Unbelief

There are a great many things I believe in.  There are a great deal of things I don't believe in.  One thing I believe in, and have trouble with in others lacking it, is being fair.  Give and take, it's an orderly process that I NEED to have happen.  I believe in coffee in the morning.  No hot coffee means bad morning.  It isn't impossible, but it isn't happy either.

There are also things I don't believe in.  I don't believe in taking advantage of people, and I suppose that stumbles into fairness' territory, and after all, aren't all things connected?  I don't believe in most folk remedies, magnets?  Puh-Sha!  Magic healing metal strips?  Copper bracelets?  Puh-lease!  Oh, and ALL Chinese remedies that require strange parts of endangered animals.  Somehow, all those really tick me off, since, one, they border on kicking sand in fairness' face (Let's take advantage of people, why don't we?).  Two: they don't mention the healing mental effects of good strong hot coffee.  And, three: one of them uses animal parts that have probably belonged to an animal that was poached, and not in the friendly boiled egg way, either.

We saw up close and personal some tiger claws and some horns that may or may not have belonged to a Rhinoceros, and I am fairly certain neither of these animals would willingly give these parts up while still alive.  I was SO angry at the men and women selling these animal parts, but the language barrier prevented me from telling them what I thought of them, and really, it is a sign of a deeper plague.  That was the only time in China I really, really could not look the other way and simply chalk it up to a different culture that I don't understand.  I don't generally consider myself a big proponent of the environment or anti-animal killing, but, really, in our state, the government oversees it and I live close enough to town that I don't see many wild animals of the type usually hunted.  I was REALLY pissed off when I saw those tiger claws.  I counted at least twelve and there were others in the market place.  It doesn't seem fair to me that a tiger should die, simply because someone wants to boil his cuticles to cure foot rot or increase sexual appetite.  You know that no one eats tiger meat.  He was NOT a food item.  These people eat everything, why bother with tiger claws?  I mean, come on!  Civilized?  I wonder.

But, back to my subject, unbelief.  There is one last item over which I suffer unbelief.  It is not an item, really, it has been an idea for a very long time.  A fear in some sense.  In other senses, a source of devotion I don't show in other avenues.  Perhaps, it is a religion, but I suffer this unbelief a lot lately.  It is simple, even when it is staring me in the face, I still find it hard to believe.  It's incredible, really.  A miracle, yes.  Still, I don't believe it until I walk in her room and see her sleeping form and hear her rhythmic breathing and smell her sweet baby scent:  I am a father.  When I suffer that unbelief, that unsureness, and I see her, or I hold her, or I watch her smile, or I just gaze into those magical eyes, well, it brings tears to my eyes.  She is beautiful, and I am hers.

Oh, and it really isn't fair.  How is it fair to all the other fathers in the world that I, and I alone, get the honor, the glorious burden, the heroic Joy of being father to the most precious and beautiful little girl on Earth?  Unbelievable.