Dinosaurs, St. Nicholas, and the Mystery of God

December 15, 2010 by Shana M. Buck, SFO

Continued from Page 1

We have a picture of Pope John Paul II on a 15th-anniversary papal blessing that hangs in the dining room behind my chair. The pope, in this picture, is at the end of his life, bent, almost seems weighed down by his miter, but his face is kindly and full of compassion, his hand is raised in blessing. Nicholas recently told me, full of all the conviction that his brother had for St. Nicholas's gift in his shoe, that this is a photograph of God. I quickly tried to tell him it is not God, but one of God's good friends, the former pope, John Paul II, who died. But he only knows Pope Benedict and I suppose, can't comprehend another. His brown eyes just looked at me, and he told me again, it was a photograph of God.

The ancient incarnational practices of our Faith also give us physical ways to grasp spiritual concepts -- prayers that we cannot see with our eyes "rising like incense" to God or our prayers and love and sorrow for those who have passed away represented by a candle's flame, for example. Even then, it is often difficult to know for any of my children, but especially for Nicholas, what is really grasped.

And so, because I can't think of a single convincing thing to say about it, maybe I just have to be quiet and, like the Blessed Mother of Jesus, ponder the mystery of my son in my heart.

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