ON MIRACLES

It'll be a short session tonight – it's a white wintery evening, and my mind is rather numb.

I made my best speed down Blijde Inkomststraat, which now is covered in snow, on my way home earlier. Every step I took I heard the carillon at the Central Library chime Neil Sedaka's "The Miracle Song." The old tune now is stuck in my head..., and I only know a couple of lines: "You're just a rose that shimmers in the sun..., Mmm, la la la..., you're the sweetest thing that could ever be, ever be, and you're a miracle to me." In a little while I was wondering:

Miracles and real life, they never overlap, do they?

I'm postponing my moment of writing.

But I'm sure you can see the words in my eyes; I've never been a great believer of miracles.

So, from the side of my bed, which from here looks like a horde of barbarians slept in it, I begin to recall stories I was told: "Burning bushes on Mount Horeb; Lazarus being resurrected; milk offered to Ganesha that disappears mysteriously; God splitting the moon into pieces through the prayers of a holy prophet; angels of Yahweh whispering divine revelations into someone's ears with no one else to testify" and bla bla bla. There you are – miracles and real life, they never overlap.

But what exactly is a miracle?

Everybody talks about it – the baker, my granny, theologians, philosophers..., but they're just like noisy parrots dancing in the rain. (Sorry granny).

Ancient Hebrews called it "the finger of God." The guys in dress in the First Vatican Council declared it to be "the divine overriding of the laws of nature." Scottish philosopher David Hume said miracles are mere delusion – the fruit of religious schizophrenia. Why? Because "laws of nature are established by a firm and unalterable experience; they rest upon the exceptionalness testimony of countless people in different places and times." Hume goes on to argue that miracles tend to have their origins in ignorant and barbarous nations... the history of every culture displays a pattern of development from a wealth of supernatural events – prodigies, omens, oracles, judgements and so forth.

Now, talking about ignorance and barbarity, recall that some accused that crackpot from Nazareth of performing miracles with the help of Beelzebub – the prince of the demons. Later on, they nailed him on a wooden cross; so another "miracle" could be told. My heart grows bitter.

I scramble out of my lotus position at once, my legs hurt; and my hand obeys the lines in my diary.

The truth is, "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again." But if they had, Humpty Dumpty would be added to our list above, wouldn't it? As a great miracle!

Plainly, though, "miracle" comes from the Latin miraculum, "a wonderful thing." Now I can't deny – even a goddamn-sore-cynical-chubby bitch like myself – that there has always been and always will be something wonderful around us all. It perhaps requires us to simply stop wondering about burning bushes, resurrections, split moons, Humpty Dumpties, and blood-weeping statues. In Bernard Shaw's words: "Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles."

It's not yet three a.m., I could go on a little while longer. But I want to stop, because from here on I'd have to reveal the secret of my life – that it actually began with a miracle. I'll say this much though:

Throughout Earth I've walked; seeking poets, kings, priests, philosophers, and gurus. I hoped to learn from them "the meaning of life." Everyone spoke loads – just like noisy parrots dancing in the rain – but no one said anything worth believing in. That's when a child holding a red rose whispered: Life's the thorn that isn't seen in every flower.

Life is as such that when lived wide enough bleeds in petals of life and love..., and so are miracles – all those "small wonderful things" happening every day, just under our noses. From this perspective, miracles and real life not only overlap; life itself is the miracle of all miracles.