Thursday, December 22, 2005

Yes, Virginia, There is a God

With every Christmas season, a whole series of classic and new Holiday specials hit the air waves. Among the stories, few are as well known (at least in the US) as “Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus”. In the late 1800′s, New York resident Dr. Philip O’Hanlon was distressed over his daughter, Virginia’s doubt in the exsistence of Santa Claus, having heard rumours from friends. He encouraged her to write a letter to the editor of the New York Sun, asking if he was, indeed, real. The reply was an instant classic:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

As touching as this story is, it got me wondering how often we treat God with same kind of patronizing mythology. Too often we equate God as nothing more the sum total of human goodwill and morality. While it embraces the mystery of a spirituality that surpasses our intellectual capacity to understand God in His fullness, it reduces Him to novel idea.

As the emerging church conversation explores faith, recognizing the mystery and infinite nature of Truth, we must never embrace an ambiguity that reduces what we know to be true, especially during Christmas:

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

Posted by Jamie Arpin-Ricci in 16:50:23 | Permalink | Comments (16)