The other day, I paid $12 to pet a unicorn--twice. At a renaissance faire with my five-year-old daughter, the sign beckoning us to “Visit the Magickal Unicorn” was impossible to resist. My daughter, like many other five-year-old girls, loves horses, and unicorns are the coolest horses ever. I just had to fork over the money to see the mythical beast with her.
The unicorn was a pretty, medium sized pony mare, white (grey) in color, very well-groomed, with flowing mane and feathers on her legs. Her ample forelock split around her horn as it cascaded over her face. As we stood outside the stall and stroked the soft, white fur of Nikki, the magical unicorn, I asked Mandi, “Is she real?” She replied, “No, Mom. It’s just a horse with a horse on it.” My daughter has been around horses her whole life, so she should be able to recognize an ordinary Welsh pony. She also is a bit sceptical, always looking for the man behind the mask, as much as she may want to believe in magic. Even though she saw through the disguise, she didn’t seem disappointed. She kept looking, with a certain light in her eyes, and stroking the hair. After we left, she told her friends all about it, and even convinced me to take her into the tent again. (Yes, we had to pay the entrance fee a second time. Small price for the wonder of childhood, I suppose.)
This unicorn started me thinking about faith. My daughter knew the unicorn wasn’t REALLY a unicorn, but she was still entranced by it. Understanding that the horn was attached by human hands didn’t kill her faith in magic; she still wishes that unicorns are real every chance she gets. I’m so grateful for this, because it’s the wonder in her eyes that is the true magic, the possibility she sees in the flowing white mane and the soft brown eyes of the unicorn, that just might be true, somewhere.
Please don’t mistake me. I am not comparing faith in the God of Jesus Christ to a mystical unicorn. I am not saying that God is magic, or that unicorns are real, or that if unicorns are not real, then neither is God. God is real, but we cannot touch him. We hold the tension of rational thought and mysticism in our modern minds. If we try to find God, pin God down and exhibit the mystery, we end up with a horse with a horn attached, not a unicorn. When we try to explain the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, we are left with a bunch of academic language, and some bread and wine. But here is the thing: although we know that unicorns aren’t real, we still pay $12 to touch the mystery. Although rationally all we have in the Eucharist is some bread and some wine and some fancy words, we still touch and taste the mystery. God is in the desire for it. God is what makes us long for unicorns, what makes us taste the body and blood of Christ, what makes us see Jesus Christ in our fellow every-day man, what makes us love each other in the midst of the pain and heartache of this broken world.
My friends, faith does not lie in the physical object, in the things we can prove. Faith is the desire for the mystery, the longing for the transcendent, the insistent lure of something greater, something more beautiful, something like God. Faith is what turns the ordinary into the sacred. Faith is when we say, “It’s only bread and wine…” but we take and eat, and take and eat, and we are transformed in spite of ourselves.
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