"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."

I have always found this verse to be a most comforting one. I find it so because I am one of those who has not seen. It's not that I haven't tried. What I wouldn't have given for a nice vision a time or two in my life, some guarantee that I was on the right track would have been greatly appreciated, I can tell you. Nothing much really...a voice in the night, a blinding light, a midnight stroll across the lake...something that I could discreetly and ever so humbly brag about to others. But in all these years nothing at all like that. In fact, truth to tell, it really has been just the opposite. My supernatural encounters can be counted on no hands. And yet curiously, some would say even foolishly, I continue to believe and, I dare say, I continue to be enormously blessed.

Elie Wiesel, the great Jewish author, tells the illuminating story of two rabbis living in the horror of a concentration camp. They decide to put God on trial for crimes against humanity. They argue the case passionately. They point to the injustice that is all around them. They enumerate evidence that is clearly damning and, in the end, they find God guilty. Then one of the rabbis glances at his watch and says to the other, "Oh...it is time for our prayers." And together they go off to worship.

There is a sense of that kind of paradoxical faith that I share and perhaps you do as well.

In spite of the violence that surrounds us, in spite of the sadness and horror that seem to make up too many days, we continue to pray. We continue to worship. We continue to believe. We continue to be blessed.

Who can understand this?