The cream colored tiles, with intricate circular patterns, are covered with dust. An empty battle of Chianti is choking with cigarette butts from yesterday and the days before that. Pink robes and little girl's skirts are on the clothesline waiting to be all dried up under the scorching 12 noon heat. Brown, sun dried leaves are scattered all over the floor. Here on my makeshift balcony -- a thick slab of concrete protruding from one side of the tiny shack we live in -- is where my test of faith begins.
I open the tiny door -- you'd have to slouch and be like John Malkovich to get through -- and I see Forget-Me-Nots in a dying, wilted state. It has been days since I've been here to water the plants, chasing instead so-called global leaders talk about poverty and inequality in a posh five star hotel while dining on hor d oeuvres and red wine.
I choose to believe that with enough water, I could resuscitate the greens and the violets. Even if science tells me otherwise. Even if logic dictates another ending. Even if they look every bit dead. Even if there is nothing to hold on to.
And that, to me, is what faith is about.
Faith is believing something you don't know or you're unsure of. Faith is taking a giant leap. Faith is enduring. Faith is believing. Faith is hoping. Faith is wishing. Faith is finding. Faith is persevering.
Faith is holding on to something even if that something is in a dying, wilted state.
