Miracles

Today’s commonplace is yesterday’s ‘miracle.’  Of course landing a man on the moon is not commonplace but it has been done.  Is it a miracle? Most of us have not had a heart replacement, but many have been performed.  Is that a miracle? Projecting the perfect image and sound of a person’s voice across the world with only a second or two delay would have been unthinkable 200 years ago but we see it every day.  Being told you could carry in the palm of your hand the libraries of the world only a half-century ago would have seemed preposterous.  Television, airplane flight, modern medicine—all of these things would have been considered miracles in time past—incredible then but indisputably credible now. 

Many wonderful things—in reality the most commonplace things in the world—are also frequently called miracles; such is the birth of a child or the coming of spring.  But to label these things as miracles, I submit, diminishes the strength of the word.   Real miracles upset our most cherished assumptions of how the world is or should be—or at least has always been. They are occurrences which are beyond the power of any presently known physical power to produce; they deviate from the known laws of nature.   They are supernatural events.

People initially distrust the report of miracles because these are incidents that do not fall within the pale of their own experience or because the ‘miracle’ cannot be replicated at will.  Because they have not experienced such an event they say the purported miracle could not have been experienced by anyone. 

Miracles threaten the established order.  From time immemorial people who claimed they had seen, heard, or experienced ‘miraculous’ things were dismissed as delusional or burnt at the stake as being possessed.  Yet the reports of a few of these ‘miracle workers’ or ‘miracle experiencers’ or the extraordinary event itself have persisted notwithstanding the gainsayers.  Christianity, at least in its pure form, persists.

 

So, are there miracles?

I believe there have been miracles and there will yet be more.  But they will not be and have not been just random events.—there will be a witness or witnesses.  And the ‘miracle’ will serve a good purpose.  This is critical.   This is the test: evidence, witness, good purpose. 

How is it done?

My faith has much to say about miracles.  Miracles are done by the power of God, which power is sometimes delegated, upon need, to man.  And they are done even today in God’s true Church.  Miracles are, indeed, a sign of the true Church.  They are called ‘gifts of the Spirit.’  Strong faith in Jesus Christ and righteousness capacitate the power of God by which miracles are performed.  A church which denies miracles or has no miracles performed in it is not God’s true Church, for "God is a God of miracles and is the same yesterday, today, and forever. . . .” If it serves His purpose He can perform miracles; who are we to limit Him or what He can do?

   

Miracles, true miracles, are done for but one purpose—the eternal salvation of man.  I, for one, desire to be saved from and out of this wicked world. Now that is a miracle! Thank God for miracles.   

Breaking the Chains

I recently saw the heart-rending video of the liberation of an elephant that had been in confined captivity for fifty years.  After these many years she was transferred from her chained existence at the Louisiana Purchase Zoo to the unchained freedom of the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.  Her longtime former keeper, a man named Solomon James, noted that he was not the one who put her in chains, but was overjoyed to be the man who finally was privileged to take her out of chains.  Over the years he had developed a great love for ‘his’ elephant.  Upon arrival at the Sanctuary, in addition to her being set free of chains was the immediately apparent joy of the elephant Shirley’s reunion of herself with her old elephant friend from decades before.  Animals, too, have feelings and love-attachments. 

I think of the many people who are sometimes literally, but more frequently figuratively in chains because of addictions or ignorance or despair or by the machinations of evil men.  I can hardly express how much I loathe those who cause and seem to take pleasure in physical, emotional, or spiritual harm or put into 'chains' once-innocent and hopeful people or even animals.

I am ashamed to admit that I once (over forty years ago) was a hunter who, like most—if they would only analyze their actions and admit it—enjoyed killing their game.  I still think of two or three incidents in my life that I unthinkingly (by childish action) or by design (as a hunter) killed animals for no good reason (such as need—say by starvation—or to limit the harm they were causing me).  I still kill ants, mosquitoes, and some spiders, and not with joy, but always have reservation about going beyond what I find necessary to do. 

 

The point I want to make, though, pertains to people.  To lead people into the chains of addiction by introduction or by supplying deleterious substances (drugs, harmful food, pornography, false ideas or ‘chains of darkness,’ etc.) to them, one is committing a crime against life.

Ours should be the opposite course—to liberate, where we can, by breaking the ‘chains that bind,’ or to take a helping role in helping others break their chains.

   

Could we all not find some way to be instruments to help liberate one so enchained? Think about it.

The Human Experience

I have wondered about a title for this, what I hope will be one of my more significant essays.  I have thought of ‘Life Lived’; ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’; ‘The Measure of Our Creation’ and other such titles.  What I have settled upon is ‘The Human Experience,’ which, I believe, incorporates all of what I want us to think about today.  (The title is comprehensive; the treatment of a little essay on a big subject will, alas, not be.  But our personal pursuit of understanding is unlimited; it is up to us.)

I think that when one comes to an understanding or appreciation that ‘there must needs be an opposition in all things’ and that there is ‘a pattern in all things’ is when human enlightenment begins to occur.  I further believe that the process of learning these things is an important part of a ‘core curriculum’ of a mature life.

One of my favorite university teachers and authors, the late Stephen R. Covey, has written that for a person who has been privileged to live a long, and by our standards fairly normal life, that life might well be defined by the fulfillment of what became his four (or five) ‘L’s’: “to Live, to Learn, to Love, and to Leave a Legacy.” I do not dispute that breakdown, and it should be deeply pondered, but I do think the list should be considerably expanded.

I believe that the generally universal human experience will necessarily include, in addition, or by extension, such things as suggested by the title of author Irving Stone’s great biographical novel of Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstasy.  The human experience of a full life will include both—agony of a physical or spiritual or psychical nature—perhaps endured many times, and ecstasy—a fullness of joy perhaps experienced only a few times even in a long lifetime.  But virtually all will experience these extremes.  Our response to pleasure and pain seem necessary to a mature life. Acceptance-rejection; creation-failure; victory-defeat, the pretentions of pride-the hurt of humility, the list goes on and on.

There are many such dichotomies.  Let me suggest a few of what I believe are a few of the most important life lessons that may not often be considered. 

      

I believe that the intended human experience will include a time of living ‘under obedience,’ or at least counsel: external submission either imposed—as, for example, by parents or teachers; by training or organizational rules; by medical order or necessity; or by religious covenant.  Or the obedience may be more internal-- to self-discipline by obedience to conscience or perceived moral principles.  It may also be of a more optional nature-- the self-obedience may be a part of a desire to achieve excellence in some field.  Submission or obedience should not be blind acquiescence, but rather confident faith in an end-directed attitude of hope and accomplishment.

The full human experience will include times of deprivation and of satiety.  To be poor at some time in every life may be necessary as much as to be rich may be desired.  To come to be satisfied with our lot in life or to be at peace may be better than either.

 

I believe that hard work—physical, mental or probably both is important to engage in as long as possible. In fact it became a divinely-dictated necessity very shortly after the beginning of human experience on this planet if you believe, as I do, the Adam and Eve analogue or antecedent.  Hard work is a discipline as important as the food we eat. I don’t think that retirement as practiced by just rocking on the porch or playing golf or cards every day or lying on the beach, or the like, is a productive or acceptable way to live out one’s last days (or even childhood, or adolescent days) on earth.

Fear and deliverance, recognition of our own weakness, hopelessness and redemption are huge parts of the human experience.  Perspective and appreciation for the role of our Redeemer is a critically important learning.

To expand on Covey’s imperative of ‘Love,’ which, I believe is the same as the scriptural imperative of the principle of ‘charity’ in all its breadth and depth, I believe that all lives were meant to enjoy this quintessential human experience.  To love and be loved is to be sought for, because not only is God ‘love’ and He desires us to be like Him, He meant for His children to be endued with and saturated with and expressive of love because it is the engine that drives the world.  We should try to make a difference for the good in another person’s life, and by doing so our own life will be enriched by its reciprocal.  To give happiness and security to another person produces its own reward for ourselves. 

A subset of love is sexual expression.  Appropriate and natural, unforced and unregretted sexual expression within the bounds that our Lord has set is an important life experience—a creative and satisfying and sustaining experience—that marriage can provide for a man and woman.  To be a parent as an outgrowth of love and sexual expression is certainly an important part, I believe, of the human experience.

   

To restate, we need to understand the bitter and the sweet, the good and the bad, the desirable and the undesirable, either directly or by learning through the teachings or experiences of others.  By being teachable we can learn vicariously without actually suffering some of the negative which must be learned, one way or the other, by ourselves.

  

On a related vein, I think it is a desecration of life to do anything to one’s body or mind or spirit (or do it to anyone else’s for that matter) that compromises or harms it intentionally or by neglect.  And I believe our stewardship extends to the planet itself.

It should be noted that not one of the things mentioned above could not or will not be done—maybe not willingly or by desire, but necessarily—by our own actions or by being acted upon, in some life-stage by virtually everyone.  “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12).  It takes cutting and grinding and polishing to make a diamond a gem. 

 

There are more ingredients to a life fully lived, but this is a start, and I invite the reader to seriously explore them.  Great art, music, literature, philosophy, and true religion is out there to give direction, example, and answers.

Neither affluence nor deprivation, gender, race, or place of origin, education or natural gifts, geography or anything else I could think of should make a difference in our attitude toward our life circumstances.  No one will have an equal opportunity or equal challenges or will be dealt the same deck of cards: but we can all make the most of what we’ve been given.  There are numerous examples of exemplary people who are blind, deaf, poor, imprisoned, maimed, deprived, misunderstood or persecuted who have enriched their own lives and, by their example, the lives of innumerable others. They have thus ‘met the measure of their own creation’ and can/will have joy as much as those who might live what we view as a ‘charmed’ life.  In reality, even the perceived ‘charmed’ will also experience all of the bitter as well as the sweet as the rest of us.  The rain (and hail) fall on the just as well as on the unjust.  And it's not over until it's over.

 

There is, indeed and by necessity, an opposition in all things—and we should not bemoan it.  It is, as my first wife wisely said not long before she died, “the small print” in the contract for our turn on earth. 

 

Carpe diem, but don’t lose hope or fail to make preparation for what could be for you and for me a glorious future.