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Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exists, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.
~Charles A. Dana

The Overlord’s parents decided to be truthful about the existence of Santa Claus. He’s 2 years old, mind you.

“You don’t believe in Santa?” I asked my daughter, aghast at the notion.

“We don’t want to mislead him or lie to him,” she said.

“How do you know there’s no Santa?” I asked, sensing her ambivalence. “How do you know there’s no such thing as magic?”

Her mother writes fantasy. What did she expect?

This conversation got me thinking about how little I actually “know.” I’m fairly certain I know my thoughts and feelings and perhaps a glimmer of what I perceive with my senses. But that’s about it. I drew a pie chart to demonstrate:

Figure 1. Pie Chart of Ignorance

There are various things we humans agree upon and, therefore, have decided are “true.” For example, many of us believe gold is valuable when, if you think about it, it’s really just rock. Collectively, we ascribe values to all sorts of tangible items, and we conform to these “realities.” Move into the realm of thought and the tendency is no different.

What is “real” and “true” for me changes over time as I gain experience and ask the what-if and why questions that rattle around in my pea-brain. I imagine scientists also ponder imaginative possibilities. Otherwise, discoveries would only occur by accident. For scientists, theories become fact when proven. Yet how often are “truths” revised as more evidence surfaces, as our knowledge grows? All the time.

So, just because something can’t be proved using our limited senses and machinery, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just because we can’t discover or measure it now, doesn’t mean we won’t in the future.

I enjoy this uncertainty. I like living with fathomless possibilities. This is where the heart of faith and spirit lies. For me, this is the realm of ghosts and angels, a sentient symbiotic planet, karma and destiny, aliens and gods. I can believe in our ability to manifest the universe through our choices, that words can change a life, that thoughts have tactile power, that love can be sent through the air like an arrow or a wave, that our understanding/categorizing/defining/ values may be flawed because we see only a minute sliver of the whole picture.

So, I’m open to the possibility of everything, to the existence of magic … and the presence of Santa Claus.

Happy Holidays.