Hi, it’s Brilliant.
Years ago I signed up for a weekend personal-growth seminar. Three long days in a classroom. Not always my favorite way to spend a weekend, but I was stuck in a few places in my life and ready to get unstuck.
A two-hour session the following Tuesday night was the official conclusion, and we were encouraged to bring friends and family. I’d heard Tuesday was mostly a sales pitch, so I had no plans to go, and certainly no plans to invite anyone.
At check-in on the first morning, a woman at the desk asked if I’d be coming Tuesday.
“Nope,” I said.
She smiled. “Stay open to miracles.”
I ended up going to Tuesday’s session, and I’m glad I did. I brought a friend. He signed up for the seminar, and I think he’d tell you it changed his life too.
The lady at the check-in desk could have argued with me. She could have rolled her eyes. Instead she gave me four words I’ve thought about hundreds, if not thousands, of times since.
One place they come back to me is the golf course. I hit a bad shot and the voice starts: Well, there goes this hole. Maybe the round. Then I remember her words. Sometimes I say them out loud.
Saying them doesn’t guarantee a par any more than a prayer guarantees an answer. But I relax, and I enjoy the hole more than I otherwise would. And sometimes things turn out fine. Staying open doesn’t ensure a good outcome, but shutting down usually leads to a bad one.
Raised in a Christian tradition, I grew up hearing about big miracles. Water into wine. Lazarus walking out of the tomb. I don’t really know what to make of them. I have my doubts, but I’m open to the possibility that they actually happened. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy.
What I do know is this: a man walking on water is no more incredible than the fact that anything exists at all.
While working on my book, Reclaiming Prayer, I landed on a working definition of a miracle:
Something that interrupts, accelerates, or deepens ordinary life — an event or experience that feels touched by a force beyond human effort or natural law, and which is infused with a profound sense of significance, goodness, or grace.
By that measure, I suspect miracles are happening all the time, and we’d notice more of them if we paid attention.
Stay open to miracles.
From the Commonplace Book
“Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” — Willa Cather
Further Down the Rabbit Hole
I’m fascinated by the creative process, and one of my favorite windows into it is Song Exploder, a podcast hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway. In each episode, a musician takes a song apart, layer by layer, and tells the story of how it was made.
It’s the rest of the story behind songs you think you know. Two episodes I love: Imagine Dragons’ “Follow You,” which grew out of a marriage that almost ended on the way to signing divorce papers, and Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves,” a song that took more than a year to find its audience.
Emerson wrote that if the stars came out only one night in a thousand years, we’d never stop talking about it. I think music is like that. If we could only hear it live, with no speakers, we’d recognize it as sacred. Instead it plays in the background at the mall, while we’re on hold, even while we board the plane.
Every song has a story. Maybe even a miracle behind it.