The Miracle That Is This: Embracing Everyday Wonder

As a child the word “miracle” always carried a sense of awe and reverence for the inexplicable. In the religious stories I heard, miracles were divine interventions—events that defied understanding, happening without cause, seemingly beyond the realm of human effort or scientific explanation. The natural world, with its wonders like a seed transforming into a flower, felt like a pure expression of this miraculousness. Yet, as we grow older, something often changes. Our curiosity leads us to inquire, and the answers we receive—deeply rooted in widely held beliefs—sometimes seem to shut out the miracle. The sense of wonder fades, replaced by a certain resolve that “this is the way it is.”

But what if the miracle isn’t in the things that defy explanation but in the very act of not knowing? What if the real miracle is the recognition that the ordinary and the everyday are themselves the living miracle? Not just isolated happenings, but the entire display of existence—appearing as you, as me, as everything—is this miracle in motion.

The Living Miracle

As I grew older, the concept of miracles expanded beyond religious contexts. I encountered ideas of manifesting and transformation, where miracles were seen as the result of affirmations, energetic shifts, and the power of the mind. These perspectives focused on creating realities through intentional thought and action. But in all of this, something subtle was being missed. The mind was selecting certain events as miraculous, setting them apart from the ordinary, while taking much for granted.

The real miracle, however, reveals itself when we stop picking out specific happenings and recognize that the entire display of life is a living miracle. This realization dawns when we see the differentiation in the world—time, space, distance—yet recognize that it’s all the same “thing.” It’s the recognition of the bothness, the this-too-ness, where everything is nothing becoming everything, yet never becoming anything. This dynamic play is the miracle—an uncaused appearance arising from a clear, pristine, spaceless space, bursting forth with an endless array of forms.

 "Never lose hope, my heart, miracles dwell in the invisible"

RUMI

The Paradox of Experience

Consider this: I can sit and drink a cup of tea, sensing the warmth and taste. But when I dive deeper into the experience, I realize I can’t actually find a mouth. Only sensation. And when I look to find where it is well, its here. And well, so is everything. So where is here? What is here? The space that seems to be filled by the tea is an endless, boundless stillness—and the tea is that too. This doesn’t resolve into anything concrete, yet it’s undeniably here. It’s both everything and nothing, a miracle in its most intimate expression.

In this recognition, we don’t need to deny the world or dismiss our experiences. Why would we? This very world, this ordinary everyday existence, is the absolute miracle. No matter how deeply we dive into interpretation or how many layers of experience we uncover, the underlying reality remains the same, lending its realness to its play, its display, its own magic show. This pure, immediate, and unmediated actuality is what we call the miracle of being.

Being the Miracle

This miracle isn’t something external that we observe from a distance. We *are* the miracle. We are being this miracle in every moment of our existence. There’s nothing we need to do or achieve to make this so—it’s simply our nature. From the perspective of the human, this miraculousness is effortless. And from the perspective of awareness, of God, of source, it’s the same: everything is pouring out effortlessly from this boundless source, a dance of creation that never ceases.

This is effortless self-arising—pulling itself up by its own bootstraps, so to speak. The greatest miracle, to me as a child, was the natural world. But now, I see that the real miracle is the uncaused moment, disappearing as soon as it arises, yet perpetually present. Even in our difficulties, this is the miracle too. Realizing this brings the deepest sense of relief and healing, for seeing the miracle *is* the medicine.

The Dance of Creation

We’re all part of the same underlying reality, lending ourselves to this display of difference. To love the world is to give yourself to it—your awareness, your attention, your heart. This is the true miracle: seeing with the heart, where all senses come together, where knowing happens before knowing, where intimacy is felt in the immediacy of this constantly new moment.

This miracle is in the paradox—the bothness. Your very gaze, your attention, is the creative force that brings what we name the universe into existence, though nothing truly “exists” apart from existence itself. The fact that this appears as it does, constantly changing and never repeating, yet always being itself, is the miracle. This miracle can be recognized when we drop our ideas about what this is and flow with it, run with it.

Even when we think we know what this is, and try to assert that knowledge, the miracle shifts, changes, and takes on new forms, shaped by belief and perception. This is the miracle—constantly revealing itself in every moment, never concluding, never fixed, always alive.

Embracing the Miracle

The miracle of life, of existence, is not something we need to achieve or grasp. It’s what we already are. It’s the recognition that this play of creation, this dance of being, is happening effortlessly and perfectly. We are the miracle, each of us an expression of this radiance shining forth, and there’s nothing we need to do to make it so, nor anything we can do to stop it being the case. In every breath, in every thought, in every sensation, the miracle is here, alive and vibrant, inviting us to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary beauty of simply being.

So to embrace this miracle is to embrace yourself, to be yourself, exactly as you are now, knowing that you are always changing effortlessly, yet always remaining as this radiance being the very essence of who you are. You are always basking in the glory of your own being. This is your inherent freedom, the effortless arising of life, the celebration of existence itself.

So my desire for you is this - next time you are feeling like you are not this miracle - get really really close to your experience, and in doing so, you are aligning deeply, with the true miracle of existence - yourself.