"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

- Philip K. Dick

I have no idea who Philip K. Dick is, but I came upon this quote as I was reading through the "Quotes of the Day" application on my Google desktop. After an initial, brief and thoughtful nod, I moved on to the next quote only to return almost immediately to the one above. I read it through again, then again, and again.  I couldn't help but think of all the delusions people are only too willing to immerse themselves. It begins from the moment we gain comprehension as a young child, and, for many, persists 'til the end of our days.

I never quite understood the whole hurrah behind telling kids stories about Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. We tell them what to look forward to during these important dates: presents from a jolly old man and chocolate and candy left by a rabbit. We indulge them for these certain "holidays" because, after all, they deserve to be kids, do they not?

But what are we doing in truth but lying? What are we doing but casting confusion to these impressionable young minds? I often laugh that my older brothers ruined Santa Claus for me because they never allowed me to believe he truly existed. It was never stated quite as explicitly as that, but when one grows up with siblings ten years your senior, everyone takes for granted not to partake in those "childish" stories anymore. That, and as the youngest of four, I didn't take ridicule very well and strove, in all things, to match my elders (even if it meant sleeping right next to the closet mirror thought it terrified me half to death...*coughcough thanks, sis...coughcough*). That also meant that I wouldn't deign to be so childish as to think Santa Claus is real. In hindsight, I thank them for being honest with me.

But even so, I remember being confused in school when December rolled around and songs about Santa Claus and his faithful reindeer chimed in the malls. I remember very clearly wondering why it was that everyone was making such a big deal out of this "Santa Claus" character when Christmas was supposed to be a celebration in memory of Christ's birth. How can these two very different things both be the image of Christmas? 

Sometimes I think we take for granted the fact that kids are kids. We simultaneously underestimate their skills of comprehension as well as overestimate their ability to filter reality from fiction. We tell them fun stories with the thought that they should enjoy their childhood and childhood is only fun with presents and candy and games. Yet I think very few would take the time to explain that such-and-such is actually just a story. Not real. Instead, we have parents purposefully lying to their children when they try to fool them into thinking that Santa Claus really exists or the Tooth Fairy really replaces that lost tooth with money. (Perhaps I was a tad bit practical even at the tender age of eight, but I recall thinking it would be less of a bother for my mom to just pull out that loose tooth and exchange it for money then and there than it would be to wait for that darned thing to come out by itself...). I think it's fine to have fun with the stories, but I think it is wrong to lie to your child. Kids will find out one day that Santa Claus was actually just a mythologized historical figure. They will find out that the money they find under their pillow got their by way of a parent sneaking into their room after they fell asleep. They will find that their parents had been lying to them for years.

And yes, I know I'm being a tad melodramatic, but I have to wonder whether we take this seriously enough. Perhaps as adults we have forgotten the purity of trust that exists in a child's heart, and we forget also the incisive pain of having that beautiful trust betrayed. The truth about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny seems a small matter to us, but it's a whole world destroyed for them. And it's not just the fictional world that comes crashing down, but also the world in which their parents are utterly reliable. Losing ignorance is one thing, a good thing in fact; losing innocence is another matter entirely.

I think that Philip Dick's quote was meant to be somewhat cynical--a lament for the loss of innocence, if you will. In other words, reality is that which is disappointing, that which is bleak, that which is far less than the fairytale happily-ever-after.

But rejoice, oh Christian! For our reality is that which, even if no one else in the world believes in it, will never go away.  Paul says that if the resurrection of Christ was not in fact true history and "if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19).  If Christ did not rise from the dead, our situation as Christians is far more lamentable than the deceived child, for we would have been living our lives for a false religion.  But Paul follows this up by reminding us that "in fact Christ has been raised from the dead" (1 Cor 15:20, my emphasis). As such, our faith is not based on myth or legend, but in the person and work of the God-man Jesus Christ; therefore our reality in this life and the hope that we can have for the future is secure.  We have not been deceived.