Today's readings are meant to give us a sense of hope, to help us continue on our journey. Our lives, both as humans and as Christians, can be filled with incredible sadness, but also with joy. Perhaps even worse, it can be a journey that lacks emotion or vitality, one that we have no control over or care for. If we aren't careful, life decides its course without our input and we simply exist, instead of truly living. If we are to believe, to honestly believe with our hearts and every fiber of our bodies, instead of simply existing, we must seek some sort of validation of our faith. We want concrete proof that God does exist, and that He offers us salvation.

Today we see the acts that the disciples perform, healing and helping those that have faith in the power of Jesus. We also hear the story of someone coming face to face with the risen Christ, and being called to tell everyone about it. And, finally, we see the doubt in one of Jesus' closest disciples as he demands to feel Jesus' side and hands before he believes.

These miraculous things happened a long time ago. No matter how magical or amazing they might be, they inspire an attitude of "Well, that's a nice story, but it happened two thousand years ago." I, for one, don't see Jesus walking through the walls of my kitchen while I am eating dinner and telling me to touch His side, to feel the wounds in His palms. I don't see that sort of physical reassurance coming any time soon.

But we have the same questions and doubts as the twelve apostles had. We wonder why and how humans came to be, why God created disease, why good people die, why there are children without homes that must come to us for shelter. We also want to know if there truly was a God that became flesh, that became everything it is to be human .... that cried.

We can't physically touch our God, but we must believe in Him. We can't see the shadows of His apostles, curing the sick. But we have to notice the works of His modern day disciples. So, if we have no concrete proof, why do we believe in Jesus, in God? We must strengthen our faith by looking at the countless little miracles all around us, the noise that dried leaves make when you walk through them, the rain falling from far above our heads, the fact that our best friend can tell there is something wrong with us, even if we don't tell anyone. There are reasons to believe, surrounding us all the time. We just have to sit up and notice them. It's so easy to walk through life, going from one place to another, trying to stay on schedule, and so easy to not notice the wonders, the presence, and the mysterious workings of God all around us. When we fail to notice, we're just a shadow of what we could be, and our faith is just an empty vessel, surviving on habit.

We can't be afraid to question our beliefs. It's OK to ask "Why?"because even if that why isn't directly answered, our faith grows stronger because we questioned it. Believing without questioning isn't believing at all. It's blindly accepting others' opinions. So we can listen to those that have seen Jesus, that spread the word that Jesus was not destroyed when He was crucified, that He is still here to offer us salvation. We can see the quiet, hidden, unassuming, humble miracles that His followers perform every hour of every day. There is an army of believers out there, fighting a holy war. It isn't a war, in the bloody sense, but it is something that takes courage, courage to reach out and help a friend, belief in yourself, strength to deal with whatever personal evils and doubts exist inside of you, courage to go against the tide and be the you that God created you to be. They are surrounding us on every front, armed only with their faith in God and faith in the untiring human quality of kindness. We must look for the soldiers, hidden behind the faces that you pass on your way to school and to work. We must help them in their battle, because it can be a battle at times. If we want to make a true difference in the world, instead of passively existing and complaining about what is wrong with it, if we want to be world-shakers and mountain-crumblers, ocean-crossers and evil-destroyers, if we want to be the builders of the Kingdom of God, we must do it together.

Some call me naive. Some call me foolish. Some call me a petty little child trying hopelessly to change things. Some call me just plain weird. But it doesn't matter. That naivete, that child-like curiosity, is hope. It propells us to make a difference, because we must believe in a better world. Even if we hope and hope and hope, and then fail in our efforts to create a heaven on earth, even if we're just setting ourselves up for a huge letdown, when we realize how impossible it is for one person, for one community, to make a difference in the world, even if..... We will have tried. And when we do try, we find that we aren't pouring all our efforts and energy down the drain, but instead just into some sort of giant ocean. No matter how inconsequential the results of our massive efforts seem, they do add up, each drop, each tear, and each bead of sweat, is another step closer to the Kingdom of God.

It seems that we only come close to God when we are faced with tragedy. Sometimes it takes the death of a friend, an onslaught of a disease, or the suicide of a classmate to believe. Recently, many others and I were struck down when K.C. Malingdaphing   [Webmaster note: correct spelling unknown at publication], a close friend of many and a buoyant life to all, shot himself. It's a time that makes you question, angrily, what is wrong with this world, why it is that God allowed him to reach that point, to ask why it happened, to try to withstand the waves of grief that hit you. It seems that it would be a point that would make you lose your belief in a God because how could God allow something so horrible to happen. But, instead, it takes a catalyst like this to move us close to God. We question, question, question... But, then, we believe. When something devastates you, you must reach out or be destroyed. You must reach to your God and you must reach to your community. It is only by reaching out like this constantly that we'll bring about Heaven. And so it can't merely be the catastrophic that propels us to believe, the miracles of apostles, the telling of profound and magical appearances of God, the wounds in Jesus' side.

To fight the fight for Heaven, we must also be propelled and strengthened by the kind acts of strangers and friends, the quiet and unassuming and unshakeable faith of those around us, and the presence of God that can be found in something as simple as the opening of a flower to the sun, ...as the smell of night in the woods, ...as the rain.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And maybe we'll never reach the end of our journey, but at least we're moving. And as long as we're walking, one step after another, we're moving in the right direction because Jesus walks with us always, in good times and in bad, in the exciting and in the ordinary, whether we notice Him or not. Because if you aren't moving, you're standing still. You're letting yourself be acted upon, instead of creating the world that you want. If you don't like the path that we're going down, you can change it. If you care and if you continue to hope, you can make a difference in your own world and in the lives of those you're traveling with. And so, we move on, one foot at a time.... Amen.