Night Train

[Lesley]

This was an intriguing story. I enjoyed the idea that our own faith in ourselves is a type of worship to a personal god and by losing that faith, we're essentially killing our god.

The thing that struck me the most about this story was that it seems as if Alma is saying once you lose faith in yourself it can never be restored. Once the main character lets go of the hopes and dreams that she had when she left school, then she could never find new faith within herself. Her god was given a second breath of life from the faith of her unborn child, but isn't it possible for her to develop a new faith within herself that isn't tied to her baby?

At some point I believe we all let go of some of the dreams that we had as children or young adults. Life happens and it rarely turns out the way that we thought it would, but that doesn't mean that we don't develop a new faith within ourselves. Or maybe I'm looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses and it's much more common for people to completely give up and fade away than I think it is. What do you think?

[Alma]

Thanks, Lesley!

I think that even with my protag the "new faith", that through the unborn child she carries, is borrowed, hers only so long as she and that child share a heartbeat, as it were. Once the baby separates they're on their own, both of them. But she's got until then to figure out if she can retrieve or restore or renew that old faith that she once had. Or find a way to start fresh, as it were.

The Apex site has run their "drvotional" posts by authors of selected stories which (see Matt's thread, earlier) proved to be illuminating in the discussion of his story - since I haven't had a chance to offer one on the Apex blog, I did one on my own blog, here:

http://anghara.livejournal.com/601512...

It may answer some questions.

[C. Dawn]

I really enjoyed this story because it struck a cord within me. I had lost "faith" a few years back, so I felt this story on a very personal level. I liked the concept of how in losing faith (no matter what that faith is in) that a person comes to reside in a sort of living death. It's that faith that keeps us going and gives us that spring in our step. It gives us the strength to carry on.

I also liked how the unborn child helped save the woman and gave her a temporary lifeboat so to speak to hold onto until she could discover her own faith once again. Though I do have a thought here... Once faith is lost, is it gone forever? Can it ever be found again even after some time has lapsed? What would have happened if the woman hadn't been pregnant and her child hadn't given her a reprieve? Would the woman be forever condemned to a living death with no possibility of "redemption"?

[Alma]

Dawn wrote: "Though I do have a thought here... Once faith is lost, is it gone forever? Can it ever be found again even after some time has lapsed? What would have happened if the woman hadn't been pregnant and her child hadn't given her a reprieve? Would the woman be forever condemned to a living death with no possibility of "redemption"?"

All good questions - and like all things to do with faith I suspect the answers circle around "That is something that every human being must decide for themselves". So much depends on the individual person, on what they believ(d) in, on how strongly they believe(d), and (if faith was lost on the basis of disappointment) how bitter the disappointment was.

I suspect, although not even I can ever truly know, that somewhere along the line my protagonist might have found her way back... especially after this experience... even if she had found herself without the spar to which she could cling. But that... is a different story.

[Jason]

Glad to have you participating, Alma. The devotional mess up was unintentional, I promise. For some reason, you weren't on our list of emails, and since there are 26 contributors, it wasn't noticed.

I really enjoyed your story. It explored the side of faith (faith in self) that is one of the big draws of the series for me (as its publisher). I read the story to be stating that faith can be manufactured via necessity. Now that the protag was having a baby, she had to have faith in herself for the sake of her child. An interesting statement, a true one I believe, but not anything I had thought about before!

Alma wrote: "Thanks, Lesley!

I think that even with my protag the "new faith", that through the unborn child she carries, is borrowed, hers only so long as she and that child share a heartbeat, as it were. Onc..."

[Alma]

Elizabeth wrote: "Huh. I am not a faithful person, as in I am not religious. "

Hi Elizabeth - what you just said, there, forms the core of what you might call my own conundrum. I don't think "faith" is necessarily the same as "religion" - faith is a spiritual thing, a matter of belief, and religion (in my own head anyway) is something far more organized, far more dogmatic. Religion has a priestly caste to administer it; faith is between one person and something (which may or may not be an actual god) that they believe in, with no middleman in between.

In other words, you CAN have faith without being "religious". I think faith is defined by a set of personal values and religion relies more on dogma, and on ritual. I think religion can be BASED on a faith, but that faith that is based only on "religion" and nothing deeper than that is not necessarily a "true" faith. The devil, they say, can quote scripture - and dogma is often so very easily misused.

So all I can say is, keep on believing...