seeing miracles

at post-dinner drinks the other night

the three of us huddled around our beers and started spewing stories, thoughts and ideas leftover from dinner conversation.

i can't recall clearly now how the topic of miracles came about

i believe it started with someone, maybe me, saying: "i don't believe in coincidences...."

but i remember rudiments of the conversations.

and fragments from a party of three voices.

in random order - here's the prelude moment to our miracles chat

"i don't believe in coincidences...."

"oh i'm gonna be holy moly - not going for xmas drinks cos i have church camp"

"i'm aethist"

"you're aethist? not even agnostic?"

"i always believe in a force greater than all of us"

"astrology is not right or wrong but i always sense some truths in there"

"you should talk to my mother, she's a priest"

"you can never rationalise religion - it's a leap of faith"

"religion is the opium of the masses...do you think Marx was also trying to say the rich could discount religion cos they could afford the real stuff to get through life?...

"religions could be the many manifestations of that one source of higher being"

"i believe there must be a higher spiritual being - God- cos of the miracles i've encountered..."

and so it began.

i shared my life miracles on condition of not being sent away to a witchhunt trial - post-sharing.

i listed a couple.

here's one..


earlier this year i was feeling REALLY down one night. i was in a taxi ride home feeling crap and giving into to selp pity when suddenly a text message arrived. it was one of those really happy gay cheer-you up messages that i usually hate on any other occasion. but for that very second it really hit a welcomed spot.

the cell number of the messenger reflected was unfamiliar... i replied asking who that was?

and the person said: sorrry send wrong number...i'm teresa, what'syour name? wannabe friends?

i was so tickled by the weridness of it all. it must have been god sent. there was hope yet. one second i was just thinking life is shittie and the next second a text msg was telling me how life was beautiful. and did so convincingly.

i went home and decided to google saint teresa. just when i tried to dismiss the entire evening as a pure coincidence i stumbled upon in my google search a quote from Edith Stein - the woman would later become beatified and be known as Saint Teresa of Benedicta. She was born into a Jewish family..was interested in philosphy and later turned to catholicism.. and became a carmelite nun.

anyway here's a passage written by Saint Teresa... it lookslike an entry in her journal.

"Things were in God's plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that - from God's point of view - there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God's divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God's all-seeing eyes."

i was amazingly comforted by her words. and thought to myself then how i should embrace lovingly the bad experiences in life just asmuch as i do the good experiences. i was also reminded of the scene when hamlet discovered providence and decided to let his destiny unfold, to surrender to life. and just be. with courage.

i shared this story of my st teresa miracle at the bar with my companions. it wasn'treally a HUGE miracle. but it was good enough for me.

"so what miracles have you guys experienced?"

they said they didn't have any

but deeper into the night -stories of little miracles were salvaged from our memories.

we came to the conclusion that once your eyes open to seeing miracles> there are soon miracles every where.

remember that pivotal scene in The Sixth Sense when the little kid said "i see dead people..."

and suddenly the entire audience is visually sucked into that perspective, that world - sound, sight and all-

in a splt second the room scene was viewed through the little kid's eyes. and everyone also began to see the dead people.

what has this got to do with miracles? well nothing about miracles per say. just wanted to draw that image of "sudden sight" that is given to an individual. just as the viewer was in that particular moment of the movie.

another visually helpful scene was when i first went crabbing with the family many years ago.

on my first time out - i was freaking mad i couldn't catch any crabs. "what do they look like? where are they?" everyone around me was catching 'em flower crabs left right and center. i suddenly see a muddy grey shell moving and used my net to scoop the rascal up. i was in a semi squat, bending over to look into my tiny net,my hair,unbundled, was all over my face...i was admiring my first catch.

when i straightened up and looked ahead into the shallow muddy waters for my next scoop...i saw crabs. every where.

why am i sharing miracle stories? involving crabs and saints... and all?

i have no idea. but it sure makes my feel eeeeky preachy. and maybe that's no coincidence. o well. take what you will, and leave the crap. i'm just blogging my thought of the moment. "i see miracles"