A Leap of Faith

So a friend of mine was in a pickle with her man and wrote this letter to his elder sister, explaining her reasons for still sticking around, when she really wanted out of the sort-of-relationship they had. This letter is so sweet, she let me exhibit it, to show the importance that love plays in two people's lives:

A co-blogger this morning told me very briefly that what I should have the ‘talk’ with the object of my affection and talk things through.
I know where the object of my affection lies.
He can only give me so much. A casual-open-whenever-it-suits-him-relationship with no guarantees or promises.
This was not what I bargained for. And although when we’re together I feel his love towards me as a person, I do not yearn for just that.
I need something deeper, a more profound connection. He does not want to have a more profound connection. Not with me, at least.
I wish he didn’t only see me as a machine. I say machine, because he takes so many of my actions for granted, he forgets that I am a person too with feelings and weaknesses, and that at any given moment I might stop existing from his life.
I’d want him to care if I’d stop existing. I’d want him to seek for me. But he won’t.
So I either shut up, for the good of “the friendship” and keep whatever this is between us and I remain patient and oblivious to all his indifference and meanness or I cut ties with a razor-blade, never speak to him again, never see him again and move on.
The thing is this: I am a believer still. Not that he will change in any way, but that he will perhaps one day understand all the harm that he is committing against me.
He can be a wonderful man. He just stopped trusting and believing that someone can actually love him and care for him as one deserves in life.
He stopped believing in goodness. Your brother is a very hurt human being. And perhaps that is one of the main reasons, I cannot give up on him, or us, just yet.
He says that I can’t fix everything and some things are what they are. It’s not about fixing things or someone. It’s about offering love, hope, comfort, help when you see there’s need for it. Whether it helps or not that’s his call.
In a weird way I know he loves me, more that he will ever claim to admit. But ‘cause of the pain he carries, he defuses love and seeks for something more practical, in this case occasional pleasures of the flesh and occasional social get-togethers.
He claims the need for a more solitary life, away from people and society in general. That, I believe, it’s his fear of actually trying to form a communication with society.
I am not a society supporter myself, but to not have lived outside society’s norms, cannot possibly give you the emotional or psychological strength to withstand society’s pain. And as he has not ever lived outside his cocoon, he chooses to believe that his only sanctuary is his distance from human beings altogether.
I believe in light. Always have, always will. When I first met your brother, I saw light. A glow so bright that made me want to explore.
Then he showed me a carnal pleasure. Pleasures of the flesh are dark and insidious. They can be tricky and offer a sweet surrender, an illusion. For a while. Then they start to fade. And as the light dims on these pleasures, you start to realize how much into darkness you have been.
I am not saying that physical connection is something bad or something evil. Just that, they do not offer light in a person’s life.
Love does, though.
So, for however long I still have patience in me I will keep this charade with your brother.
I know that in this way I’m only corrupting my own psyche (soul), but this soul of mine loves him.
For what he is, for however he is. Unfortunately, he came to my life and now I bear a part of his pain as well.
Do not think me stupid, or do not say I am only doing it cause I might be more emotionally connected with him. Or because he was my first.
I am staying because I still have to. And where I still can give, I will. Even though the appreciation is not returned to me as it should for all that I give, I will keep on giving.
Because I believe in his light, still!

I believe that this light she's talking about exists in all of us. Good or bad, holy or evil, bright or dark. We all have it. Whether we choose to accept this light from another human being is clearly an individual act. An act of faith. A leap of faith. Whether we are strong enough to grasp the hand of someone else and say, I will walk with you, in good and evil...that is the true challenge of life!