Faith.

Amelia-Rae Faith Thomas. There is a reason her middle name is Faith. It was to be Grace, but a few days before I was to have her, I turned to my husband and said I'm changing it to Faith...I need a little more Faith right now, and he said Ok, I like Faith a lot. So there you go. You know my feelings on the word hope - I don't like it, it's too impotent to me. It requires little of all involved...I hope...okay, so what? But faith to me, faith takes work and action.

I don't discuss many personal things on this blog...okay, wait, that's dumb, my family and health, two main topics, are highly personal, but I'm assuming you know what I mean. But for some reason I have been thinking about my faith a lot lately. I am Catholic - that may lose me three of the five readers I have right now, but so be it. I may not be necessarily a practising Catholic at the moment, but that is more logistic than for any theological reason. No, I don't agree with everything my church says, in fact, I disagree with a lot of it, but that being said, I am Catholic, always will be, and will raise my children as such. I haven't been to church in quite a while, and know for a fact if I went now all I would do would be to sob in the back for an hour and I really prefer not to do that. The church of my childhood, a large, stately neo-gothic grandiose building would allow such sobbing with open arms, as the church is large enough to sit in a quiet alcove or far in the back and not be noticed. My current church, a building far more post-modern, would say, ummm, you are seated way too closely to the person next to you to use their shoulder as a tissue, so please refrain from causing a scene, thank you.

Anyway, my point being...faith. So I haven't been to church in quite a while...well, Christmas and Easter...I'm not a heathen for goodness sakes, but other than that, bless me father for I have sinned....it's been a long time. I pray, and have prayed quite often over the past year, usually to Mary...she has seen me through much of this crap and I am grateful to her, as a mother who just wanted to see her son grow up. But I have found my religion again lately, in a strange place. I'm SO not the type who has ever said "Oh I love this band so much they are a religion to me, or oh, I love this band, it's a religious experience." I never worshipped at the altar of Morrissey or any such thing. But I have been listening to my Mumford and Sons cd's lately and all I think while I listen is that "this is like going to church" for me. It's literally like being in the physical building of a church again for me, and it is amazing. I can be in my car and cry and listen to these words that are so religious and beautiful, and I am so thankful. It's not Christian music, it's religious music,and I am in love. I wish I could tell them that even though they don't mean to, that they may eschew the "religious" music title with a passion, which I completely understand, and which I believe due to their quite evangelical upbringing, that they have given me back my religion. They have created a safe place for me to go to "church" and be able to cry and be sad and find my faith again. So thank you Marcus Mumford...even though you may not have intended to, you gave this girl back her place to be at church, to have her faith and her religion, which was very much needed.