Today we speak of miracles: loaves and fishes; the total
remission of cancer; rising into heaven on a great white winged horse of fire; the
face of the Virgin on a sticky bun. I
don’t know about any of these miracles, but then miracles are not the kind of
thing one knows about. They are the kind
of thing one believes.
I seem to need miracles.
I find comfort in contemplation of the divine, in something that exists
outside those things that we can know. But
I think of fishes and winged horses and I get a sense that most folks are
looking for God in all the wrong places.
I seem to need miracles but I’m afraid that I am too
rational and lack the strength to believe in the traditional miracles.
But I seem to need miracles and I’ve come to stand in awe of
a miracle so common and so unassuming that it often passes without notice. I mean the miracle of that divine spark that
binds each one of us to every other human being. The divine spark happens in the casual nod of
strangers passing in the street, in the interactions of commerce and in the
building of friendships and love.
The miracle of that divine spark is how we know one another
to be human. This is a man. This is a woman. This is one of me.
For many years, I thought this miracle occurred through
direct eye contact. Willie Nelson sings
that “no one knows where you’re going or where you’ve come from, but you’re judged
by the look in your eye”.
For some time, I thought that the divine spark was centered
around the human hand. The ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel shows us the hand of God almost touching, not quite
touching, just about to touch, the hand of man, giving us life.
I have also believed that the divine spark resides in
language. The apostle John tells us that
“in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God”. Perhaps he was referring to a divine and
shared understanding upon which the world is built.
But these attempts to pin down that divine spark of human
bonding does injustice, I believe, to that great miracle. When I first held each of my babies in my
arms, that bond, as strong as anything I have ever felt, was immediately present
between us. His eyes were
unfocused. She had no control of her
hands or, really, of anything else.
Neither had language and their cries had not yet begun to terrify me.
And yet, that divine spark welded us together. As I kissed the still-soft spots on the top of
each of their heads, the miracle truly overwhelmed me.
I celebrate the miracle of that divine spark that binds each
special person to every other special person.
I celebrate the quick nod to a stranger, the handshake with an acquaintance,
the conversation among friends and the great joy in that divine spark that has
bound me forever to my special babies.