Ordinary Miracles

We are surrounded by miracles, but we don’t often notice because they seem so ordinary. Consider, there was nothing living on this earth, and now it is teaming with life. Scientists and theologians have many ideas about why and how, but despite centuries of study, there is much we just don’t know. All we know is that we are alive. We see around us an amazing array of life’s creativity. There are millions of species of plants and animals across the face of the earth, and that doesn’t even include the billions of bacteria and virus species. If you’ve ever been to an aquarium or watched a documentary about ocean life you know that stranger things live on this earth than any science fiction writer ever dreamed of.

Even the common plants and animals we see in our neighborhood are a miracle. Birds, for example, can fly. That’s a fact so basic that we’ve stopped marveling at it, but that doesn’t make it any less extraordinary. Children know this. If you’ve ever taken a walk with a toddler, you won’t get very far because they have to stop and be amazed every few minutes. They know that birds are amazing, and dogs are amazing, and sticky things are amazing and dandelions are definitely amazing. But somehow we forget. We see birds fly a few thousand times and it becomes ordinary to us.

Jewish ethicist and mystic Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote about the importance of awe and wonder in our spiritual life. He wrote: “Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the Divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.”

Violets in my Back Yard

This season, I encourage you to consider a practice of cultivating awe and wonder. Consider the world as a toddler does -- each tree, each bird, each bit of ice cream a miracle. As adults we are out of practice, so this may take time. Don’t worry if you can’t see it right away. Searching for something awe-inspiring requires patience, curiosity and a willingness to let things reveal themselves to our gaze. Perhaps you are traveling and will see something wonderful as you visit a new city or rest beside the lake. But life is no less miraculous just because you see it every day. The ordinary view out your front door is a miracle; let it fill you with awe and wonder.

What we can count on

 Sometimes when I hear the news I lose hope. Some days it’s just hard to picture a positive outcome for all the struggles in our own lives or in the world around us. Perhaps that’s why these words “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (from the Christian Scriptures - 1 Corinthians) keep popping into my mind. Hope can be a quixotic thing, it comes and it goes. But the scripture tells us “hope abides” reminding us that even when we lose hope, it still abides. When we cannot hope for ourselves, remember that others are holding hope for us and for the world.

But, I realized, even when hope is hard to find I still have faith --even when I’m discouraged, or even despairing. I know that things change suddenly in ways we can’t expect. I know there is a larger picture I can’t always see. I know that life finds a way. Life was here long before I was born and will keep living long after I am gone. There is something big and old that endures even the great dramas of our time. It is like bedrock under all that moves and changes.

Maybe that’s what the Psalmists were pointing to when they wrote “God is my rock.” Consider the solid things that are holding you up right now- the chair, the floor, the earth. When we are afraid or discouraged, it can be a soothing practice just to notice the solid things and how they hold us up. Just notice the places where your body is being supported right now. Let yourself sink into those places, and give up your weight to them. It’s not hard to have faith in a force as persistent and enduring as gravity.

Love also abides, and in fact, the passage from Corinthians tells us, “the greatest of these is love”. Today as I consider those words, I imagine a love that pervades all things. Love is in rough places and smooth, in solid and the fluid, the changing and the stable. This is not only the love of romance novels, not only in the sweetness of friendship, not only in the parent holding the child, but as the Christian Scriptures tell us “God is Love” and earlier in Corinthians “love never ends.” To imagine a love that never ends, to imagine a love that is big enough for the divine, we might have to change our picture of what love looks like, or feels like. Just as it can be reassuring to notice the solid things in our life that hold our weight, it is an important practice to notice all the faces of love in our life, and to have faith that it is all around us even when we can’t see it. 

Whenever I am feeling disconnected from love, I take a moment to meditate on the center of my chest, to just breathe in and out and remember all the people I love, all the people I care about, because as that verse in the gospel of John says “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” Whenever you are feeling hopeless about the world, I encourage you to remember- who do you find easy to love? Who needs your love? Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we are loved, but it can be easier to remember those who need our love. Maybe this is why videos of baby animals are so popular- we are hard wired to feel caring and protective when we see a baby. When I call to mind my son, and how much I love and cherish him, a feeling of love surfaces. Start with something easy and sit with that as long as you need, and then let it grow. Whenever we cultivate this feeling of love, it helps us remember the larger love which holds us all.

In these hard times, remember that even now, “faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love”