I don't believe in miracles. No images
of Jesus on burnt toast or clouds shaped like a cross. Unless, of
course, it happens to be a cloud shaped like a cross. Unlike most
people who ascribe to the religion they were born into, I don't claim
that Christianity is it. That it is the one true religion. And
“Miracles” are simply the unexpected occurrences that we don't
understand...yet. Our need to tie things up with a neat little bow
makes them so. The fact that the cancer mysteriously went into an
overnight remission is just a function of the bell curve. It happens.
I used to watch Katherine Kulman, an
early TV evangelist who died in 1976, say: “I believe in miracles!”
Crazy exuding from every pore, asking for money. Seeing Jim and Tammy
cry or Jimmy Swaggart bully, was something I found to be both
entertaining and baffling. And don't even get me started on Ernest
Angley. Why would anyone believe these charlatans? Religion is, and
always has been, about power and control. The Catholic Church is the
master. Invent guilt to give people an opportunity to recognize it in
their lives and buy their way out of it. But the TV preachers and
their ilk are the worst of the worst and most people of faith see
through the scam. If “average” people get comfort from religion,
if it helps them to understand their connection to the universe, good
for them. But it's still the stuff of Santa Claus and Easter
Bunnies.
Yesterday someone posted on Facebook
their high praises to God for allowing an elderly uncle to escape unharmed
from his house that burned down in the night. Conversely why don't
they also blame God for letting the fire start in the first place?
Why is the good stuff “Gods work” and the bad is, well, just bad?
Of course, the blanket rebuttal of “God works in mysterious ways”
can pretty much cover all bases. Faith is the only major life choice
for which we throw out all logic. The bible rumbles all over the map
with its doublespeak so people can pick and choose passages to suit their
agenda.
But I'm not ready to call myself an
atheist. Because I do actually believe in one big miracle. It's the
miracle of...everything. The whole enchilada. Call it the laws of
nature or whatever, but its all predictable and its all amazing. So
maybe some kind of higher power really did set it up, put it all in
place. Or maybe it just is, always has been and always will be. Much
like the concept of an infinite universe, we can't grasp that. But we
need answers, those neat little bows. So the native Americans called
the sun a god. There, that's the answer. I do firmly believe,
however, that the laws of nature apply everywhere. So when you
combine two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen together under
the same conditions, anywhere in the universe, water will be the
result. Everything we see on this journey, is truly amazing, a
miracle. All the man-made sub-miracles are just a reflection of
humans searching for answers that have yet to come to light. Create
an answer and tie the bow.
The whole world could combine in prayer
from a thousand places and one hundred religions to ask for healing
in a child with a deadly tumor. It doesn't matter. Unless the child
knows of the prayers and there is some kind of positive outcome from
that alone, its all just the laws of nature, chemistry and science,
playing out the hand. Sometimes people bounce back unexpectedly.
Again, part of the bell curve.
As much as any of us are able to exert
the “illusion of control” in our lives, there is good news and
bad news. The bad part is that someone is primarily responsible for
the direction of our lives and it isn't some long haired hippie
looking guy that we have visualized in the burnt toast. The good
news? The person largely in charge of our lives is us. The man in the
mirror. So before I point fingers of blame or credit away from
myself, I better point them right back at the unpleasant looking man
reflecting back at me from the mirror. And I have neither long hair
nor a beard.
But here's the deal: I am constantly
filled with gratitude for all of it. Every second of each new day.
And that's more than OK with me.
