Sol's Inner Vault

It has become the ailment of our time. So many now are experiencing it secretly, unable or unwilling to admit their daily suffering. So many afflicted, but perhaps unaware, or ignoring the symptoms, denying a condition that is often difficult to plainly name out loud. Or, people believe it's something else, a phase, a temporary situation, just the circumstances of fate, or life's miscellaneous, unrelated details, not something pervasive, chronic, no big deal, no illness or undesirable malady. So many folks are in the constant presence of this harsh, excruciating, and uncontrollable state, this cruel form of unwelcome company. So many people suffering in quiet anguish, embarrassed, ashamed, uninformed. In truth, it's actually a veiled disease, often very serious, sometimes actually deadly when ignored over time, neglected for too long, disaster may manifest all at once, just beyond the reach of help. So many people, everywhere, potentially anyone, all around us, at work, at

In earnest resolve and open heart I've sought the key to believing-- yet the inquiry up until now seems to have no destination. But, is believing maybe itself the only key? Does the decision and practice of pure faith then unlock the mystery that's so illusive to pursue along paths of curiosity and doubt? Is some tangible bond of trust completed only thru love and acceptance, unquestioned by proofs or data? Assuming the state of faith, becoming a choice made consciously with confidence from the unchartable mind of everlasting hope. Unbound by time or worldly concern, with faith alone the key to God's gift of grace, not for our righteous acts and decrees we are told in Scripture, but by salvation thru belief in the Creator. So, believing has no other key, it is the key. The missing element that completes the elegant formula of meaning, that fills the nucleus of the unknowable with new light. Faith is a dedicated decision to stop asking the very biggest questions of this exis

There is no questioning over heaven when I talk with my mom, 96, dementia bad now. There is no casual doubting or stray musing about the hereafter when she asks where everyone has gone. "Where are they? My family. My sister Rebecca. We were holding hands when they pulled us apart, she went to another line. We waved to each other. My parents, everyone, where are they now?" I answer my mom with certainty, like I'm really informed. "They're all in heaven, mom, with father, all together, they're ok. Some day, they will come for you. You will see them all again." I tell her all this calmly, almost matter-of-factly, like I know for sure. There is no questioning when answers are unknown anyway, no doubting when it serves no good purpose, like hope or peace of mind. No time for intellectual speculating when the eternal is in the room, like beams of light thru the curtains mom made.