Thomas gets the personal encounter with Jesus that he thinks he needs. But he gets no beatitude. He is not blessed. Blessed are those, Jesus says, who believe without seeing. Blessed are those whose faith is based not on their own experience but on the testimony of others.
Faith grounded in our own experience is only good as long as that experience lasts.
Faith grounded in the testimony of others . . . No More Beyond. In the days before Columbus, Spanish coins were minted with that slogan. It turns out, of course, that there was more beyond, quite a bit more, unseen and unimagined. But Braaten tells of being on the coast and seeing a small child sitting alone on a pier looking out over the waves that stretched to the horizon.