When faith finally tiptoed into my life it didn’t come through information or persuasion but, at least at first, through numinous experiences. These are the scattered moments of awe and wonder that wash over most of us unexpectedly from time to time…

You’ll have perceived that I was moving toward God in these years without directly encountering God. I once likened my gradual, tedious process of coming to faith to riding on a train. You’re sipping your coffee and all around you people are sitting nearby reading the paper and doing the ordinary things. But then you look out the window and you realize there’s a lot of territory behind you. Gradually over the course of the journey you have left the realm of atheism. At some point you have crossed a border into a new land. 

– David Brooks, “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be” (New York Times, December 19, 2024)

The Revelation of Jesus Christ (4.5-8)

And from the throne proceed flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God; and before the throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass like crystal; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. And the first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, 

"Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God, the Almighty, 

who was and who is and who is to come."