I'm watching the movie "Finding Neverland". Near the end of the movie is a depiction of a scene from the play "Peter Pan". You know the one, Tinkerbell has drunk the poison meant for Peter. Peter address the audience, informs us how fairies are born and die and asks that everyone that believes clap their hands that Tinkerbell might live. My mind takes me back to the time in front of the television where Mary Martin as Peter asks the same. At this time I remember that I could not clap loud and fast enough. And though I played only a small part, we believers saved Tinkerbell. That was then.

This time, the trip down memory lane was all there was. It would be someone else who saved Tinkerbell. Had my perspective of reality changed? What did it? Was it, as the play suggests, the simple accumulation of experiences in growing old? That seems a little glib to me. Obviously in the world today there are true believers. My own experiences of being formally trained in the field of quantum mechanics presented me with concepts of reality that are far more fanciful and harder to get your head around than that of fairies.

I have run into this many times before. In all of my explorations of religious paradigms, I have seen a point where to be "true believer", one has to accept a fanciful and even what could be described as a magical premise. If it is outside of my personal experience I can "get my head around it" But that doesn't mean I believe it. For that, I need the experience.

What are your experiences of believing? Did you or did you not stop clapping?