Where do you put your faith?

[Lightning Rod]

Which are more important, ideas, people or things?

Some millionaire once said, "I don't mind if you take away my money. I'll have it back within the year. But don't take away my people. I can't make it without them."

I say the same thing about ideas. Don't take away my ideas. I can't make it without them.

Some invest their faith in wealth. They think they can buy their way out of any calamity.

Where do you rest your faith?

[hester_prynne]

Good question LRod.
I think I put too much faith in people.

After 51 years of being on this planet, basically on a search to find faith in something, I'd have to say at this point that it's music and song for me.
I remember once, long ago, (I was in my mid twenties), I was working as a singer of course, in Florida, but also had a daygig selling tickets at a movietheater. I had to sit in one of those little ticket booths and it made me very claustrophobic.
The Movie they were playing that day was the Deerhunter. I had just used my free ticket to see the movie before going out on shift to take tickets.
I wasn't in there selling tickets for long when all of the sudden everything kinda caved in on me. I kept seeing Christopher Walken playing roulette, and Deniro, trying to stop him, in my head. My chest started thrashing, my knees went weak. I thought I was having a heart attack, right there in the little ticket booth.
Shit! I'll never forget that feeling.
Needless to say, I left my booth immediately, despite threatening protests from the boss, and jumped into my old pale green dodge coronet, (ugly ass car), with my hand on my heart, totally freaked out!
I drove to the nearest ER, sure I was dying. Sure, that the only thing that keeping me alive was the song I was singing at the top of my lungs, all the way to the er.
I was singin lucky so and so, and it was keeping me alive, doing that. It really was!
Those er people told me I had had a major anxiety attack.
They prescribed me pills which I took for awhile, damn, they were called placidils or something, they looked like red jellybeans, and man they were fun!
But I knew then, although I'm just figuring out now, that it was the music, that song that I sang, that kept me going and protected.
Yep, it's the music, that song we sing, that keeps the faith alive.
At least for me.
Thanks for asking. I can't wait to read other responses to this.
Hest

[Lightning Rod]

this is a beautiful reply, hester

Music has gotten me through many trials.

It's like work songs the slaves used to sing.

Melody gets you through misery.

Keep singing.

[WIREMAN]

I put my faith in the talents I have cultivated as an Ironworker and Sculptor, along with my passion for poetry and performing it with insruments, these passions along with the love of a talented woman give me faith.........wired

[Arcadia]

I relate the word faith with something near to trust or confidence in human beings and human beings seems to be more than ideas.
Things-things sometimes remain tenderly when people and faith are gone. Or at least I felt some of them that way.

[Doreen Peri]

i place my faith in the inate language
of love above matter, the structure of
a visible plane flatter than a desert landscape.

i wait for a plain wind windsome like dust revived.
i alienate the survivor of possibilities, questioning me
under an interrogation lamp, hot, the display of sweatdrops.
it's my actions which shame me the most.

i place my faith in the aptitude of wonder.
I like this question

i hear thunder mimic me.
i listen to a breezed fantasy
with wide open mouth,
tongue ready

i do not believe in ownership..
i have owned more than i care to admit.
things are basically artificial shit
except a collection of antiques,
the history of which i admire
along with the inspired
angles.

i've had
many ideas

i have placed my faith in the dangling
of participled principles,
quaint as indecisive moments.
i have placed my faith in
the adornments of praise.
i have placed my faith a way a day
seems to blend to another,
patterned hues geometrically
exquisite beyond the layer
of greyed edge.

desperate are tries to get
back the swift swipe
of a trailed brush.

it is my actions
that shame me
the most

enough is often not quite enough
but enough is very enough when you place
your faith in love. what could be more?
not enough is not enough quite
when the fight to obscure the meaning
of want gets pacified by too much.

and if you understand that
then i'll place my faith in the idea
that people are more important
than ideas.

things was never a contestant.

the more i realize
the more i realize
there are tangibles and intangibles
and there is or there isn't a plan
behind all that happens, the more
i come to the conclusion that i should implore
my faith itself and ask it what it places
its faith in

i believe
i will do just
that

[anniefay]

well, since you asked...

not in ideas ideas become irrelevant with time. i enjoy sitting around and philosophizing but that is just brain exercise. fun, deep thoughts - good to pursue. good literature, knowledge, can't have too much. but this is not where i put my faith.

not in people people are flawed no matter how consistent, reliable they are. they can't always be there. people in whom i have great confidence will still, at some point, not be there or will be insufficient for my particular moment. even myself... i think i am more that trustworthy, responsible, can be relied upon... but, unfortunately, i too am hopelessly flawed. i appreciate the friends who love and accept me as i am. i hope to give the same in return... but, in the final analysis, that just isn't enough.

not in things.. probably the least important in the list. and things are nice. those i have i appreciate... they make life simpler/more enjoyable. but they are - afterall - just things.

so, i eliminated the list... but you asked... so for me - i place my faith in God. since many feel God to be nonexistent, or so far above man as to not be bothered by our existence at all... i have to say, that my experience has been... God is real. He is my Father. He is intimately interested in the minute details of my life... He is reliable, He is Truth, He is always there. He is the place/person/thing in whom I can trust. That is where I put my faith.... completely, without doubt.

too simple... so much so, that most just can't quite grasp the concept... oh well, it works for me...

[mnaz]

Me too.

I put my faith in....

The whole, over partitions
Compassion, over hatred
Core truth, over calculation
God, over religion

The divine lives within.
I find that a good place to start.


And don't forget humor's spiritual dimension....

At times, I have put my faith in
George Carlin or Mel Brooks or even
Monty Python....