On Miracles

A miracle is a state of mind.

Why do we not receive miracles? And when we do, why do we doubt what they are?

To receive miracles, to see miracles, to attract miracles into one's life, we must be open, observant, attentive, and patient. We must also begin to see the world differently. We are jaded by what we see every day: a plant, a bus stop, the sky, the ground, our own hands. We see these things and rely on them as physical attributes of our reality, and yet it is rare that we stop and think about them. The more one learns about matter, science, and the make up of reality, the more one sees that just the existence of everything around us is a miracle. Our very lives are miracles. And yet, when we pray, we can't help but doubt God and worry and trouble over our own prayers -- will God grant me what I am asking for? Will God save me from this situation? Will God help me? Will God send me a miracle? If God doesn't answer my prayers the way I want them, does that mean God doesn't exist? Or that God doesn't love me?

It is easy to pass off a miracle as coincidence, just as it is easy to pick only certain "miracles" to pay attention to. We make rules in our minds: its only a miracle if it can't be explained by nature, its only a miracle if it involves saving someone's life, or seeing an angel, or hearing a magical voice, etc. Stop seeing miracles as limited to only certain qualities. God is nature; of course a magical being of light is not going to burst out of thin air and grant you three wishes. God doesn't need to do that. God is the universe, God is the world, God speaks through the world and moves through the world; God doesn't need to break His own laws of nature to bring us miracles. Nature is the miracle. Logic is the miracle.

God wants us to understand Him; that is why God brings us miracles in logical, natural ways. God is saying -- Here I Am. Look No Further. I Am Under Your Two Feet. If God really wanted faith to be confusing and terrifying, God would send down legions of unexplainable blessings that would awe and astound us, and make us feel entirely disconnected from our own Creator. God does not want us to be afraid, but to realize our own relationship and intimate connection to Him. God wants us to discover the presence of God within ourselves and everything around us. That is the reason why we are here.

So when you ask for a miracle, have faith. We are tiny creatures so entangled in this reality that we can't see it for what it is. God is thinking, feeling, and consciously interacting with you every second of every day. Your life is the most intimate journey you will ever have with God, who is sharing your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams and desires. When you ask for a miracle, prepare yourself to receive one by reminding yourself that all miracles come by natural means, and that its okay that miracles are a part of nature, because nature is God.

On this day, God wants you to know...

...that there are countless ways to love God. Love God through love for your parents. Love God through love for your spouse. Love God through love for your children. Love God through love for your friends. Love God through love for your country. For God is in all these and much, infinitely, more.

To love God, you must have an attitude of love. An attitude of receptivity and warmth and readiness to receive God's grace. An attitude of giving and generosity and not-holding-back to let God's grace flow through you and on into the world. You know you love God when you feel love flowing through you.

Love is the opposite of logic. Logic is argumentative, aggressive upon the mind, splits the world into right and wrong, us and them. Love is generative, compassionate, embracing all creation. Logic pays attention to what is being said. Love pays attention to how things are said. Logic leads to debate. Love leads to communion. Practice love to be closer to God.

Taken from the "God wants you to know" application on Facebook; my daily message for July 9, 12, and 13, 2010. Reading my mind, again.

On Lies

Do not lie.

When we lie to others, we become dishonest to ourselves. It becomes difficult to discern what our real intentions are, and when we look within to analyze our feelings and motivations, it is like gazing into a muddy pond, because we have shielded so much from the world. Many times God speaks to us through intuition, and when we quiet ourselves to listen to that still, small voice, if we are used to lying and deceiving, we worry that perhaps we are lying and deceiving ourselves. Perhaps the message we hear on the inside is not what we think it is. Perhaps we have misinterpreted God's plans for us, and who God is. Lying causes doubt.

When one is honest in all of ones words and actions, one hears God more clearly, because the mind is clean. It becomes easier to trust one's intuition, because one knows one's own mind.

Truth has a life of its own. There will come a time when your yearnings become so strong and powerful that you will have no choice but to let them become reality.

From Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness:

"The unknown," said Faxe's soft voice in the forest, "the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God, there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomesh, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion… Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable—the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?"

"That we shall die."

"Yes. There's really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer. … The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next."

Love Letters I

9/4/2005

Dear God,

These are confusing times. I do not know why you gave me the knowledge that you did. I do not know why I chose to come here, and I do not remember what my purpose was. This love that we share is so close between us, and yet I feel as though I am alone. There are so few who know of you how I do, who can feel you and talk to you and hear your wisdom, but I wish it upon so many. I wish it, and yet it does not come. Do they push you away? Do they not understand? Do they refuse to look at us and see who we really are? God, I cannot define myself unless I define you, I cannot will myself unless it is your will, I cannot speak unless it is your voice.

I need you now more than ever. I need you in my life, in my heart, and in my soul. I need to breathe and know that I am absorbing your grace and knowledge with every passing inhale. I wish to dance with you with the same beauty that you have shown me, with the same elegance. Might you teach me? You have shown me the world through your eyes and taught me love, and I wish to give so much back. I can expect nothing in return, and yet I am still human, I am still your child and so insecure, so alone.

If this is a test, I do not appreciate it, God – and yet your love exceeds all things. If I cannot share you with someone, then I cannot share myself, and if I cannot share myself then perhaps I am destined to be the forerunner. Perhaps I am destined to walk this path as so many have walked before me, solitary in my knowledge yet following your footsteps in the sand. There are times that those footprints seem to be washed away by the tide, but I have simply to stretch out my hand and you pull me along. It is so hard, God, I do not think I can make it. I don’t think I’m strong enough. I fear that I will fail you. Whether I was pushed, or pulled, or dragged onto this road in the beginning, it makes no difference now – I walk it, and those who cannot walk with me, I must leave behind.

And this is something that no one will understand but you.

Please God, when we are all together in Heaven, let them understand.

Death

Most of the meaningful things in life revolve around death; as though there is some mysterious unknown, some world beyond the veil that we cannot touch. It is in that search that we find religion. We find science, progression, the search for knowledge and improvement which is really the search for immortality. What is this holy grail of mankind, passed down from our oldest forefathers, that drives men and women alike to the brink of madness? Seeking to change the world, seeking to open hearts and open minds, to persuade opinions and prove theorems... for what reason? To be remembered? To somehow find a meaning in the empty existence that we call life?

Mayhap it is in death that we find value. We realize the importance of trivial things. Yet everything that we know about life leads us to seek a greater meaning - all our scientific answers confuse us, our religious ideologies are limited and empty of understanding. We seek answers in our friends, our family, the trusted officials of our society and the people that live within it. We even seek answers within ourselves. Some are so desperate that they travel the world in hope of an answer to the riddle; as though an explanation for an entire universe would exist in one lonely, outcast planet.

What is it about humanity that makes us search for meaning? Is it because there is pain, and a deep seated mental structure has taught us that all pain must be for a reason? What if a person was devoid of emotions - would they continue to seek a meaning in life? Would they even find it in themselves to wonder, vaguely, why are we here? Perhaps it is the wrong question - perhaps it is more simple. As simple as 'why am I'? It's that word again, "I", and what happens to the "I" when the body disappears. Have we seen any evidence that something happens at all? Have we felt it within ourselves?

And then I suppose one is to realize that the world is only real from the inside out. We experience the world first and foremost within ourselves - which can then perceive the outside environment. But if it was not for our own perceptions, who knows what the outside environment would truly be.

There is a greater pain than loneliness. It is in not knowing the answer to the only question in this world that has meaning, to every individual soul, to every nation of past, present and future, in every cycle of human life. And yet it cannot be answered; not directly. It is the question of death; of what happens after, and what happens to the "I."

Which, in turn, is our individual need for immortality.

If not the immortality of ourselves, then we wish for the immortality of our loved ones, for those we hold dear and those we selfishly bond to throughout the struggle of life. For there is no greater pain than death - the not knowing, the soul searching, this giant game of hide and seek. And so science carries on, filled with its ranks upon ranks of brilliant minds, seeking to answer the unanswerable question, both for themselves and for the whole world. And so religion carries on, comforting the hearts of the broken, structuring the societies of yesterday and the generations of tomorrow.

And here, the lonely traveler walks on... seeking answers to questions until he loses the question in and of itself.

Perhaps we are living the answer?

Perhaps we are not.