Chainsaws, casseroles and faith in each other

We talk a lot about faith in this country — faith in God, faith in family, faith that somehow tomorrow will turn out a little better than today.

But there’s another kind of faith that doesn’t get mentioned near enough.

It’s the faith we place in each other.

That might sound simple, but it’s the hardest kind of faith to keep. It’s believing that most folks — no matter who they are or where they come from — want to do good. They want to live decent lives, raise their kids (of the human or furry variety) and rest at the end of the day knowing they did right by somebody.

I think most of us want a comfortable world, one where people can coexist without so much noise and suspicion. But it’s tough to hold on to that when we’re surrounded by anger. You don’t have to look far to see folks fussing more than they’re fixing. Scroll on your phone and it feels like folks are competing to see who can be the most cynical.

It’s easy to give up on people when all you see is the worst of them. But out here in the real world, beyond all that noise, most folks still show up. They still care. They still find ways to help.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and not just in big gestures but in the small, everyday ones. People still smile at each other in the grocery store. They still wave when you let them merge into traffic. They still ask how your mama’s doing — and they mean it.

When disaster hits, they don’t wait for a government truck to roll in. They show up with what my friend and Mississippi-based editorial cartoonist Marshall Ramsey calls “chainsaws and casseroles.” Somebody’s clearing fallen trees while somebody else is stirring a pot of soup. That’s how we do things down here — one helping hand at a time.

That kind of goodness doesn’t make the headlines, but it’s the stuff that holds a community together. It’s proof that even when the world feels divided, most folks still care deeply about one another.

That kind of faith is the backbone of a democracy, even if we don’t think of it that way. Government officials can write the laws, but it’s ordinary people who breathe life into them — who turn “we the people” into something real.

When we stop believing in each other, the whole thing starts to crack. We lose patience, we lose kindness and we lose hope. But when we keep showing up for one another — when we assume good intentions and extend a little grace — we start to heal some of those cracks.

I’m not saying it’s easy. Some days it takes everything you’ve got to stay hopeful. But believing in each other isn’t about pretending everything’s fine. It’s about choosing, over and over, to look for the good instead of settling for the bad.

Every time somebody holds a door, checks on a neighbor or gives a few dollars toward a cause that helps somebody else — that’s faith in action. That’s how we keep this whole thing going.

Maybe what our country needs right now isn’t more talk about who’s right or wrong but a little more faith that we’re all trying — that we all want to build a place where people can live, work, worship and relax in peace.

The faith we place in each other might just be the strongest kind we have left. It’s what keeps the porch light burning when the headlines go dark. It’s what turns a crowd into a community — and a country into a home.

Write Executive Editor Joshua Wilson at joshua@MaconMelody.com.