Miracles… seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our own perception being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
Willa Cather
To behold the wondrous miracles of everyday life, you have to see.
Consider the miracle of moveable wall sections. For tens of thousands of years of human history, people created dwelling structures with portals for coming and going. They covered these portals with weavings or bear hides, which gave them some visual privacy and cut down the wind and cold, but were not particularly helpful in securing their homes against intruding animals or marauding neighbors. Then, somewhere, someone invented the hinge. With the hinge, everything changed. People could now make their portals into doorways when they wished to come and go, and make their portals into walls when they wanted security. An object of wonder, indeed.
I’m sure you can find countless examples in the built environment and in the natural world, things that complete the sentence, “When you really think about it, isn’t it incredible that…” Last summer, I had FaceTime calls with my Oregon family from the UK, 4600 miles, instantaneous, rich in sound and visual clarity. Skyscrapers are now 2000 feet tall. People have flown to the moon. Flocks of birds somehow know to make instantaneous turns together. Forests regenerate after devastating fires. People are endowed with emotions, that give them vital information about how to navigate through the world.
It is in our ability to pause, to really see these things that are “about us always,” that the ordinary becomes miraculous.
How is it that our perception may be made finer? It is a practice, a discipline. A spiritual practice. Stopping to examine everything that we tend to take for granted wouldn’t leave much time for living our lives, but a practice of pausing, sometimes, to really see and hear opens our hearts to the wonder that is all around.
The spiritual practice of pausing can be intentional. As you read this, pause to look around. Perhaps, think back over your experiences in the last day or two. What do you notice that makes you smile in wonder?
Or, the spiritual practice of pausing can mean choosing to sit with the wonder in something that comes to you as a surprise. Putting together Legos with children (a universal experience among the parents and grandparents that I know), it occurred to me that it is miraculous how the company creates these little blocks with such precise tolerances that they are easy for little hands to put together and pull apart, yet hold securely once attached. This makes me smile, too.
Reflection
Author
Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an American writer, poet and editor, who is best known for her novels of the West in the early years of European settlement. She was born in Virginia and moved with her family to the Nebraska frontier in 1883, being amazed and unsettled by the vast and barren landscape she encountered. As she began to write, her career took her to New York where she served for several years as managing editor of McClure’s Magazine, whose authors included Joseph Conrad and Henry James. The third volume of her Prairie Trilogy, One of Ours, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1922.
The quotation comes from her 1927 novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop, the story of a young Catholic bishop who is called to establish a diocese in the newly-formed territory of New Mexico. It is spoken by the bishop to his friend Joseph. The complete quotation is that “Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest…” This detail is appropriate to the novel, but it seems to me that the idea is not limited to the Christian tradition, and I have presented it in the form in which it is commonly cited.
Willa Cather
To behold the wondrous miracles of everyday life, you have to see.
Consider the miracle of moveable wall sections. For tens of thousands of years of human history, people created dwelling structures with portals for coming and going. They covered these portals with weavings or bear hides, which gave them some visual privacy and cut down the wind and cold, but were not particularly helpful in securing their homes against intruding animals or marauding neighbors. Then, somewhere, someone invented the hinge. With the hinge, everything changed. People could now make their portals into doorways when they wished to come and go, and make their portals into walls when they wanted security. An object of wonder, indeed.
I’m sure you can find countless examples in the built environment and in the natural world, things that complete the sentence, “When you really think about it, isn’t it incredible that…” Last summer, I had FaceTime calls with my Oregon family from the UK, 4600 miles, instantaneous, rich in sound and visual clarity. Skyscrapers are now 2000 feet tall. People have flown to the moon. Flocks of birds somehow know to make instantaneous turns together. Forests regenerate after devastating fires. People are endowed with emotions, that give them vital information about how to navigate through the world.
It is in our ability to pause, to really see these things that are “about us always,” that the ordinary becomes miraculous.
How is it that our perception may be made finer? It is a practice, a discipline. A spiritual practice. Stopping to examine everything that we tend to take for granted wouldn’t leave much time for living our lives, but a practice of pausing, sometimes, to really see and hear opens our hearts to the wonder that is all around.
The spiritual practice of pausing can be intentional. As you read this, pause to look around. Perhaps, think back over your experiences in the last day or two. What do you notice that makes you smile in wonder?
Or, the spiritual practice of pausing can mean choosing to sit with the wonder in something that comes to you as a surprise. Putting together Legos with children (a universal experience among the parents and grandparents that I know), it occurred to me that it is miraculous how the company creates these little blocks with such precise tolerances that they are easy for little hands to put together and pull apart, yet hold securely once attached. This makes me smile, too.
Reflection
- Pause once or twice a day to really see something ordinary and allow the miracle… the object of wonder… to appear.
- Do this for a few days. What do you notice about your sense of wonder? What difference does this make for you?
Author
Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an American writer, poet and editor, who is best known for her novels of the West in the early years of European settlement. She was born in Virginia and moved with her family to the Nebraska frontier in 1883, being amazed and unsettled by the vast and barren landscape she encountered. As she began to write, her career took her to New York where she served for several years as managing editor of McClure’s Magazine, whose authors included Joseph Conrad and Henry James. The third volume of her Prairie Trilogy, One of Ours, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1922.
The quotation comes from her 1927 novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop, the story of a young Catholic bishop who is called to establish a diocese in the newly-formed territory of New Mexico. It is spoken by the bishop to his friend Joseph. The complete quotation is that “Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest…” This detail is appropriate to the novel, but it seems to me that the idea is not limited to the Christian tradition, and I have presented it in the form in which it is commonly cited.