MIRACLES: REALLY?

Einstein once said (when you’re that famous, you don’t need a first name) that some people live as though everything is a miracle; others live as though nothing is a miracle. Though I’m in general a cautious person, I prefer the former view. To believe more in possibilities, even of miracles, in things above and beyond the mundane that defy the laws of nature, opens up a bigger picture on the universe. It beckons our mental categories toward creativity and imagination and knowledge.

It seems to me that our views on this subject can make a big difference -- mentally, spiritually and in other ways -- in how we experience life -- that is, whether human existence means more than just staying alive from one day to the next.

When I look back on my life at my age, I find a number of surprising events that, if viewed in a certain light, might qualify as miracles. That I am alive at all today, as strong and healthy as (I’d like to believe) I am at the age of 77, is one of them. I reflect on the pitfalls I encountered along life’s paths, the events of my early years growing up, of teenage years, of the obsessive thinking, the risks I took, the unwise decisions I made. Fortunately, I was saved from the perils of my folly and survived some narrow escapes of my early years.

By and large, as a lawyer, I was trained and educated to think in analytical terms. I continue to view much of life in an analytical, logical, and linear ways. There is, however, one persisting question that bedevils me: Is there more than meets the eye in this mundane world of our daily human existence?

Without denigrating science, reason, logic or any other mode of rational thought, I’ve come to believe there is more than meets the eye or, indeed, any of the five senses in the course of daily living. Our sensory organs (leaving aside that “sixth sense” for the moment), perceive physically what lies in front of us, more or less. However, what our senses fail to perceive are those more puzzling, unaccountable, mysterious forces and energy at work in our lives and in the world at large. Things happen, occur unbidden to our senses, our rational thinking and expectations -- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. So often they occur unanticipated and unexpected, operating in ways we simply fail to grasp. We’d like to call the positive events miracles or serendipity -- pleasant surprises, happy accidents – which by definition occur counter to our rational expectations.

There is a way of viewing things which, I believe, can open up a path to greater possibilities and serendipity in daily human existence. If mind and imagination are open to new ideas, odd and unlikely though they may be, then we can open the gates of possibility for miracles, serendipity and luck to happen. To borrow another a phrase from Churchill, the “dark and inscrutable mysteries of the future” start to open, to brighten up, and start to leave room for wonder, knowledge and understanding. That includes the possibility of extraordinary things and, yes, miracles that seem to us to defy expectations and the laws of nature.

It’s not my purpose here to be pollyannish or excessively optimistic. However, I suggest that miracles are real, that they can happen, that we would do well by leaving room for their possibility in our lives. That includes making “space” for ourselves -- more than most of us were raised or trained to do-- to listen to and trust our intuitions, and to allow serendipity to happen and not structure things too much along the way. The possibility of miracles suggests a positive mindset open to learning, to new ideas, and to the imagination. It means a willingness to embrace the future and its possibilities, to welcome challenge, the unanticipated, and the unexpected (which is sure to happen). This also takes work, requires keeping our radar up and eye out for possibilities above and beyond the mental categories of our thinking.

Miracles come to those who believe in them.

--Bernard Berenson

I would only add to this, humbly, my belief that we would do well by not placing blind trust in logic, conceptual thinking or other intellectual modes of thinking that mark the formal education or training of most who are reading this piece.

Early on in life, I was told by my elders not to expect miracles to happen…wise advice to be sure. But as I grew up, became older, (hopefully) wiser and more perceptive, I also learned that things are not always what they seem and that, in the words of Benjamin Disraeli,

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected very often happens.

Of course, miracles, if we do believe in them, don’t happen every day. Nor do they, very often, occur overnight or in short order. Interestingly, however, over time and space and throughout human history, we can look back on events or occasions in our lives, our communities, and the world at large that were unlikely to have ever occurred, but for time and chance. The events seem to have defied all logic and reason and the laws of nature, including human nature as we understand it. Examples abound. Wars, natural disasters, disease, and worse, follow so often with better times arising seeming to arise out of the ashes. It is almost as if the world is a magical place.

Of course, the possibilities of miracles, of fortune and luck, can also spiral into the opposite dynamic of darkness, of misfortune, and despair. In general, and speaking for myself, I would like to believe, in the long run and despite the roller coaster of time and chance, that time favors the survival of civilization, that the arc of history turns upward and, in the words of Martin Luther King, “bends toward justice.”

And so, if I conclude without any compelling note or call to action, I do suggest that we keep our minds open to the possibility of miracles, and I end this piece with a poem:

                                                       FLYING HIGHER

Let us fly, let us soar . . .
As a bird flies high and wide,
With visions of vastness see the wide world below and beyond
Beyond the narrow straits of habit, of routine, of the walls of the mind
Above and beyond the pettiness of life, of daily existence in a mundane world.

With the wings of eagles and the vision of their kind, let us fly
Let us soar into the heights, free up the rigid categories of the mind
Explore the bigger, the broader, the expanse of the unknown
Transcend the details of the day, lost in the confining trivia that occupy our minds.

In a world ruled by tradition, by limitations accepted and unquestioned
Let us fly high and higher still, let us soar . . . into the realm of the Unknown, the Possible, the Brighter

For can we not fly in the imagination rooted in reality?
Above the day to day, creeping in its petty path
From tomorrow to tomorrow. . . to the end of time?
For our little lives are rounded with a sleep (Shakespeare),
Grounded in earthy things, our dreams are built on thin air.
Poof, and they’re gone!

With the lightness of a bird, let us soar beyond the gravity that binds imagination,
Dogmas, inherited beliefs, prototypes of the day and the way things must be.
Let us fly high . . . higher still, reaching the free air of inspiration,
Let us pierce the walls of our minds, the fog that has settles upon us.

That haze that’s settled over the Earth . . . upon the minds of humankind,
That fog that dims our vision, our imagination, our judgment in all things
Let us escape that murkiness of fog and night -- soar to the edge of darkness
Rather let us invent anew, create anew, rebuild and remodel for a bright new day.

Are you in earnest?
Then seize this very moment!
If you can do it or dream you can then begin it;
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 
Delay feeds upon delay
And endless days are lost lamenting over days…(Goethe)

Wishing you all the best. On this Independence Day, may the blessings of serendipity and luck visit your lives as they have entered mine.