Robert Duval summed it up on the movie Secondhand Lions. He plays a seventy-something farmer, whose best days are behind him, and whose best days were filled with women and song and brawling Friday nights. But there is still fire under the snowy mantle and two twenty-somethings find that out. Fed up with their cocksure arrogance, he takes them behind the bar and delivers a world class whuppin'.
When he's done, he stands them up against a wall and delivers the educational portion of his lesson. He tells them what he believes in, and what they should believe in. He believes in truth, He believes love is real. He believes that good will eventually triumph over evil.
“I believe these things,” he said, “because they're the only things worth believing.”
That about sums up life, I think.
You can have all the facts in the world marshalled on your side. You can have rational conclusion stepping on rational conclusion. You can have the math. But, if you don't have a reason, why is it worth believing?
And so it is with my child. Every day I look in her eyes, and the blinds are still drawn. There is no medical rule or law of science that tells me those shutters will ever open. A rational man will say that the medical world tells you that autism is not curable. It is something that she will be all of her life.
But I believe that truth is real. I believe that love is the ultimate purpose of life; I believe good will eventually triumph over evil. And I believe that one day, the shutters behind my daughter's eyes will open.
I believe these things because they are the only things worth believing.
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