Have you seen any a course in miracles twitter lately? Or maybe experienced one or two of your own? Do you even believe in miracles these days? Regardless of how you define one, when you start looking for miracles, you’ll find life is filled with them. Even better, when you understand the nature of miracles and how they come about, you can create your own at will.
Miracle-making is a highly underrated activity, as many assume it’s left in the hands of a higher power and not within our personal purview to create magic. Although there are books on the subject and plenty of folks practicing it already, most of us weren’t taught to believe we can create whatever we want.
In fact, we’re usually taught the opposite: that it takes hard work and perseverance to get by. Anyone believing in wishes, fairy tale endings, or spending time daydreaming is admonished to be realistic and not get their hopes up. We’re trained to deny our wants and desires to avoid disappointment in a harsh and unfair life.
Nothing could be further from the truth, it turns out. We can create miracles. We can create whatever we want in our lives. All it takes is believing it and daring to want whatever we want.
What Makes a Miracle?
What would constitute a miracle in your life? Some of us use the term loosely, but that doesn’t deny the wonder and marvel we feel when the swim suit looks as good on us as it did in the catalogue, or we discover the job of our dreams we didn’t know existed, or the vet tells us there’s an effective affordable treatment for our ailing dog.
I suspect it’s partly because we’re so used to bad news that when things do go our way, it feels extraordinary or magical. The more we think something is unlikely or impossible to happen, the more miraculous it feels when it does.
Webster defines a miracle as an “extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.” On his ABC Radio National show “Encounter,” David Rutledge questioned whether miracles really even occur, since all miracles could be “explained rationally if our rational apprehension was up to the task.” He paraphrased St. Augustine in saying when something extraordinary can be explained rationally, it’s no longer miraculous.
Indeed. It sounded miraculous to me when researchers recently announced they successfully made a copper cylinder appear to disappear. But after reading their explanation of how metamaterials guide electromagnetic waves around a central region so objects within the region don’t disturb electromagnetic fields, thus creating invisibility, it seemed perfectly logical to make something disappear. What took so long to create that? After all, it’s just metamaterials guiding electromagnetic waves around the object. What’s next, walking on water?
But just because something can be explained logically doesn’t make it any less miraculous. In fact, if anything, it brings us closer to believing in and allowing miracles into our daily lives. Why wait for the logical explanation before we believe in it? Let’s embrace the miracles awaiting us now.