Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

One of the greatest songs of all time, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen opens with these questions. I recently had an experience that led me to ask similar questions about myself.

In the summer I was interviewed on zoom for a magazine. It was a fun interview and the interviewer said some kind things about me. Afterwards I told my wife, Sally, about it and she was encouraging. I was sure the interviewer said that it would be published soon in the magazine so I left it at that and waited for it to appear.

In my mind I was sure that I had seen it published so when, a couple of weeks ago I decided to look at the article in the magazine, I got out my back-issues and rummaged through them to find it again. To my surprise I couldn’t find it. I even went back a whole year in case my memory was playing tricks on me about the timing.

Still nothing.

I searched through my emails for the correspondence I had had with the interviewer but couldn’t find anything.

Not a trace!

At this point I started to wonder whether I had dreamt that it had happened. Had it really happened or had I imagined it? Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Sally assured me that I had told her about it. But then I wondered whether the dream had been so vivid that I had believed it and told Sally about it as if it was real, but in fact it had all been a dream – like the ending to a 10 year-old’s story when they can’t think of a clever way of concluding the narrative.

And that’s how I left things in my confused and bewildered brain. I decided I must have dreamt it or made it up.

This week the latest edition of the magazine was pushed through our letterbox. I did what most of us do and ignored the contents page, leafing through the magazine and reading the articles that I thought I would enjoy and appreciate.

Then, to my surprise and delight, I turned a page and saw a photo of myself smiling back at me. The article had been published! As well as enjoying the (imagined) prestige of having an interview with me published in the magazine I was equally happy that I was no longer doubting the efficacy of my memory or the state of my sanity. It wasn’t a fantasy, it is reality!

I sometimes see disparaging comments from atheists about people of faith, describing us as having an ‘imaginary friend’. I suppose it’s mildly amusing, and provides the writer with a sense of self-satisfaction at having ridiculed people who believe what they don’t. But it’s also rather petty and reveals more about the person who wrote it and their beliefs than about my faith.

You see, the Bible narratives about Jesus are not based on a dream or make-believe. In addition to the Bible narratives themselves, there are verifiable facts about the existence of Jesus of Nazareth and the claims he made. That verification comes from historians and commentators of his day who were not believers and had no reason to make it up or support the claims of his followers.

Yes, you have to decide for yourself whether you trust those accounts, and whether you trust the four biographers who had met Jesus and interviewed eyewitnesses who verified what he said and did, his death and resurrection (we call the biographies ‘the gospels’.

But it’s not a ‘leap of faith’ into the unknown so much as a courageous step of faith inspired by truth and reason.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?