The Wednesday Bunny

There will always be unknowable things. For those things, even in this age of science, we rely upon belief. There are obviously religious beliefs, faith in a higher power, but even atheists build their lives upon belief.

We might, for instance,  believe in the essential goodness of humankind, and we might hold to that belief even in the face of contrary evidence. 

Many Wall Street types base their careers on the maxim that greed is good, a belief that allows them to turn profits in ways that many of us find distasteful, even immoral. 

Forty-four percent of Icelanders believe in at least the possibility that "hidden people" actually exists -- elves, fairies and the like.

We are all believers, in things both large and small.

Even those things we are most certain about, like the things we see with our own eyes or hear with our own ears, are likely based on beliefs about how the universe should operate rather than how it actually operates.

Even science is a system of belief, one that depends upon scientific consensus, a fickle thing at best. Indeed, the core belief of the scientific approach is that it doesn't rely upon belief at all. But even its most staunch advocates admit that today's consensus may, or even will, one day be found to be bunk. That's how science works: at any given moment "scientific truth" is a best guess based on what we believe we know. The purpose of scientific theories is not to demonstrate how the world works, but rather to offer an idea to be tested, challenged, changed, and, if ultimately found lacking by consensus, discarded and replaced with something new.

Our world is the way it is, because of how our beliefs interact with one another: religion and science and human nature and greed and fairies all stirred up together to create what we call reality.

Intelligence, I don't think, is ever our problem as a species. We have the necessary intelligence, even those of us who don't believe that we are sufficiently intelligent. No, it's our various beliefs, and how they interact with one another, that cause most our human problems.

The biggest challenge with beliefs is the simple fact that mine are true and yours, to the degree they vary from mine, are not. And vice versa. It is on the basis of this that our species organizes itself, with people of similar beliefs flocking together, allying themselves around those common beliefs, while othering those whose beliefs differ, even going so far as to label them as enemies.

This perhaps is the greatest difference between young children and adults. Young children have not yet learned to feel threatened by the beliefs of others. A girl once introduced an imaginary Easter Bunny into the game she was playing with her friend. The friend declared, however, that there was no such thing. The girl asserted, firmly, the way one does about an article of faith, "I know there's an Easter Bunny because he came to my house!" Her friend replied, "Well, I know there isn't an Easter Bunny because he didn't come to my house!" And there they stood, looking at one another for a moment, confronting the ambiguity they had uncovered. 

The girl called out to me, "Teacher Tom, what day is it?"

I answered, "It's Wednesday."

She turned to her friend, "Let's pretend it's the Wednesday Bunny, okay?"

That is what children know that we have forgotten: there is a place between your beliefs and mine where invitation ("Let's . . .") and imagination ("pretend") can build bridges. This is the place where young children live before we feel compelled, in our adult arrogance, to disabuse them of their "false" and childish beliefs. What if instead we leave them alone for awhile longer, or better, for our own good, seek to join them in this wonderful in-between place while it exists, a place where the Wednesday Bunny frolics?

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