“Only Mother Nature knows, knows the reason why.” – 4Hero, Morning Child

Getting old, like most everything, is a leap of faith in the humanity of others.

I said that recently in a chat about mortality. Faith is an interesting thing. We Americans are a religious lot so I get the sense that we tend to equate faith with a deity, with an after-life, with something greater than us as human beings.

But our society runs entirely on faith and trust in each other, doesn’t it? In other people to follow the rules of the road, or of basic decency, or to give in an extraordinary fashion when the chips are down out of something as fantastical as love or friendship or community.

I don’t put my faith in gods. I put my faith in you. Whether that you is kin or tribe, stranger or authority figure. I trust that we are all trying our best. That when the going gets tough, some of you won’t run away but toward me with an open heart and a helping hand.

I believe that to be true today and imagine it to be just as true when i’m closer to the end of my days.

Joshua Topolsky recently wrote at The Verge:

Yes, there are reasons to despair. To doubt. There are reasons to worry and wonder, and if you’re unconvinced or unsure that there are troubles in the world, you can always fall back on familiar, modern malaise or good old boredom. It’s so easy to worry, and it’s so easy to get bored. It’s easy to go dark.

But you shouldn’t do that. You should be excited. You should be ecstatic, overjoyed, energized, invigorated. You should be hopeful, because there are also reasons to feel hope, and if you’re down in the dumps about some pressing problem that’s threatening humanity — well, that should be a good reminder of how much work it takes to make things good.

Even in the roughest times, look for the good. Especially for those working to make it so.

Mr. Rogers called them the helpers.

I hope that, more often than not, I’m one of them.

Amen.