Miracles Are All Around Us
“We live on a blue planet that circles around a ball of fire next to a moon that moves the sea, and you don’t believe in miracles?”
One of my go-to zen tricks is watching a sunrise or a sunset. It has a way of putting my life in perspective and keeping me grounded. It reminds me that I’m a bit player in our cosmos, and that the universe has bigger things to worry about than whatever’s on my plate.
On the one hand, that can seem like a bit of a bummer, but it’s always had the opposite effect on me. It reminds me that we’re surrounded by miracles, and when I stop to appreciate all the miracles around me, it fills me with awe.
I continue to be amazed by the fact that the horrific tornado that hit my neighborhood in October and destroyed much of my section of Dallas didn’t kill a single soul. That fact is one of my top 10 miracles – both because of its unbelievability and because it literally hit so close to home – but there are countless miracles around us, and inside of us, that showcase the complexity and magic of the world around us.
Here are some of my favorite miracles of nature:
Did you know that cat purrs hit a sweet spot between 25 and 150 Hertz that can improve bone density, promote healing, and lower stress hormones and blood pressure in humans. That’s a pretty good argument for letting your cat sleep with you at night.
Even plants are little miracle houses. Research shows that plants talk to other species, insects, and animals using sound, smell, and volatile chemicals through their leaves and roots. They make alliances with other plants, repel enemies, and are territorial (as anyone who has ever grown wisteria can attest).
And then there’s how penicillin was discovered, completely by chance and only because a messy scientist didn’t clean up his work area before he left for vacation.
Our bodies are also marvels. They house thousands of little soldiers – T-cells – who guard every door, window and crack that can let in disease. T-cells search out and destroy targeted invaders every day of our lives. And they are just one of the multitude of sentries inside your body earning their rent by working to keep you healthy.
And then there’s our brains, the supercomputer running the whole show. It acts like plastic, reorganizing itself, both physically and functionally, in response to our personal environment. This neuroplasticity has a profound impact on stroke and brain injury recovery. The best part? This labor lasts throughout our lives and can be modified by new information our brains are learning.
Miracles are all around us. We can either choose to ignore them and believe we live in a world of the mundane, or we can recognize and appreciate them for what they are: evidence of an awesome life force (“awesome” here being the meaning of the word before it was applied to, say, pizza).
I choose to live like everything is a miracle. That keeps me tuned in to what is going on around me, but I also believe it changes us at the cellular level. We begin programming ourselves to be surprised, wonderfully and often, when we think the universe still has so many mysteries to be explored and solved.
When you look at it that way, there’s the touch of a miracle in almost everything.
#OnlyJoy