Try de-fine miracle
To trust that which we cannot yet see
Is real
Yet hidden
How to explain
How to describe
How to call
a
Miracle
Photo credit: Verushka Normandeau
I am sitting in the waiting room at the Radiology Tech Lab in Hilo with Graham. It is 8:19 am. He has already drunk 2 of the 3 bottles of stuff that they prep him with for a CT scan of the bowels. He has one more to drink. We already signed the paper allowing them to inject him with a substance that will create contrast on the scan. There is a 1 in 100 chance he might experience itching or nausea, a 1 in 6000 chance he might have difficulty breathing, and a 1 in 100,000 chance it could kill him. Medicine is an interesting phenomenon and we have been through our share of it this year. I am not yet ready to dig through the memories too deeply yet. We both bear the scars of this last year’s experience though mine have no physical appearance like his do. His scar from the stomach tube that fed him for 3 months looks like a second, higher belly button. His scar from the tracheotomy is a little less apparent as are the scars from the chest tubes, memoirs from infection from pneumonia. We’ve come a long way; the road stretches out behind us and before us, maybe we are somewhere in the middle but there are no mile markers to tell us how far we have to go. The destination will always be there but it is the trip itself that is part of the adventure.
Gratitude, that is the word, the work, the key. Faith, I am learning what this mystery is. One night I had a bit of a vision and in that vision I was visited by a wise being and he offered me a gift. He said, “This is for you if you would like it. But you must know that if you take it you can never put it down, never put it aside. You must carry it always.” His words carried great weight; the gift obviously carried great responsibility and was not to be accepted without thought. I agreed to take the gift and then he told me that the gift was faith. With it came a second gift, the gift of love. Faith looked like a crystal of purple that was placed in the area of the solar plexus. Love was like a diamond and was placed in my heart. I have no more training than the knowledge that I can never put the gifts down.
We hurtle through the space of the universe at unfelt velocities. We spin, vortex-like, in ever expanding spirals while somehow making our way forward as well. We sail through bits of things, chunks of things, whirl with partners who come in and out of the dance. The dance is so familiar we might forget we are dancing. We are dancing with God, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Yahweh, Tuhan and many more. If only we can remember we are dancing. When I remember, the things created in mankind’s world fall away. And I am free, dancing with Faith. There is a tremendous feeling of love. Pain, sadness, anxiety, all these fall away, and I am one with the experience.
So this year I have become a practitioner of Faith. It began when I asked for a miracle for Graham. It included the acceptance of death. It continues with a belief that he will recover completely so he might accomplish that which he came to this earth to do. The holy rains of prayer watered the small seed called Faith. The prayer came from every part of the world, from people we knew and people we never met and may never ever meet. Compassion and Abundance sprang up in the forms of friends, family, new friends and those in passing. Beauty crept forth, stepping gracefully through the ashes, the wreckage, the destruction. While sadness and pain wept and wailed, Beauty touched them with the simplicity of a smile, a sweet breath of wind, the warmth of the sun, the magic of life.
We sometimes forget what a miracle life is. When Graham was quadriplegic I would marvel at the fact that people can walk, talk, eat. These simple things we take so for granted are so complex, such miracles. A bug, a weed, the smallest, simplest things that we squash and pull, usually in annoyance, sometimes with a vengeance, they are really amazing miracles. When we see the miraculous, we are dancing with God.
And so I pray.
The gratitude I feel for all the love and goodness that is showered on me swells my heart. Love bursts into being-ness. It grows in a garden of many loves whom I know as friends, family, and the human race. It grows as nature intends growth, luxurious, abundant and beautiful. We are the forest, all of us together. It is a beautiful forest, a rich and lively ecosystem. We are beauty and we are growing in spite of destruction, in spite of pain, sadness, loneliness, anger, war, brutality. We know what can be. We know how to bring miracles into reality. We know what can be, what must be, what will be. I extend my love and gratitude to all of those who helped me, who helped us. I extend my gratitude to Graham, for having the courage to take this journey that has made us both wiser. I give my heartfelt thanks to our family, for your courage, support and everlasting generosity. I give my heartfelt thanks to my friends, for your support and unlimited generosity. I send my prayers asking all of you to be blessed beyond measure. I ask for peace for all beings, abundance for all beings, I pray for acceptance of what is, but also that I and we may have the courage and faith to have the endless compassion and patience it takes to end the suffering.
My gift, our gift to ourselves, to each other, is the gift of life. Cherish it, revel in it, enjoy it in its rainbow of forms. In the darkest dark, in the most brilliant light, let us never forget what a gift it is to be here, to share our lives and our love. May the peace of the angels be with all of us. Mahalo nui loa, thank you so much, all of you. To use my words from a few years ago, each of you are the gift that I again unwrap, and as I do, the thought of you brings so much joy to my heart. You are cherished beyond measure.
And thus was born Miracle Inc.
Deep Field
When the Hubble telescope was pointed at the
darkest corner of the sky, in the hope of seeing the
closest edge of the universe, a twelve day exposure
was taken of an are less than the size of a grain of
sand held at armʻs length: over ten thousand galaxies
were found.
The sum of everything we have known and will ever
know is infinitesimal. We understand almost nothing.
Sit for hours, years, in a darkened cell; seek your
heart, your mind, your body, even God; you will only
learn what is not. All is quicksand.
Ye this groundlessness is the ground of faith. Our
faith is in the magnitude of our ignorance. Every
prayer is an act of faith in the infinite possibilitis our
ignorance obsucres. Beyond all reason the assay of
faith is that its only measure is itself.
William Ingram 2009
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