The Evidence of Things Not Seen

Rain fell last night, rinsing clean the canvas of nature. On my walk this morning I found a fresh hawk feather. Deer prints crossed the road in two different places. Animal scat, I think from a coyote, provided work for dung beetles. The bob-bob-white call of the quail was carried on the breeze. I did not see the hawk, the deer, the coyote, or the quail. All I saw was the evidence of their being and I am convinced they were present during the early morning hours.
Love is like that. All that I know of love is the evidence that it tracks across my heart. I have never seen love, though I have seen the faces of lovers and loved ones. I can offer the evidence but not the thing itself.
God is like that. All that I know of God is the evidence that God tracks across my soul. And like love, I have never seen God, though I have seen God in the faces of lovers and loved ones. I held both God and love in my arms as my grandfather took his last breath. The evidence of God is gathered in the acts of compassion and justice that I have seen in the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, and many more. Rain and hawk feathers are what I know of God. The defenders of human dignity are what I know of God.
In the letter to the Hebrews (11:1) the author wrote, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." So every morning I start an undimmed trek across the face of life. I carry a hiking stick, binoculars, magnifying glass, and a pocketful of bags marked "evidence."
The Feast of Silas, traveling companion of Paul, 2009