I Believe In Miracles

I've left behind, forever behind, the old paradigm of pitiful humans pleading, cajoling, attempting to bargain with an old all-powerful (but apparently fickle) "man in the sky." I'm being a bit unkind there, for that isn't the way traditional religious believers think of it. It is however how I came to think about it. I didn't start with the traditional view. As a child I was an animist. Of course I soon absorbed the religious ideas of my parents (traditional theism). Now as an old guy I'm coming around again to my earlier view, but hopefully with more insight.

Oh, I still think about a higher power - okay, call it God, if you will. Use the metaphor of an old gray haired and bearded man as a metaphor if you must. But as an idealist, I think of a Supreme Mind. And I think of the Cosmos as being crackling alive and imbued with a kind of intelligence in all its aspects.

I believe there is a way of the Cosmos with which we should attune ourselves. Maybe something like Taoism's Way or Path.

About three years ago a path out of a serious problem I had been having was presented to me. With much fear I pursued that path to the resolution of my problem. I prayed about it, or as I also think of it: I communicated with the Supreme Mind of the Cosmos. This event led me to a complete re-examination of my worldview and re-evaluation of my ideas about religion and spirituality. My journey continues.

A friend read mine read my last post and told me I had left her wanting more. What does it mean for miracles to be in the eyes of the beholders?

For me it is the difference between the spiritual and the materialist worldviews. Either one is convinced that the Cosmos is a pure accident with no intrinsic meaning, or it is not an accident and instead is purposeful.

Okay, we can look at events and say either "hey, this means something"; or we can dismiss sign posts as coincidences. Now I'm speaking as a spiritually-minded person and not a materialist.

There seems to me no need to spend too much time arguing about the matter. Where we end up depends entirely on where we start. If you believe blind coincidence can give us this wondrous Cosmos, okay. If you are like me and find some "coincidences" to be just too coincidental, then you'll open your mind to the possibility that as Sir James Jeans put it, the "universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine."

We have to look at all this from the inside out. I believe in an inner voice. Listen or overrule it. The choice is yours.

It seems to me that children start out with an enchanted view of the Cosmos. That is either nourished and tweaked by one of the various religious traditions. Or the enchantment gets educated right out of that child over time. We tend to see what we look for. Look for the divine and you will find overwhelming evidence for it. Dismiss the divine and you will find ample reason to continue dismissing it.

As the poet Keat wrote in his Lamia:

Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings.
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine--
The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.

I see direction. I find meaning. I believe in miracles in the sense that things can fall into place in unusual ways. But if you don't believe you won't see. Or to quote the late Wayne Dyer: "I'm realistic; I expect miracles."