the hope that this year will be better than the last one. Tonight, new year's resolutions will be made. Some will decide to study harder and some will decide to get on the lacrosse team. The familiar feeling of lying in your own bed returns; thinking about what classes you'll have tomorrow, checking if you've done all you've wanted to do that night, and slowly drifting into sleep and into the magical mystical world of dreams only to be awakened by the screaming alarm clock...That noise which snaps you back to reality and annoys you even if you hear it in another context.

Tomorrow morning, at least most of us, we go home. We go back to the building we spend most of our time in in a normal week-day, we go back to the people who we see more than our parents sometimes. We go back to our routine life styles and rituals, and that counts as going home as well.

And school may be opening and our days of freedom (although densely occupied with "summer homework") may be over and a marathon like no other, our senior year, may be beginning, but at least we get to spend it in our own place, with our people, at home.

Sometimes we get bored of the routines and the monotony and just to get away from all of it, but yesterday, today, and tomorrow,  we will always be "homeward bound".