"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, the Lord, the God is One."  Our Jewish brethren have recited these words for millennia.  They live with them, they die with them.  Many years ago, I read an account of a Jewish father in a hospital waiting, tragically, for his young son to die (he had leukemia).  When the young man breathed his last, all anyone on the floor heard were these words, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, the Lord, the God is One."
     Foolishness or faith?  Reality or illusion?  Not long ago, I was snowshoeing through a forest preserve near my home.  The morning was early, the sun was struggling to rise.  Snow lay heavy on the trees.  A few squirrels scampered across my path.  Silence reigned.  Ensconced in this silence, I thought of the famous phrase, "What if a tree fell in the forest and no one heard it?  Did the tree really fall?"
     What if I was the only person on earth?  Would not I go into conniptions trying to divine why only me?  Would not I wonder, day and night, why I was the only one?  Would you?
     Faith, trust in a bigger, personal picture, shatters the aphonia of the illusion of humanness.