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Today's
Meditation:
How
can each minute be an "unrepeatable
miracle"? Isn't that somehow cheapening the
meaning of the word "miracle," if we say that
every minute that we live is a miracle? Aren't
miracles supposed to be the super-special moments or
actions or occurrences that happen only once in a while,
if ever? Well, that's what we've been led to
believe, anyway--that miracles are the exception rather
than the rule, and that we can live our whole lives
without seeing a "genuine" miracle.
This
perspective, though, is a perspective that focuses on
lack, on the poverty of our experiences, rather than on
the riches of the world in which we live. Don't we
define things and experiences for ourselves? And if
we do, doesn't the way we see things depend on us?
Einstein
said that there are two ways of seeing the world: one as
if nothing were a miracle, and the other as if everything
were a miracle.
In
this minute, we're alive. Our eyes and ears and
hearts and lungs are functioning, all on their own.
The computer's working and pulling this information from a
server hundreds or thousands of miles away from you, so
that you can read it in the comfort of your own home, or
at your workplace. Or perhaps it's been sent by
email to your inbox, and all you had to do was click on
the subject line to read it. Your home or work is
serviced by electrical lines that allow you to have light
and heat and music and so much more. Right now,
trees and plants are producing oxygen so that we can
breathe and continue to survive.
The
web of life continues, even in this very moment, and there
are so many miraculous things going on right now that we'd
be remiss in our duties as human beings not to recognize
their miraculous nature and accept the fact that this
particular moment is a miracle in our lives.
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