My Goofy Sister Faith

Smart people cross the street to walk on the other side when they see my sister Faith coming toward them.

I do too; she is so goofy and we don’t want her to bump into us as she tends to do, even to the most dignified men and women in town.

I suppose the problem is that she is blind, or at least it seems that way to me.

I once saw her walking on a telephone wire a hundred feet up in the night sky, on a stormy night. Why was she doing that?  I don’t know, I suppose she was excercising. Isn’t that goofy?

Maybe Faith is an alien from another planet. She pretends to see what I can’t see and she is as blind as a bat to what is right smack obvious and in front of her. It’s as if she lives in a different world but she is manifested in my world, like an overlay!

All the things that try to destroy smart down-to-earth people don’t faze her a bit, such as cancer and poverty, broken promises and betrayal, those really and truly horrible things, those bullets and bombs. She even smiles when she is locked-up in a room with them.

Me? I want to run away and hide or get out my sword, but not Faith, she just sits there like she’s watching a scary movie and eating popcorn. Sometimes I hear her chuckle inside that room full of serpents.

I read in an otherwise good book that Faith was the evidence of things hoped for, the proof of the unseen, which I think means invisible. Evidently that writer was goofy too. Does he actually want me to believe that Faith is the normal one? What was he smoking?

My sister is tiny; somebody said she was as little as a mustard seed. I’d like to see her get even smaller until she disappears; she makes me so mad and so jealous. I admit it. The things I have seen her do are downright flabbergasting. Someone said she moved an entire mountain, but I didn’t see that so I don’t believe it.

O God how do you tolerate my goofy sister? When will you slap some sense into her?

You know how much she embarrasses me when we’re together.

Some people pretend to like her and invite her to dinner. I think they expect her to bring a good present, but I know she won’t. She hates temporary and you can never bribe her like normal people. Oh she gives gifts alright, really extravagant gifts, miraculous gifts I’d say, but never on my birthday or Christmas, or when I need something pretty bad. No, she waits like I have all the time in the world and then when I least expect it, poof! Faith has her hand stretched out to me. Who can trust a friend like that?

God, why do I bother to complain to You about my goofy sister? You probably made her that way and you probably love her more than you love me.  Faith called me a dead-head, and You didn’t even punish her. Did I hear you laughing?  

(Painting by Mark Rothko)