At some point, on some level, one simply must believe that these people once walked with us, sat in the same spots, uttered similar words, explored the same feelings, pondered life's meaning. Sometimes when I'm alone, I go to the woods just to sit on a limestone bench that has my mother's nickname carved deeply into the top. Gone these 19 years now, it's all I need of her. I don't need pieces of vestments, no torn remnant of one of the white blouses she always wore, no voice recording of her laughter. She walked the earth just as surely as Paul, and just as surely as that other guy they called Jesus. No proof required.
If you listened closely on the day scientists drilled into Paul's sarcophagus looking for his bones, you might have heard a small voice echoing across 2,000 years of Biblical landscape. It was a voice in halting Latin speaking to doubters: "I lie in peace ... let me be. If you truly need to find me, look elsewhere. Perhaps travel to Syria, along the road to the ancient and great city of Damascus, the city once claimed by Abraham, Cyrus and Caligula. That's where you will find me, and then you will know all you need to know. I can do no more for you. Have faith. Let me be."
