Is faith dead?

Some people think that the title is merely rhetorical, as the answer is most obviously and resoundingly, “Yes!”  But that ignores the evidence of simple, everyday observation.

Admittedly, in this Roman priest ridden, yet strangely non-church going country, faith in a caring (or indeed malign) divinity is largely absent, yet simple acts of faith are plain to see.

Especially where zebra crossings are involved.

I am constantly amazed, as a driver, at what blind belief pedestrians display in the power of painted black and white lines on a road.  They stride onto the crossing as if there were adamantine walls along the edges of the passing to save them from the most determined of massive lorries – of course without looking to see if any juggernaut is coming their way.  They know, in a way which demonstrates their complete belief, that as soon, nay! before their foot has touched the black or white, they are protected from anything up to and including tactical nuclear weapons.

We may not see the devout walking across roads telling the beads of their rosaries nowadays, but we certainly see the modern equivalent which is the ‘telling’ of the elements of social media interactions on their mobile phones, with their eyes glued to the small glowing rectangles (in portrait mode) and their ears plugged in (wirelessly or otherwise) to the relentless musification of Spotify.  Completely involved in the mobile word they have, they believe, complete immunity from the slings and arrows of outrageous driving that as a pedestrian terrifies me on a

daily basis too.

It is a known fact (that I once looked up on the Internet and so it must be true and not fake news) that Spanish drivers are more dangerous than the French.  OK, we are not talking about the suicidal/homicidal driving of nations like the Greek or Turkish (I am still having counselling to mitigate the deleterious effects of a traumatic taxi trip from the centre of Istanbul to the Airport many years ago) but the standard of driving here is abysmally low.  And since most pedestrians are drivers, they know how little concern those drivers have for those not in cars when they are in them – so to speak.  And yes, the transcendental equanimity, or crass stupidity, with which they stride onto a busy road putting their trust in fading paint is astonishing.

And strangely humbling, of course.

Would that I had could share their faith in anything to the same degree of absolute trust that those walkers display each time they ignore the possible (fatal) consequences of uniting for a brief moment with a fast-moving large metal ram on wheels secure in the fact that they are protected by a painted series of road mounted post-modernist glyphs at their feet!

How wonderful to live in a world in which opportunities for the affirmation of faith are to be found along every road, where devotion is as painless as a few seconds of walking.  No need for the Camino de Santiago with its length and privations to show belief, all you have to do is cross the road: if you survive you will have demonstrated the Truth of your Faith; if you do not, then you will have been taken in an Act of Faith and will therefore, assuredly, go to your reward.

However, belief does not equal truth, and in the reasonable world it would be more advantageous for everyone if crossings were not regarded as challenges.  If zebra crossings could be regarded as courteous requests for passage rather than opportunities to exercise unalienable rights; where stopped cars could be invariably thanked for their allowing passage, I can’t help thinking that we would live in a happier, safer and richer world.

I should be congratulated by not using the dreaded word that haunts my waking hours and depletes my pound-paid pension – but it is not difficult to see the approach to the zebra crossing (albeit via a non-British population) as a clear metaphor for the March-approaching act of self-harm that my ‘government’ seems hell-bent (sic.) on inflicting on us in another act of unreasonable ‘faith’.

I enter 2019 with no great feelings of positive progression on a national scale, but I reassure myself that the personal possibility is always hopeful.   

Please!