Miracle Consciousness & Choice

One of the questions posed in class yesterday was, Do you believe in miracles?

Being God-loving Truth students, the majority of the class raised their hands, including me.

Lonnie, the fierce and logical soul that she is spoke up and said, "It depends on your meaning of miracle."  She took the words right out of my mouth!

If you take David Hume's definition of miracle, a miracle would be anything that defies physics. 

With that definition, I suppose, David Hume would believe in miracles if he saw a construction vehicle levitating in the air.

Dictionary.com defines miracle as the following:

1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. 
2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.
3. a wonder; marvel
4. a wonderful or surpassing example of some quality: a miracle of modern acoustics

 Source:  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/miracle?s=t

An example of the first (and maybe the second) definition (depending on who you are talking to) above would be a person whose prognosis is emanate and immediate death, and then suddenly, something happens and they do not die.  Doug's heartfelt example of his mother and her unexpected heart transplant was poignant.

We also talked about modern day technology being considered miracles to our ancestors.  

My definition of what is miracle is much different than any of those.  Perhaps to me, a miracle is being able to recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary.  Thus, miracles, like one's level of consciousness occurs at the level of one's awareness.  Miracles happen with the awareness of being able to recognize, identify, see and appreciate the miracle itself.  Our recognition of a miracle opens our eyes to the miracle.  Life, after all, is consciousness!

Some examples of what I consider a miracle to be are life occurrences that have meaning to me. 

• conception and birth of a human being
• a person finding the love of her life, finally breaking the patterns of relationship dysfunction
• an abused, disadvantaged child being able to function efficiently and effectively in society after self realization and recovery

So then, what about cases of healing and miraculous turn around?  Myrtle and Charles Fillmore, co-founders of Unity are a great example of this.  Both considered to be invalid and through prayer, and mind-action, they healed.  They manifested healing and lifved a full and abundant life.

So, I would add onto my definition of miracle: that which I don't understand.  There are laws, physical laws even, scientific laws in quantum physics I do not understand and I know that I operate on faith in believing in miracles - that miracles occur, whether we understand them, or not. 

And yes, I am aware that I see what I see as miracles simply because I choose to see them that way. Like Albert Eistein, I am a genius.  He says this:  "There are two ways to live your life:  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other as though everything is a miracle.   Guess I'm smarter than I look. ~ELF

God Shopping...

The first year of seminary is an interesting experience.  For the past few weeks, I have been feeling like I am on a top speed freight train.  Everything seems to move by quickly, without ever enough time to process and simmer. 

So I have been in my quiet space the past few weeks, allowing the concepts and ideas that I have learned (am still learning) to "simmer."  I needed some time to process God.  Admittedly, I am not one to "talk talk talk" about it.  My process is to simply allow what is to be, to process, to feel uncomfortable...and to settle.

Short of an existential crisis, my concept of God is morphing..and what a incredibly strange experience that is!  For a while, I allowed myself to simply be with the discomfort of knowing that I am exactly where I needed to be.

I have felt however, in exploring the various concepts of God, that I simply needed to figure out which label I choose to impose on myself.  In a sense, it feels as though I am shopping for an appropriate "God" label. 

So the question is, what kind of "eist" am I?

Here are the things that I know, through the process of elimination, I am not:

• I am not a theist, that is, I do not believe that one deity exist.  
• I am not a deist, I do not believe that God created the universe and abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

I was all ready to accept that I am an atheists, that is, I reject the notion that any deities exits.
And then, I get to grapple with the term panthesim and panentheism.

Pantheism is a belief that in everything, there is God.  That is, God is the universe.  Panenthesim is a belief that everything is within God and God is in the universe and beyond.

The next term I grappled with is monotheistic Panentheism, which, if I understand correctly is one way of saying the one presence and one power is God and God is in the universe and beyond. 

Whew!  That is a mouthful and I shall allow that to stay until THAT becomes stable!

So then, What the heck do I believe?  I return to my definition of "Truth."

Is there a God?  Yes.

To me, God still exist, although it is not an anthropomorphic Hebrew Bible J writer's God. I believe that there is The Truth.  This Truth is God - unknowable, unspeakable, unfathomable, perhaps undefinable.  Larger than the cosmos, bigger than the universe, unending.

The Truth:  We all have our idea of what the Truth is, religions all over the Earth express Truth in one fashion or another.  We are all expressions of the Truth.  That is why I honor the diversity of faiths across our planet.   But there is only one Truth - and this is God.   ~ELF