I bought a fancy Nikon camera recently. I told myself it was it was an investment in my web design and it would pay for itself with business uses, but the truth is it takes pretty pictures and I like pretty pictures. I’ve been taking way too many pictures lately testing out the different features and one night I set a tripod on my driveway and pointed it at the sky.

It was a few hours after sundown and the half moon was shining bright but besides that there wasn’t much else up there. After getting about 20 pictures of the moon (not as exciting as it sounds) I just lowered my shutter speed and took a shot of the darkness.

Wow. There is so much out there. It’s daylight for somewhere distant, but it’s out there and just because I couldn’t see it doesn’t make it any less true. I like that thought – that things are true whether or not I choose to believe in them. I guess that’s why I’ve always held a grudge against Tinker Bell.

In the story of Peter Pan, there is a part where Tinker Bell is near death and fading – but she can be saved if the children believe in her. So if they don’t believe in her, she ceases to exist – but if they do believe in her, she’s real. I always thought that was a little too convenient. I felt like it was the same as saying, “God will be there for you if you truly believe He is there for you.” like I heard from tv preachers. I rejected the notion that my belief in something has an affect on it’s existence. I even wrote a few years back, “Am I saved from the fires of hell by the weak wings of Tinker Bell?”

But here’s the thing – life is teaching me something as I (sorry, Peter Pan) grow up. There is something to the Ticker Bell philosophy. Some people call it “fake it till you make it”  –  you can act on something that may not be real and by your believing it, it becomes real. I sometimes pray “God, grant me confidence or the courage to fake it.”  There have been times when I’ve done things completely petrified on the inside but I played the part and through that experience, I actually did gain the confidence to do it again. I’m guessing you know that feeling too.

But I think it’s not so much that my believe changes reality – as it is that my belief changes me. Remember the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Indi had to cross a chasm? He could see no way across but   poor Sean Connery was shot and needed help so he stepped out into the darkness. And to his amazement, there was a ledge there built to be invisible and only revealed by irrational trust. I love that scene.

I face darkness at times in life. Looking into the abyss of the future and not seeing any way that it’ll be ok. The darkness stretches out sticky shadows and it can be very convincing to make me believe there is no hope for dawn. But even when I don’t see the light, I know it’s out there – like my camera can see more in the night sky than I can.

Even if it’s sometimes a Tinker Bell wish, I believe there is more than to life than I can see and that belief let’s me take a step into the unknown in search of it.