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April 2003 Usually when a person says something is miraculous, they mean that it is "unexplainable by the laws of nature and so is supernatural in origin or an act of God." While this usage is common, I don't use it, because I believe the laws of nature are never violated. (Occasionally our understanding of them is incomplete.) Once a religious believer told me he felt sorry for me, having to live in a "world without miracles." But wait - there is another definition of "miracle," as "a person, thing, or event that excites wonder or admiring awe." This is closer to the Latin miraculum "to wonder at," or mirum "wonderful." By this definition I can never get to the end of miracles all around me. Like the favorite poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that begins "Oh, world, I cannot hold thee close enough," I constantly embrace things that fill me with wonder and awe. The walk from parking garage to office in the morning can be a rapture, along with the unexpected delight of favorite music or even swirls in a coffee cup. Living creatures, the sky, the endless expanse of the universe, the hydrodynamics of raindrops are all in their own way, miraculous. Which leads me to the unexpected joy of even remembering some of my favorite music at 4:00 this morning when sleep would not return to me. I wondered: who, while listening to a ludicrous boy-band singing "I wanna hold your hand" would have predicted the same group would later produce the stirring "Let It Be" or the transcendently beautiful "Blackbird?" No one can produce a solidly documented "miracle" by the first definition - let them try! But the other kind of miracle, the kind that happens all the time everywhere, goes begging for appreciation while we chase spirits. And who is poorer for that? See also: poem, "Science Addict" |
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