Last weekend, my wife and I were privileged to attend a Jain dance recital given by the daughter of a friend of ours.  Called the Bharatnatyam Arangetram, two Tamil (a language similar to Hindi and Sanskrit that is spoken in parts of southeast Asia) words which mean roughly "debut of an expression of dance," the BA crowned many years that our friend's daughter had devoted to mastering dance traditional techniques of the Jain culture.  Over two hours long, it featured eight distinctive and colorful dances.  To be invited was an honor; to watch the performance was a delight.  We of course were the only non-Jains (indeed, the only non-southeast Indians/Asians!) in attendance, which increased our interest and intrigue.  As I watched, I thought often of how privileged Americans are to welcome every type of nationality, ethnicity, and religion to their shores, and how wonderful it is for us to learn from the tremendous diversity of thought and imagination that courses through our culture.  Even if we do not agree with all of the views among us, we can usually find something of value in all of them.  To wit, as one writer remarked many decades ago, "All truth is God's truth."  Because all of us are created in the image of God, we all possess the capacity to find truth, and we all possess the capacity to believe in God, even if we all do not believe in him in quite the same way.  As theologian Karl Rahner puts it, we are historical beings who are "made" to hear the divine.  Indeed, if we dig beneath the surface of religious belief, we find that it ultimately rests upon one simple thing:  the willingness to admit that we need more than ourselves to find and understand truth. While we may well identify things that are true, we in finite ourselves will never fully grasp the truth.
     Belief is acknowledging that life is far bigger than we can imagine.