Childlike imagination taught me that faith is useful
A mentality of trust, curiosity & wonder
It's quiet on the train leaving Edinburgh. An elderly couple sits across from me, and a woman to my right. I'm watching the Scottish countryside pass by when a barn with a bright purple roof catches my eye.
In an instant, I see the exact same color in all directions - a purple scarf, a purple shirt, a purple bottle. The man has a purple bruise on his arm, and his wife has a marking on her face of that same color.
Six different elements featuring that unmistakable pop of purple, shining bright on the daylight train. My first thought: this color was intentionally placed, a nod from god. This is not my first one, and it won't be the last.
I wrote about some of these god nods here, like when a Texas church sign gave me a "Happy Birthday, Logan!" during the exact moment I drove past it on my birthday.
Since then, god nods continue to stack even higher. Moments upon moments, each one memorable and moving.
What does this mean? God nods are words I use to describe odd happenings during my current sabbatical year. I've noticed things that are difficult to explain away as coincidence. A younger Logan might dismiss them, or not even catch them at all.
There's two ways to approach this. First is the boring option, the red car phenomenon, something we've all experienced. You're shopping for a red car, so you start to see that car on the road everywhere you go. This is a cognitive bias, an illusion of frequency. The number of red cars haven't suddenly increased, you've just begun to notice them more often than before.
This is how I could dismiss the god nods as a strange coincidence, nothing to see here, move along and forget it, dude. But where's the fun in that? A quick way to take the spice out of life is to make sure that all things must be explained with data and raw evidence.
Today's adult skeptic is like a child who lost his imagination. This person deflates curious conversation, always leaning on Google to explain the mysteries of life. What happened to his ability to wonder?
The second approach is far more fun. It's called faith. This is not my argument in favor of a specific religion. This is how I learned a belief can be useful even if it might not be true, but I do believe it's true.
God, divine intervention, a spiritual interference, a mysterious energy blowing the wind in your favor to fill your sails with momentum. The name of the source doesn't matter, at least not yet. What matters is that I trust it, I lean in, I listen and I pay attention. And when I do, god nods grow in number.
Humans haven't figured out how to prove if god exists or does not exist, which is why the question still remains centuries after man first asked it. Ask a strong believer, and they'll tell you that they know for certain of god's existence. They experience god nods regularly, maybe even daily.
This is what it feels like to truly believe:
Fear is "What if ..." The weight is all on you, a burden you carry alone.
Faith is "Even if ..." The weight is shared, a net to fall on, a friend to lean on, a moral mentor to keep you in check.
Maybe it doesn't matter what's true or false, because the belief by itself is useful. Faith can function as a powerful mentality, an assist for the work you believe in and the goals you chase. Like this:
Deep faith in yourself only gets you so far. This where faith in something greater than you comes into play. Its utility can't be replicated by other means.
For years, I was the child who'd almost lost his imagination. I was raised to go to church, but I never quite bought into it all. I enjoyed it only because I had friends through our church, and I'd play drums for every service.
Then the church we all loved failed financially, and the bigger church that funded it came in and dismantled the great community we'd built over the years. My youth pastor was let go despite our protests, and our weekly youth services along with him. Families left, so there went my friends.
My curiosity for god was almost extinct after that, but I felt a spark again when I studied other major world religions in college. I walked away with the belief that god likely exists, but is shared among all religions and all people, a singular uniting force for humanity. People are flawed, and they need a father.
God is in everything, I understood, and religions are many pathways to the same thing. I also wondered if god was reachable without any religion at all, just a simple faith that it's real.
During this time, I mostly paid god no mind, and it faded from my daily thoughts for years. When I faced hard times, I'd lean on god again, but only for short moments.
It wasn't until I took a leap of faith to backpack Europe for three months in 2023, and an even greater leap with a year-long travel project that I felt it again. The god nods became impossible to ignore. But this time, I noticed, and I was hooked.
I realized that it's not enough to just believe, as I did years ago. My belief had to combine with an honest acceptance, an embrace of that unknown with an added boost of wonder and excitement. It requires effort.
Non-believers think god and religions are based on wishful thinking, mythology, legend and lore. And yet they've stood the test of time, with millions of followers today. Dragons and goblins, witches and wizards. People used to believe in these too, but no longer do. What's the difference?
It feels logical to assume god does not exist if it can't be proven, but it also feels illogical to dismiss what has yet to be disproven after centuries of effort. By definition, faith requires an element of not-knowing-for-certain, and that's the fun part.
I won't convince someone of god's existence, they must find it themselves, to choose to believe and then receive that grace and guidance. Or not, but I've learned that ain't so fun.
It starts with an openness, to be willing to capture something intangible. It feels like magic, trusting that a weird invisible thing can have a profound impact on my life.
I'd rather be like the playful and curious kid, than the one who's lost his imagination. After all, life is a classroom and a playground, and it's not all that serious. Maybe god is the teacher.
Throughout human history, purple was the color of royalty. This rare and expensive dye was reserved only for the few elites who could afford it. At the crucifixion of Jesus, Roman soldiers placed a crown of thorns on his head and clothed him in a purple robe as a mockery of his kingship.
To ignore the purple god nods in Scotland would be no different than this, a mockery of a lesson that was meant for me, the student. So I pay attention, I understand, and I smile.
I still don't know how to pray, but I have faith that I'll learn how.
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