Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

I looked out my office window this week, seeing the red buds on bare branches I thought, what a miracle. Looking at the Gilpin twins, Michael Jr. and Daphne, either up close as I had the chance to do today, or from a distance in their parents arms, we can honestly agree, what a miracle. I chose the picture on today’s order of service today, because to hold an infant and touch its tiny foot or hand is to observe a miracle.

I was fortunate enough to be present at the births of my three children. Each time I was overwhelmed at the depth of the miracle I witnessed. I have also been present with parents when they realized and had to accept the reality that their child was not going to live much longer. At those times too, I was overwhelmed at the depth of love and feeling that I witnessed and knew that it was a miracle.

Something I have experienced and that I am convinced is a universal is the adage, “You don’t know what you have until you have lost it.” I would add that the same is true when you have ALMOST lost something, or everything. Everything dramatically changed within me in 1999 when they told me that I had cancer. Suddenly, everything, every moment of life, every shade of color and every shape I saw, every texture I touched, every flavor I tasted, every aroma I smelled every melody I heard and every life I encountered was a miracle.

That realization that everything is a miracle has not left me during the past eleven years. Oh, there are times when I am caught up in all the activities of my parish minister existence and other times when I am too occupied with the mundane stuff of everyday life. At such times, I am not as immediately in touch with nor do I appreciate that everything is a miracle. Nevertheless, it truly does not take much to get me back to my basic realization that everything is miraculous.

Recall the song Gregg Pontier sang moments ago:

When I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
And I remember feeling sad
That miracles don’t happen still

As a child, I believed the miracle stories in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures really happened as written, and yet, at the same time that I believed that, I relegated those miracles and the possibility of miracles actually happening only to those long ago times and far away biblical places.

During the early 1960’s my young mind was absorbing the exciting scientific fields of biology, chemistry and physics. Biblical times became for me a time when the laws of nature – for some unknown reason – did not seem to apply. The Red Sea could part, and I could believe that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three young men from Judah who were brought into the court of King Nebuchadnezzar II were thrown into a tremendous fire for their disobedience, but they miraculously came out of the fire unharmed, not a hair of their heads singed; nor their robes scorched. Of course, I believed that Jesus could change water into wine, calm a storm and yes walk on water.

Maybe that is why, two years ago, I insisted that we stop at the Sea of Galilee when our Compassionate Listening Delegation visiting Israel and Palestine was going to pass it by. Our guide told us we were too late and we needed to rush on to our next meeting. I, the only Unitarian Universalist, insisted that our guide and director would just have to readjust our timetable because I wanted to walk in, even if not on, the water in the sea of Galilee. I even brought a small container of that Galilee water back with me for the annual water ceremony at the Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing.

I really did feel sad that miracles seemed only to have happened back in ancient times. Now, it is impossible for me to keep track of all the miracles. Because now, everything is a miracle, everything. “There are only two ways to live your life.” wrote Albert Einstein, “One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Einstein, of course, was not referring to miracles like walking on water, or present day claims that people can call down favors from a supernatural being to change the course of history, be it the crashing of an airplane, the course of an illness or the outcome of a basketball game. Rather, Einstein was referring to the reality that during much of life many of us tend to go about our days with a humdrum attitude where nothing seems that special or miraculous. Einstein was a smart guy and the sort of miracles he referred to, are the very natural miracles of life: our senses that allow us to marvel at all the wonder and beauty of the stars above in our amazing cosmos and the flowers at our feet. Such miracles transcend any religious dogma or theology. Unitarian Universalism is a religion that appreciates the natural and the spiritual as one unified reality.

As Einstein wrote, “The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” (Albert Einstein – The Merging of Spirit and Science)

Our challenge is to see with our own eyes and to feel reality with the wonderful power of our senses. When we do this, how can we not stand in awe before the wonder and mystery of the natural world be it the stars that dazzle us above or the surge of life we observe in the spring awakening all around us? Ours is a glorious, wonderful and natural world filled with miracles.

The birds in winter have their fling
And always make it home by spring
It’s just another
Ordinary miracle today.

My message today is extremely difficult to follow and at the same time exceedingly simple. It is difficult because we are overcome with a compulsive preoccupation with the tasks we do and the general stuff of life. It is as though we are waking up in the morning so foggy that we need to grab a quick drink of coffee, tea or soda to open our eyes. As Greg sang,

“When you wake up everyday
Please don’t throw your dreams away
Hold them close to your heart
‘Cause we are all a part
Of the ordinary miracle…”

When we really reflect on the complex way the cosmos works consistently, it all seems miraculous. In the morning when the sun comes out and then disappears again at night, we need to remember that it really is just another quite ordinary daily miracle.

I recently saw the movie Blind Side. The movie demonstrates the miraculous power of loving kindness. Often in the rough and tumble of life we are confronted with a choice, should we be idealistic and follow our principles and values, or should we be “realistic” and follow the practical and skeptical wisdom of the world? Idealism encourages us to follow the compassion of our hearts. Realism warns us that we will regret following our hearts, because people just cannot be trusted and good guys and gals will end up finishing last. Blind Side, based on a real life story, demonstrates how the miracle of compassion changed the life of not only one individual, but the lives of a whole family and so many more.

A Willa Cather statement of yore makes clear what our world sorely needs, “Where there is great love there are always miracles.”

If you want to see an increase in miracles, we must start magnifying the compassion we feel in our hearts and practice in our lives.