"The Stillness That Choked"

Algae hush over autumn’s breath—faith stalled, reflection swallowed.

“It’s a Wonderful Life”--Pope Leo’s favorite, alongside The Sound of Music, Ordinary People, and Life is Beautiful. Each a hymn to faith, family, resilience. Each a reel of light projected against the dark.

I thought of them in the north woods, high above Hudson, between Cortlandt and Peekskill. The hills were bruised with autumn, the mountains fading into smoke. I lit a cigarette—knowing the sin of it, knowing the body keeps score—but in the middle of nature the taste changes. The drag sharpens, the burn deepens. A cigarette in fresh air is not the same cigarette in a city alley. It becomes ritual, almost holy, a high against the backdrop of dying leaves.

Below, the pond had shrunk since summer. Not glassy, not clear—but cloaked in algae, a green hush that swallowed reflection. The water didn’t shimmer; it brooded. Psalm 23 whispered: He leadeth me beside still waters; He restoreth my soul. But these waters felt forsaken, thick with decay. Restoration seemed distant, like a prayer recited too many times to still mean anything.

What is faith when it’s inherited, not chosen? At five, I prayed because I was taught to. My gods were toys, Brownie the dog, and my grandparents—nothing else mattered. God was a name, not a presence.

But age rewrites the covenant. Religious school drills scripture into the bones until “chosen people” becomes less a blessing than a burden. To be chosen is to be light in a world that prefers shadows. To be chosen is to inspire when inspiration itself feels scarce. Looking at the world today, the phrase dissolves—hard to see, harder to believe.

So where is my faith? I asked myself as I ground the cigarette into the earth. The leaves crunched underfoot, brittle echoes of summer’s green. The pond, shallow and algae-laden, mirrored the shrinking of belief—mine, the world’s, perhaps both. Noir truth: faith is a flickering reel, sometimes projected, sometimes lost in the dark.