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BELIEF

A justification for expediency.

Subscription to the latest fad.

Abandoning ontology in favor of myth.

An ironic pact of determination and inhibition.

A drive for culmination that obscures the process.

A well traveled, well marked tributary that provides safe passage.

The vestiges of early awe that acknowledges power beyond what we perceive.

Earnest efforts by earthbound spiritual beings to glimpse the eternal in the mundane.

Fanciful, enthusiastic explanations engendered by primitive reactions to the unknown.

An attempt to make sense of the countless variables that dominate our physical existence by ascribing meaning and roles to supernatural beings.
 

• Perhaps a safe haven is more attractive as we grow older.
   
• Perhaps ‘existence’ can never be fully understood only alluded to.
   
• Perhaps there will always be some who believe that the earth is flat.
   
• Perhaps the greatest force for change in the world has always been tenacious belief.
   
• Perhaps nothing is hidden, only ignored; perhaps you are part of all and all is part of you.
   
• Perhaps everything is what it is not what you think it is; perhaps you are part of a birth, growth process that you can never understand.
   
• Perhaps the amazing spirit within every individual will someday be realized for what it is: a dynamic eternal entity that knows how to love.
   
• Perhaps embracing the empirical world as the only ‘reality’ precludes discoveries of other ‘realities’; perhaps ‘reality’ is one’s impression at a moment in time.
   
• Perhaps honest, humble inquiry enriches and expands; perhaps presumptuous belief that one has arrived, has ascertained the truth… stultifies growth by atrophying the imagination.
   
• Perhaps the wisest amongst us realizes that perceptions are always incomplete, inadequate, biased and that leaving the mind open to all possibilities allows it to fill in the puzzle gradually.
  
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  ESSAY ON BELIEF by EDWIN O’SHEA

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