The shaking of my non-faith.

You may think you have everything to lose until you have a kid. Yeah, I had stuff to lose before… but now everything I had to lose is seen in the new light of having a kid and thus everything to lose. 

Which is why today it dawned on me: My family lives in Israel. Israel. There are a lot of messed-up places in this world. In fact, most of the world is covered in messed-up places, circumstances, people. And I have chosen to live and raise my child in one of them. One of the more dramatically messed-up ones, that is. 

I’ve always been a morbid person. I save it for when I’m alone and free to think out every ridiculous scenario. And, every so often I’d get these morbid freak-outs before my son was born, nearly four weeks ago. They’d end in, ‘well, we’ll figure it all out when/if the time comes.” 

Now, needless to say, the morbidity is growing in intensity and frequency, covering a range of topics. And I find myself alone and free to think  more often these days.

I’ve even  managed to put a morbid damper on my son getting his new citizenship(s) and passport(s). Like – well, what if he really needs to use these to escape? What if there’s someone out there who really would harm a little boy, Jewish, Israeli, whatever? How will we protect him? 

I’m not a praying woman for the most part. I don’t have the kind of unshakable religious faith in the destiny of this country that others have. I’m pretty practical when it comes to all that. 

And here is my non-faith, shaken, by this tiny little boy, all  mine to protect in this messed-up world.

Maybe this is how one becomes a praying woman.