One of the favorite books in my library is a little book published recently titled Children’s Letters to God. There is in that book a letter by a fourth or fifth grader, but it might have been written by an adult. He writes: "Dear God, Our minister says that you are everywhere, but I don’t see you anywhere. How come? Your friend, Harold." I thought the closing was a nice touch: "I don’t see you anywhere. Your friend." Typical of the kind of ambiguity from which all of us suffer.

Occasionally, someone will greet me with the rather trite and redundant quip: "Well, Pastor, what do you know for sure?" Common and hackneyed and repetitive as it is, that question never fails to jar me just a bit. I’m always forced to ask myself: "What DO I know for sure?" And the answer always seems to be a kind…