(With apologies to Francis Pharcellus Church.)
“Dear editor: I am 8 years old.
“Some of my little friends say there is no Tim Tebow.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Post, it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a Tim Tebow?
“Virginia O’Hanlon.
“Denver, Colorado.”
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe even what they see. They think that nothing can be that contradicts the preconception in their little minds.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Tim Tebow. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Tim Tebow. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith in miraculous fourth-quarter comebacks. No hope, no joy, to make tolerable this Broncos fan’s existence. The eternal light with which improbable victory fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Tim Tebow! You might as well not believe in Hail Mary passes, or 59-yard field goals, or the Immaculate Reception. Even while the naysayers argue he can’t win, what does that prove? Nobody sees exactly how Tim Tebow works his magic, but that is no sign that there is no Tim Tebow. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see angels dancing on the 50-yard lines? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and see what makes Tim Tebow a winner. Is he for real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing as real and abiding as Tim Tebow’s inspiration.
No Tim Tebow! Thank God he lives, and he lives right now. A season from now, Virginia, nay, 10 seasons from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of Broncos fans.
Jamie McIntyre is a newscaster for NPR’s “All Things Considered” and a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland.
