Finding Nessie

I have been to Loch Ness, I saw the 'Nessie 2000' exhibit which said she might be a boat wake, an otter, a seal, a log…recently I saw a photo purported to be the legend herself, but whether it is real or not, whether it is Nessie or not, I can't help but feel that a real picture of Nessie or Big Foot or aliens or fairies or ghosts or whatever is something quite undesirable.  I am a very scientific person, but I also believe in fairies, even if I am fairly certain they aren't real, in our world at least.  Come again?  There is just something about Nessie and Big Foot and unicorns, or at least the potential that they might be out there, that adds mystery and wonder and a greater sense of significance to a day cruising Loch Ness or hiking the Pacific Northwest.  A world without fairies is a very dull world indeed!  And if we should happen to get a picture of them, or some other incontrovertible evidence of their existence?  It would just be another species to record in the biology books, ah, a Unicornus unicornus, I've always wanted to see one, maybe I can see a moose next…

But when there might be a mermaid you just missed glimpsing alongside your boat or a fairy dance somewhere in that moonlit wood, it adds a magic and a splendor missing from our hectic, predictable, drab day to day lives.  Perhaps that is why we can't prove God or He doesn't just step out of the closet and say 'hello!'  And why we are told to have hearts like children, who have not yet lost their sense of wonder and can therefore not only enter, but can truly see the Kingdom of Heaven.  That's the magic of faith, the wonder of hope!  If we know everything, see everything, understand everything, what then are we left with?  It is the mystery, the wonder, the revelation, the guessing, the chase that keeps us young and gives us a reason to keep getting out of bed of a morning, no matter how many times we have done it before, for who knows what the day may reveal?

The Israelites saw God, or great manifestations of His power at least, in their dealings with Moses, any scientist among them could not help but being convinced by the data, yet they would not believe!  They grumbled and complained and eventually it destroyed them.  And later we were told, 'blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe!'  It literally turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6).  How strange people are!  We don't like facts and figures and graphs or cold, hard data, we want fairy tales and mysteries, something to tickle our fancy and tease our sensibilities.  What is this longing for Nessie, this hope that she might be real?  Nothing but the 'eternity written in our hearts.'  We know this humdrum mortal world isn't our true home, that's why it doesn't satisfy or long make us happy, that's why tales of elves and goblins are as old as humanity; we've always known they are real, but we've become too 'wise' to believe in the any longer, hence our discontent.  But you are never too old to start believing in fairies again.