Lifeletter #155: Ordinary Miracles

I think we have the wrong idea about miracles. We glamorize them, and then we miss the truth of them. Dressing them up, waiting for something so spectacular, doesn’t let us recognize how ordinary they can be. And still they are miracles. A miracle is a gap, an opening in the fabric of what we call reality. It’s a small drop of grace, something improbable and unexpected, that falls into the struggle, darkness and chaos of our difficulties. Sometimes it can be a large drop-I had an experience like that last year. A huge drop of light splashed down on me out of nowhere. But most of the time, the drops are not so big. They are small, and yet significant. Small and surprising. Small and filled with the fragrance of fresh rain, or warm bread, or honeysuckle.

We could live with more courage and compassion if we recognized our ordinary miracles, if we learned to speak of them, to give thanks for them. Two miracles landed in my life over the last ten days. The first one occurred when I spoke without skill to a dear friend. I crossed a  boundary without knowing it was there. My intentions were good, but my attempt at connection failed miserably. I caused harm to my friend, and when I was clear about what I had done, I told her that I was sorry. And she forgave me. She let it go. The space between us returned to an unclouded space of love. Is that not a miracle? When it is so easy to hang on, to remain righteous, sometimes for generations? What moves us into such large- heartedness? What allows something to open in the heart, instead of keeping it closed? My friend chose vulnerability instead of the safety of walls and protection. In my world, that’s a miracle, every single time it happens.

The second miracle was a request I received from someone I love dearly. It was a request for support in opening, in a laying down of arms, in dissolving the walls of separation. It came from such a clear and lucid space in this person’s being, and it landed deep in my own being. I had never received a request like this before, in all the years we have known each other. But the request was always there. My friend told me that this question had been waiting inside the heart, inside the belly, for a very long time. When the moment was ripe, the question was born. Instead of remaining inside the egg, the  shell broke, and the request was hatched. This is a miracle too.

Yesterday, way out on the ocean, I saw a humpback whale lift it’s enormous tail up out of the water. For two seconds that tail was visible, before the whale dove down into the depths of the sea. When that black tail appeared, the sound of ‘Aaaah!’ flew out of the throats of everyone on board. Bobbing around in that little boat out on the ocean, we knew that something immense, something very surprising, could emerge from the depths in any moment. What a way to travel. We can live our lives this way too, bobbing around in our own little boats, without forgetting the ocean we are floating in, and what it is capable of.

The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.

 -William Stafford, ‘Today’

with love, 

Shayla