Once upon a time,  A long long time ago
 
God had created Eve and Adam in different parts of the world, trying out different types of clay, which all turned all out  to be equally good. But when he noticed that, in contrast to other animals, which Nature had made, his man and womankind was were not growing in numbers in the same way. What could the reason be, what was missing? The women where were living in their own bubble, keeping very busy, day and night, with all kinds of tasks to protect themselves from wild boar, snakes and their imagination.
The men were busy constructing straight lines. This was the curse that had fallen onto  upon them, that fateful day, when some kind of glitch in the Divine system had given him man the idea of a straight line,something that never existed in nature. Nature was very upset about it. I believe she still is. Well, you know that story already; expelled from paradise as a consequence and all that. Welcome to the club. However, I have to say I am not sure if that story is true. Nature is a smart woman and helped out God more than once.
In his current problem with his mankind for example, Nature showed him several examples of how he could alter his creation to be more reproductive.
There was the self sufficient worm who was both male and female. But this idea was a little too practical for God.
Then there were the much admired bees, where apparently the male dies after he has made love to the queen because that was his sole purpose. A little too focused, he thought.
 
Then there was cloning (1) binary fusion, (2) budding, (3) vegetative propagation, (4) spore formation (sporogenesis), (5) fragmentation, (6) parthenogenesis, and (7) apomixis. All are biological processes in which an organism gives rise to young ones similar to itself.
 
But God shook his head, “No I am afraid my lot don’t have time for that, they have a rather short attention span. Besides that, if they only get together once a year like your creations, they will never survive. ”He was very fond of his creations. He had given them imagination. This would be a species that would praise him, build temples for him and sing songs about him. Non of the other species, that Nature had made, would do that. 
Nature turned quiet. I think she felt a little insulted, ” …how could he ask me to be in charge of time too, don’t I do enough already?”  Time is…… well that’s another story. For now let’s say God’s problem was identified. He had to make something that would give his mankind that “time”.  He needed something that would be  strong enough to overrule men’s obsession with constructing straight lines and to free women from their fear of being powerful beyond measure. 
 
He walked up and down a beach and pondered who he could ask. He picked up a flat pebble, throwing it across the water towards the horizon, and invented stone skipping and stone skimming. In those days he always invented two alternatives of everything, even if they were very much the same. He thought diversity might make people happier. Well, he liked giving people a choice. It was the one thing Nature was never very good at.
 
His stone skipped towards the horizon, into the sunset and caused a mass of ripples,  which radiated out across the surface of the sea. Waves were created which clashed violently against the rocks, again and againand their spray formed clouds, which hovered above the land until they settled peacefully in the sky.
“ Quite spectacular “, God thought, and did it again. More ripples, crashing waves, dense mysterious fog and happy clouds on a blue sky, occasionally disappearing into the warmth of the sunset.
A poet came along and, as our God liked to show off a little from time to time, he skipped another flat stone across the water. The same marvellous, visually striking performance happened. With a big grin on his face he shouted over to the poet, 
“ Ha! What would you call that?”
 
The intimidated poet, who was quite a private person, took it literally. After all his profession was to name everything. So he spelled out a complicated word to describe the skipping stones and what he had witnessed: wesire was the word he came up with.  God looked at the word for a while. “I think it’s spelled with a D“, he said to the poet who was obviously a little dyslexic. “Never mind I shall use it anyway”.  So he did and put desire into men and women. Ancient folklore tells us that it was just enough so that they would make time for each other. They started to do more things together. Things like …..skipping stones …… well,it wasn’t quite there where he wanted it to be, but desiring definitely helped time to appear.
 
One problem solved! God laid back, pleased with himself and ready for his afternoon nap.
 
The poet had not left and stared at him – without words.
“Speak up”, God said, “what did I give you a voice for?”
“ What is desire but wishing to trust?”, the poet said in a soft voice.
“ I have a different opinion on that”, God answered . 
“ Why am I not surprised? You can’t argue with God, at least not in this life”, the poet mumbled away to himself.
“I heard that”, God shouted after him.
His afternoon nap had been totally ruined. He now had to think about trust. He looked around his studio. The 12 commandments carved in stone were no help. The B book of stories and rules would not be the answer either, although it would become a bestseller eventually.  Trust, rust, frust, frustration, constipation - God knew he was no poet, so he dropped that approach too.
 
Maybe you (or we) can help him out here. Do you have any memories where you were trusted or enjoyed the trust that you gave to somebody?
 
God kept looking. Trust did not come in packages off the shelf, neither was it an app. It was a rather liquid-like substance and therefore difficult to put into mankind in equal measures. Some had more, others less. There were two women, both tried to have babies but it didn’t work out, so the pregnancy had to be stopped. It was an equal shock for both of them. The first one never tried again. The second one did try again and had several children. The first one adopted instead. Trust is not a linear system, unlike control,which provides a stable but ridged structure, it can easily break.
“Blessed are the hearts that can bend, for they cannot be broken”, the poet said in a surrealistic manner.
“Ah, not you again”, God said to the poet standing in the doorway.  “Sorry I am busy right now”, he continued  in a stern voice and closed the door on him.
“You will need my help with this one”, the poet said knocking on the door, but God ignored him.
TRUST - what a big thing.
What to do with it?
Pointless to ask Mother Nature again, all she knew were her own rules.  He also could not turn to God, because he was God. At least, in this universe where he was standing. Who knows what happened in other cultures.  Then he had an idea. Why not ask the competition.
 
Now you may think he would ask the devil. But there is no devil. That’s just a story made up by some power-hungry freaks to scare people into submission. The competition of the All Mighty, but completely invisible, is of course the very visible, constantly failing, constantly homesick, me or you.
So he asked Eve and Adam, Yichen, Mohamed, Daniel, Sara, Miwako, Lydia and all the others and they had endless stories on how their trust had been broken. Buckets full of sad stories arrive at God’s studio. Whole libraries, in addition to huge museums without a single picture of a smile, followed. His mankind walked around with serious faces. This was making things worse. It was not what he had intended.
 
When a child asked an adult, why is everybody so serious, the adult answered, God the all mighty spirit wanted us to tell him stories of how our trust was broken. Fortunately, most children do not pay too much attention what adults say. They are innocent.
“Innocent, that is a good word”, said the poet said, who had sneaked into the studio unnoticed.
 
 “Out”, God pointed to the door, “we have rules here, close the door behind you.”
 “But you can change them,” the poet whispered through the closed door. “…those rules.  God shook his head, irritated, but as always very curious. Could that have to do something to do with trust? Did the children have an ability, which grown-ups did not have. They had no difficulties with trust. What made them trust? Was it the unconditional love of their parents or was it their imagination?
 
God knew the answer immediately, of course he was God. Unfortunately, he forgot to tell me, so I cannot tell you, but don’t be disappointed. I have heard that in many parts of the world there are people gathering to work on the answer to how we can trust again. In other parts, that is not the case and ridged systems prefer old solutions of rigorous accountability, with generous exceptions for the privileged few, of course.
“I just can’t be everywhere at the same time,” God said, “you have got to trust that I am trying.”
 
Ups. “This doesn’t look like a one man job to me”, Mother Nature thought. “Maybe we should have several Gods to manage this one.”
Oh Boy, she could be soo pragmatic.
 
But who am I to criticise her. I just feel she or he should have watched a bit closer. When kids try to walk they wobble. They fall, they cry, they get up and develop confidence.  When my friend Pat teaches people to draw, her students want to draw things like they are in reality. It takes weeks before they develop the confidence to trust their mark making.
 
“I want my humans to be fearless,” God said in an almost humble voice, knowing that he had not quite managed to make them that. 
 “ You might have to give them more ‘willingness to try’,“ the poet said. This time, God did not send him out, he knew he was right. ​