Three blindfolded people were led to an elephant.

The first person touched the elephant’s ear and said, “This is soft and supple like well worn leather.”

The second person touched the elephant tusk and said, “This is hard and smooth, like marble.”

The third sightless person reached out and felt the elephant’s leg. “This is strong and sturdy like a table leg, and yet rough like the bark of a mighty tree.”

The same elephant from three perspectives – all correct but also all insufficient to describe the massive wonder that is an elephant. Seeing only one aspect of something doesn’t negate what remains unseen.

It’s short sighted to dismiss the understanding others have of their elephant experience. Just because you haven’t touched the elephant doesn’t mean others haven’t either.

People reject outright the existence of the elephant because they were taught the elephant is a tail, and nothing more, when they could clearly see there was much more to the elephant than the tail.

Some people think the elephant is only tail, and they are holding it, and that’s all there is. Or the elephant is only their personal relationship with the elephant. Others think the elephant is exclusively what they read about in books or see in the zoo or circus. They can’t comprehend elephants in the wild, so they dismiss the possibility. Others reject the idea of elephants completely.

God, like elephants, is more than what you think or have experienced or have imagined or rejected.