Today's meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.
"We turn not older with years, but newer every day" – Emily Dickinson.
Some astrophysicists have devoted their work to the proposition that life exists in many other places and dimensions of time. Other theorists and scientists have suggested life, as we know it and understand it, is far more rare. Author John Izzo notes that the only thing we know for certain is that life surrounds us here and now. He defines a miracle as "an extraordinary event that we cannot explain" and offers the idea that we are surrounded by miracles and are, indeed, living a miracle.
"This fact that I am writing this and you are pondering where you stand on the matter is a miracle," writes Izzo. We celebrate the miracle of new life created between a man and a woman, the miracle of a sunset, the wonder and miracle that this planet revolves at all around a massive sun. And there are the everyday miracles of friendship, hot soup, and a place to safely rest at night. But maybe, "maybe we are so surrounded by miracles that we start to miss them, to take them for granted. And maybe, just maybe, life would be very different, and more profoundly good, if we thought about it more often and remembered how miraculous it all is. Perhaps then we would start treating it all with just a little more respect, a little more care, a shade more awe, and maybe the miracles will keep happening (John Izzo)."
My colleague Jennifer Oldham has noted we seem to pay attention to what is miraculous only in its absence. The miracle of friendship is too often recognized only when it is betrayed, the miracle of acceptance longed for in the face of rejection. Perhaps it is a good thing to ponder, to recognize in this moment the miracles that surround us, and most of all the miracle of ourselves. Perhaps today we may ponder the miracle of healing we hold in our hands and hearts, the potential that rests in each and every day and in each and every encounter. I have seen in your words and lives the miracle of Love. Where have you seen a miracle today?
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