We are learning to touch the fragile things, carefully. I remember being small and learning that touching the petals of a flower made them wilt and drop. And I remember feeling this unfair advantage over things of such beauty--why would God make things so touchable, so off-limits? Now that I am older and somewhat wiser, I see that the most tempting things are the most fragile on purpose.

I do not dream. I stopped dreaming a few years ago, somewhere between 21 and now. I stopped asking and stopped hoping. There are things that we wish for, long for, ask for, hope for and when we turn around each corner and find it as empty as the one we left, we eventually learn to stop wishing and sometimes to stop turning corners. We prop our collective feet on the ottoman of disappointment and tune our collective ear to the dismal quiet. It is easier to not touch a thing so fragile than to touch it and watch it drop to the ground, come unhinged from its lifesource.

I am saying this to my friend while we sit on the couch and dream. I am saying to her that to dream is to touch a fragile thing and fragile things break in my hands. She says that she is good for me and I can't help but agree. She does most of the talking and I just let fragile things grow from the inside of me, where I am touching them from the very start, where I am a part of their lifesource.

I read Hebrews the other morning "Without faith it is impossible to please God" and the answer comes easily, slides in and stays. This spinning wheel, this slippery slope, this trying desperately to please God and failing every single morning and every night too is borne of one thing only: without faith. I'm trying to do the impossible, please God without faith and He's not pleased.

If the lifesource is faith, not pleasing God, then I can touch the fragile things. Then we will see.