Faith

I've read this story somewhere before, probably in an email, and I came across it again today while hunting for interesting stories =S.

This young woman brought her child into the Children's
Hospital for a routine check-up. On the records, the child's first name was
Urine (pronounced as Urin-ie). Not wanting to be rude, but wanting to know why
this woman would name her child this, the nurse asked her how Urine got her
name.

The woman explained, "Well, my baby was born premature and
had to stay in the special nursery. She was real sick and they didn't know if
she would make it. I couldn't decide what to name her, but the nurses said they
would pray for her. One day, I came in and the nurses had already named her.
There was this paper on her incubator that said 'Please save Urine', so I knew
they had named my baby."

http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp

Considering the site this article had made its way to, (and of course looking at the way the story is written), I guess the person who originally came up with it intended it to be a joke, making fun of people who name their children after 'cool' names or 'bombastic' sounding names that don't have real origins/proper meanings. However, this story tugs on my heart strings. Maybe I've become too sentimental. Hah.

In today's world, many of us have lost faith - in religion, in others, in ourselves. "Enchanted" is a Disney film made in 2007. After watching it, although it WAS, after all a kid's film without a complex plot, I thought that it was nice that there was finally a movie with the theme of 'believing'. Growing up in a fairy tale, the main character, Giselle, could hardly understand why New Yorkers of today could behave in such a cruel and selfish manner. Like all Walt Disney cartoons, a happy ever after ending ensued, but I didn't feel that it was a cheesy mundane ending. I left the theatre feeling that, even though the whole world may think you are mad for believing in the good of the world, underneath, all of us want to believe in this warm, fuzzy world that we grew up to realise doesn't exist, and sometimes, when fantasy allows us to, we don't really mind being carried away to this other land where dreams come true.

My friend amazed me when she commented that she thought it was a stupid show - because Giselle stayed in New York and did not go back to her original sweetheart. Maybe she is a believer in loving the first one you choose for life, and making it work no matter what the odds. Maybe she didn't really see that Prince Edward only 'loved' Giselle for her outer beauty, or perhaps that still counts as true love. We are all entitled to our own opinions.

Whatever it is, the story that I quoted above is to me, one that shows a human's willingness to believe and to turn to faith in times of need. I don't really know if I'd believe the nurses if they told me they would pray for my dying child. I've never been through such a situation in my life. But it appears that the mother in the story did. They prayed for the salvation of her child, and even bothered to give it a name. In her time of despair, she had found faith in humanity, and laugh as we may at her foolishness, she was the one who gained hope and rediscovered belief in the goodness of man.

Maybe Terry Prachett says it best in his book, Monstrous Regiment. In it, there is a fanatic soldier who believed whole-heartedly that their saviour, the Duchess, would intercede on their behalf and liberate them. In a conversation with the main character, Polly, she tells Polly, an unbeliever, that the Duchess is standing behind her. Polly turns around and says that there is no one there. And the girl is happy for Polly, because she turned around.