Once in Rome.
I was sitting on a bench looking at the most bedraggled pigeon on earth.
He was injured and would not live long.
A wave of atheism swept over me.
How could there be a God who would make such a miserable creature.
I thought there could be no God for this pigeon.
Abruptly the pigeon took off.
He rose into the gold serenity of a Roman sky.
He wheeled above the rooftops and soared higher again.
In his flying, he was experiencing sensations I could never know.
Without any merit on my part, I had been permitted to see how the universe held glories even for a dying pigeon.
I followed his flight for many minutes until he was just a speck against the immensity of heaven.
At that moment I understood that in his most ordinary everyday experience of flying, the pigeon would know unfathomable elations the like of which a human being cannot guess at, short of eternity.
I was humbled.