It’s been over a year now since I have been seeing miracles in a new light. It began last year in May, I think, when I noticed how many examples there were in Helen’s notebooks—stories from her life that Jesus labeled miracles. That whole experience brought the concept of miracles down to earth for me. Before that, I still saw miracles as mainly extensions to others, but I’d raised the bar so high for what qualified as a miracle that I was reluctant to actually call anything a miracle. When I saw Jesus calling very down-to-earth events “miracles,” that gave me permission to do the same.
A year later, I am realizing that this has made a real difference. It certainly has made a difference in my picture of the Course. It has, in a sense, tipped the table on which the whole edifice of the Course’s thought system sits, slanting the whole thing in the direction of normal acts of kindness. If it’s a course in miracles, and miracles are generally little ways in which we lovingly shift someone else’s perception, then those little daily acts become what it’s all about.
What I am really glad about, though, is that it’s also made a difference in my life. For years I have been trying to make my days more about extension to others, yet without being able to see much success. The constant pull of “I want to do what I want to do for the reasons I want to do it” always seemed to win out.
However, there has definitely been a shift in the wind over the last year. I think much more in terms of giving miracles. I am much more alert to the opportunities to do so. I am much more inclined to see each interaction as a place to do so. I have continued a practice I began at that time, which is to ask myself “What is my miracle impulse?” when I’m faced with a certain interaction. When I ask that, more often than not a certain thing will leap to mind, some way in which I already feel drawn to benefit that person, even though I wasn’t aware of feeling so until I asked that question.
I have a hell of a long way to go. The goal, of course, is to live each moment and each day for the miracles I can give to others. But right now I am thinking not about how far away I am from that, but about the reassuring distance I have put between me and where I used to be.
