When I take stock of all that happens over the course of a given day, all the potential for amazing discoveries, total catastrophes, and run-of-the-mill mundanities that populate my life over the course of a given day, I am astonished by how many opportunities I have to see the blessings and express gratitude. If I were to chronicle my unfolding day, minute by minute, hour by hour, there are thousands of moving parts, hundreds of decisions being made, a convergence of chance, synchronicity, coincidence, and opportunity that are almost too staggering in their magnitude and complexity to even contemplate. I am grateful tonight for the three- or perhaps 65-ring circus that is my daily life.
From the time I become dimly aware that I am alive each morning, as the hammer and anvil and stirrups and cochlea in my ears send impulses through my auditory nerve to my brain telling it that some noise is dragging me from unconsciousness into wakefulness, to the moment I lift my head from the pillow, aim my arm in the general direction of the snooze button and whack it, only to repeat the process seven minutes later, to the moment I sit myself up and swing my feet to the floor, I am aware that I am blessed. In those moments that it takes me to wake and sit up and contemplate my first moves of the day I sometimes take the time to remind myself what a miracle each of us truly is. There’s simply no other word than miraculous for the complex dance of cells, tissues, organs, nerves, systems and processes that allows me to wake and start my day. In the testimonies of the old church folk, as well as in some of the old school hymns, you thank the Lord for, “waking me up this morning, and starting me on my way.” And why not, it’s miraculous.
Every step along the way in a given day this miracle repeatedly plays out in countless little ways: my ability to see, my reflexes, how I can type this blog without looking (well hardly at all) at the keyboard. A million, zillion ways. Every weekday I safely navigate my way to work, piloting my vehicle through thousands of cars that are all going in the same direction as I am, all of us driving several-ton vehicles hurtling in the same general direction at excessive speed. How we weave in and out amongst each other without constantly banging into one another is…well, miraculous.
I suppose the trouble with using a world like miraculous is that it gets overused so much that it barely has meaning. And yet what else can you call this complex dance of life, these myriad interactions of seven billion people on the planet? I am open to suggestions. And I like the idea of the miraculous, of the unexplainable. I defy anyone to explain some of these phenomena other than in terms implying miraculous. Yes, many things can be broken down and explained in their component parts, but when you throw it all together in this cosmic stew that is one individual’s life on the planet, interacting with the other 6 billion, 999 million, 999 thousand, 999 people, chaos erupts and you can’t explain anything. All you can do is shake your head and shrug, “Miraculous.”
I am grateful this evening to not only not have it figured out, but to not need to. I accept miracles at face value. I don’t need to understand all the complexities and wonders of the world around me. I see and accept them every day for what they are. I am so appreciative for the awareness that dawns on me from time to time about just how miraculous and precious my life is and to not take for granted all that it takes simply to wake up in the morning. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. And for the life I have and for my awareness of the wonder of it all within and external to me, I am most mind-blowingly grateful.
