My faith did not require beauty or belonging - the deeper I went

Host: The mosque courtyard was silent beneath the silver breath of dawn. The sky was the color of wet ink, and the faint call to prayer had just faded into the morning air. The stone floor was cool beneath bare feet, holding the last memory of night.

Jack stood near the fountain, his reflection trembling in the water, distorted by the ripples of his restless hands. Jeeny sat on the steps, her scarf drawn loosely over her hair, her eyes calm — not from knowing, but from accepting.

Between them, written in her notebook, was the quote — the kind that doesn’t explain itself but lingers like a question:
“My faith did not require beauty or belonging — the deeper I went into my practice, the less it required at all.” — G. Willow Wilson.

Jeeny: “There’s something so honest about that. Faith, without the need for reward. Without needing it to be beautiful, or social, or comforting. Just… there.”

Jack: “That sounds like surrender. Blind obedience.”

Jeeny: “No, it’s freedom. The kind you only find when you stop needing your faith to look a certain way. She’s saying that the deeper she went, the more she let go.”

Host: The fountain gurgled softly, the sound folding into the distant echo of birds. The light had begun to rise, brushing the edges of the minaret with gold. Jack watched it without moving, his grey eyes sharp but weary — like a man who’s seen too much certainty crumble.

Jack: “Let go of what, exactly? I’ve seen people ‘let go’ of reason, of compassion — all in the name of belief. You strip too much away, and what’s left? Just silence?”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point. Maybe silence is the final truth.”

Jack: “That’s convenient.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s terrifying. Because when you reach silence, there’s nothing left to hide behind. Not doctrine, not identity, not belonging — just the self, and whatever it kneels to.”

Host: A gust of wind stirred her scarf, sending it fluttering like a soft banner of defiance. Jack’s hands tightened against the edge of the fountain, knuckles pale in the half-light.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic. But faith, stripped of beauty, stripped of belonging — what’s left to keep you there?”

Jeeny: “Presence. The kind that doesn’t demand applause. Think of it like breathing. You don’t do it for meaning. You do it because without it, everything ends.”

Host: The sun crept higher, bleeding light across the courtyard stones. It touched Jeeny’s face — serene, shadowed, unafraid.

Jack: “You know, I envy people who can believe like that. Who can believe without reason. My faith — if I ever had one — demanded proof. And proof always runs out.”

Jeeny: “Faith isn’t the opposite of reason, Jack. It’s what starts after reason ends.”

Jack: “And that’s exactly what scares me.”

Host: He stood, pacing slowly, the water in the fountain reflecting the tremor of his movement. His voice had that low, bitter music of someone arguing with the ghosts of his past, not the person before him.

Jack: “When I was a kid, my mother prayed every night. Even when my father hit her. She said, ‘Faith will see us through.’ But it didn’t. He left. We starved. And she kept praying. That’s not faith — that’s delusion dressed in hope.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Maybe her prayer wasn’t for saving, Jack. Maybe it was for surviving.”

Host: The words landed softly, but they struck deep. Jack froze. The morning air felt suddenly thick, the light sharpening around them like glass.

Jack: “Surviving what, exactly?”

Jeeny: “The world. Herself. You.”

Host: The silence that followed was long — the kind that reveals rather than hides. Jeeny’s gaze didn’t flinch. Jack’s breathing slowed, and the sound of water filled the space where his anger had been.

Jack: “You think she was right, then? To keep believing when everything told her not to?”

Jeeny: “I think faith isn’t about being right. It’s about continuing anyway.”

Host: The call of a distant muezzin echoed faintly, carried on the wind — not a command, but an invitation. Jeeny’s eyes lifted to the sound, and her voice softened.

Jeeny: “Wilson said her faith stopped requiring beauty or belonging. That’s what I understand now — that faith, at its deepest, doesn’t need to look good or feel good. It just needs to be. Like gravity. Invisible, constant, indifferent to belief.”

Jack: “Indifferent. That’s the part I can’t live with. I want meaning, Jeeny. I want to believe it matters — that something’s listening.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. But maybe it’s not listening in the way you think. Maybe the point isn’t being heard — maybe it’s learning how to speak truth into the quiet.”

Host: A bird landed near the fountain, dipping its beak into the water, scattering tiny rings that expanded and disappeared. The sunlight had reached their faces fully now — clear, unblinking.

Jack: “So what does faith look like to you, then? If not beauty, or belonging?”

Jeeny: “It looks like standing alone and still choosing to bow. It looks like forgiving the silence.”

Host: He looked at her — really looked. Her words didn’t shine; they settled, like ash finding its rightful place.

Jack: “You make it sound simple. Too simple.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It’s the hardest thing in the world — to love something that doesn’t need you back.”

Host: The wind brushed past them again, lifting small petals from the ground, carrying them toward the fountain where they floated for a breath before sinking. Jack followed them with his eyes, the movement small but full of surrender.

Jack: “You know… I think I used to have faith like that. Before I tried to make sense of it.”

Jeeny: “Sense isn’t the enemy of faith. Control is.”

Host: The light shifted again — a gentle surrender of gold into morning white. The city beyond the walls began to wake, its noise slowly bleeding into the serenity of the courtyard.

Jack: “So faith doesn’t require beauty, or belonging… or even belief?”

Jeeny: “No. Only honesty. Even if that honesty is doubt.”

Host: Jack nodded — slow, thoughtful. His reflection rippled again in the fountain, two versions of himself merging, dissolving, reappearing.

Jack: “Then maybe that’s why I left faith. Not because it stopped being beautiful — but because I couldn’t handle its ugliness.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s where the real faith begins.”

Host: The bell of a nearby church echoed faintly through the morning air, colliding with the fading sound of prayer — two calls from two worlds, overlapping, neither canceling the other.

Jeeny stood, brushing the dust from her hands, her scarf falling loosely down her back. She turned to Jack, her expression soft — not pity, not certainty — just presence.

Jeeny: “Faith doesn’t ask you to worship beauty, Jack. It asks you to see it in everything — even the broken parts.”

Host: He said nothing, but something in his face — the tightness, the armor — began to ease.

The sunlight pooled in the fountain, brilliant and merciful. The bird flew away.

And in that small, suspended moment, faith was not an answer, not a system, not even a comfort — but a quiet witness to the act of still being here.

Host: As they left the courtyard, the air shimmered with warmth, and the world began its usual noise — cars, vendors, laughter, living. Behind them, the fountain kept rippling, endless and indifferent, carrying light on its surface like a promise:

That perhaps faith, like water, asks nothing — yet fills everything that is willing to be still.