Planting Radishes

And many have tried the “sign” route to faith, only to be disappointed. Oliver Sacks did. He is an author and a Neurologist. He writes of his own religious experience:

There had been some religious feeling, of a childish sort, in the years before the war. When my mother lit the Sabbath candles, I would feel, almost physically, the Sabbath coming in, being welcomed, descending like a soft mantle over the earth. I imagined, too, that this occurred all over the universe—the Sabbath descending on far-off star systems and galaxies, enfolding them all in the peace of God.

But when I was suddenly abandoned by my parents (as I saw it), my trust in them, my love for them, was rudely shaken, and with this my belief in God, too. What evidence was there, I kept asking myself, for God's existence? I determined on an experiment to resolve the matter decisively: I planted two rows of radishes side by side in the vegetable garden, and asked God to bless one or curse one, whichever he wished, so that I might see a clear difference between them. The two rows of radishes came up identical, and this was proof for me that no God existed. But I longed now even more for something to believe in.

Well, you may not have tried the “raddish” experience, but I bet some of us have done something similar. We’ve asked God for a “sign” and often found nothing but the same sense of randomness that really convinces us of nothing. Do you want to know why that is? It’s because God’s sign to you is a cross and apart from that cross, you will never believe.