The Elusive Yet Holy Core

In looking up the reference to yesterday's post on the NPR site, I was drawn to a This I Believe essay by Penn Jillette (the vocal half of the Penn and Teller magic duo) entitled, There Is No God. While I obviously don't agree with his conclusion, I found little to argue with his essay. You can read it for yourself here. He points out a number of misuses and abuses of a belief in the divine. I was particularly saddened by the ring of familiarity in this statement:

I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do."

A really difficult, yet incredibly valuable, gift you can give yourself this Advent is to explore your belief in the exisitence of God. Is your belief similar to the one Penn Jillette describes? If so, perhaps you need to explore the less familiar and more frightening waters of belief in a living God, who is indeed still speaking, and thus might say something new that could shake up your former way of thinking. You see, I believe in a God that big. I disagree with Penn, looking for the divine is not asking more of the invisible, it is admitting that there is an invisible, and that invisible force is a compassionate being.

There are other wonderful essays linked on the page of that essay that you might also want to explore. I particularly liked the one by Kathy Dahlen describing how her faith was bolstered by her observing an autopsy. She describes how she discovered that there is more than the physical to this world. She describes it as "the elusive, yet holy core." Yes, that is what I expect to come to earth this, and every Christmas.