Faith Like a Loch Ness Monster Hunter

Sorry to be a buzzkill, but I’m fairly certain that the Loch Ness Monster doesn’t exist, at least not in the previously assumed way. I’m nothing if not a logical and rational thinker, and there is just no way that some dinosaur-like creature is lurking in the depths of the legendary waters. Here’s my evidence:

1) In all sightings the monster appears to be reptilian. Now, I’ve lived here for nearly 5 months without seeing a single frog, toad, lizard, or snake. It’s pretty chilly and lacking in sunlight here which makes it pretty hard for many cold blooded animals to thrive.

2) Okay, so maybe it’s a mammal. But all water mammals need a source of air so it would have to come up to the surface more than once every 10 years or so.

There's a theory that states the famous 1934 sighting was of an elephant. Travelling circuses would stop by Inverness, which may have led to an escaped elephant taking a swim.  

3) There are tourists boats with sonar systems which scan the lake bottom continuously looking for signs of the beast. As far as I know, she hasn’t been spotted yet.

Just say 20 of these boats go out everyday for the past 20 years (which is a gross under exaggeration);  that means that this lake has been scanned over 150,000 times with no proof of the monster’s existence. Not to mention the scores of tourists preening their eyes and snapping thousands of photos trying to catch a glimpse.

4) The history of hoaxes leads me to be cynical when a new ‘sighting’ is reported. With photoshop effects these days, faking evidence is just too easy.  

5) In Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novel(a must read for Scotland buffs), the dino-monster travels in and out of a time travel portal every so often. When I read that theory, it struck me as the most logical explanation I’d heard yet. Sorry, but I just can't rest my Nessie belilefs on a wild hare time travel hypothesis.

Trust me, I could go on and on and on…just ask April, who had to listen to my tirade as we drove around the lake. Suffice to say, I am 99.999999% sure that there is not a sea monster lurking in Loch Ness.

So when I read this article about the most recent sighting, I rolled my eyes and skimmed quickly over it, disregarding and arguing away all of the so called ‘unequivocal evidence’.

Unequivocal? Not quite....

But then this one fact slapped me in the face: George Edwards spent 26 years of his life hunting for Nessie, clocking in over 60 hours a week in search of her.

After  initially discarding him as a complete fool, I started to feel really convicted. He dedicated nearly 3 decades of his life to finding the Loch Ness monster despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. That takes a massive amount of faith.

While I’m 99.9999% sure she isn’t in the lake, I am 100.9999999% sure that my God is up in heaven, yet I’m satisfied with a 10 minute bible study on the days when I can squeeze that in.

I should be getting up every morning in search of Him, spending 60 hours a week trying to pin down more proof of his existence. I certainly shouldn’t let my personal faith be shown up by some folklore fanatic in Inverness. Sorry so short, but I've got some major bible studyin' to do.  

Then Jesus told them: Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believed.” John 20:29