Heaven in hiding
What is faith? Well the basic textbook definition is to have complete trust or confidence in someone or something, but can completely letting someone in close enough to have faith in them prove to be the right thing to do in the grand scheme of things? If life hasn't shown you this by now then let me do you a favor, but completely trusting anyone or yourself can be very dangerous. We're people, we make mistakes and we all like to believe that we can trust the person in our arms or laying next to us with everything and then some, but like everything on this planet, if you put enough pressure on something... it's bound to cave in on itself and let you down.
Pilate, arguably one of the strongest characters in the story was thrusted into independence at a young age and in doing so she had to have faith in herself and in her peoples heritage to keep her going. And when reading the book she seems to be the most enlightened one out of the entire cast and dare I say the most stable, all until she has a momentary lapse in character at the end. Milkman is seen holding Pilate's dying body and her final breathes aren't a call to action or another vague riddle, but a final regret "I wish I'd a knowed more people. I would of loved 'em all. If I'd a knowed more, I would a loved more."(morrison 336).
We see Pilate, someone who up until this point was thought of not really needing anyone ends up regretting not lowering those barriers and letting more people in before it was too late. Completely contrasting Guitar with a mindset of anyone he gets close to ends up either leaving or dying which drove him to put his faith into the only thing he has left, his ideals. The seven days was the only output for Guitars trust, rage, and emotions besides Milkman and when he didn't agree with the days and guitar's message, it was only a matter of time before he found a reason to give Milkman his last day. Blindly following his faith in his ideals led to the death of the only one who really cared about him, leaving him truly alone.
This idea of having too much faith in one thing worries me, if you cant put all of your trust in faith in one thing then what do you do with it. Granted, some people will say your loved ones or your beliefs but from personal experience i've seen what happens when people are too quick to to give something their everything.I've tried believing in people and giving them second chances when no one else would, and for a while I let myself think "wow maybe this time it'll be different" "maybe im what they needed to change" and shocker it wasn't... I wasn't. And due to my faith that people can change has only proved me wrong. Im a religious man and when everything lets me down I look to my beliefs as a shelter from my storm but i've seen others like me, stronger than me, do the exact same thing and when their life takes a swan dive they break, no they shatter, and when they finally end up putting themselves back together in the end they're never the same. They still have that sense of brokenness in their eyes from when they were let down and blamed their belief.
Reading the second part of this story was difficult because it forced to me ask myself the question on who can you really trust if everything breaks in the end?
yours truly
-Connor
Pilate, arguably one of the strongest characters in the story was thrusted into independence at a young age and in doing so she had to have faith in herself and in her peoples heritage to keep her going. And when reading the book she seems to be the most enlightened one out of the entire cast and dare I say the most stable, all until she has a momentary lapse in character at the end. Milkman is seen holding Pilate's dying body and her final breathes aren't a call to action or another vague riddle, but a final regret "I wish I'd a knowed more people. I would of loved 'em all. If I'd a knowed more, I would a loved more."(morrison 336).
We see Pilate, someone who up until this point was thought of not really needing anyone ends up regretting not lowering those barriers and letting more people in before it was too late. Completely contrasting Guitar with a mindset of anyone he gets close to ends up either leaving or dying which drove him to put his faith into the only thing he has left, his ideals. The seven days was the only output for Guitars trust, rage, and emotions besides Milkman and when he didn't agree with the days and guitar's message, it was only a matter of time before he found a reason to give Milkman his last day. Blindly following his faith in his ideals led to the death of the only one who really cared about him, leaving him truly alone.
This idea of having too much faith in one thing worries me, if you cant put all of your trust in faith in one thing then what do you do with it. Granted, some people will say your loved ones or your beliefs but from personal experience i've seen what happens when people are too quick to to give something their everything.I've tried believing in people and giving them second chances when no one else would, and for a while I let myself think "wow maybe this time it'll be different" "maybe im what they needed to change" and shocker it wasn't... I wasn't. And due to my faith that people can change has only proved me wrong. Im a religious man and when everything lets me down I look to my beliefs as a shelter from my storm but i've seen others like me, stronger than me, do the exact same thing and when their life takes a swan dive they break, no they shatter, and when they finally end up putting themselves back together in the end they're never the same. They still have that sense of brokenness in their eyes from when they were let down and blamed their belief.
Reading the second part of this story was difficult because it forced to me ask myself the question on who can you really trust if everything breaks in the end?
yours truly
-Connor
Wow Connor, okay, I don’t have an answer for this question either. I agree that it often seems as though we can’t trust ourselves, we can’t trust our ideals, and we can’t trust others. But yet, the conclusion that we should not trust at all is a sad one that I’m sure we all aren’t eager to reach. Great job on bringing light to this complicated topic.
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