Two Kinds of People: Which Are You?

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Albert Einstein once said, “There are two kinds of people - those who believe everything is a miracle, and those who believe nothing is a miracle.”

So, what are we talking about when we use the term “miracle?” I think a good way to define a miracle is as being something that can’t possibly happen but happens anyway. It’s impossible and illogical, but there it is! That’s a miracle.

Here are three examples, two of which you can easily verify for yourself:

ROCK STACKERS

The work of rock stackers seems truly miraculous. They take rocks with dramatically different sizes and shapes, and stack them on top of each other. Often the biggest and heaviest are on top, with a tiny pebble underneath! The result is an awkward-looking stack of vastly unequal rocks, that looks as though it should fall over in an instant. Yet it doesn’t!

Some of these impossible rock columns have remained standing for several hours without falling.

A miracle? Well, it sure looks like it to me.

MARTY HARRIS’S HEART CONDITION

Marty Harris was born with a life-threatening heart condition: quite often, at unpredictable times, her blood pressure would suddenly plummet, and she would faint and fall. Early in her life Marty had already had 30 concussions from falls. Any fall might potentially kill her. But none of her doctors could help her.

Then Marty found out about a new program using service dogs. They are specially trained Cardiac Alert Dogs and are able to sense if the human they are attending has had a sudden decrease in blood pressure. If she has, the dog springs into action and gently lowers the person to the ground to prevent a dangerous fall.

When the danger has past, and the person’s blood pressure has returned to normal, the dog knows, and helps the person get back up and resume whatever it was that she was doing.

Marty Harris has had a cardiac alert dog named Adele for the last ten years. Adele’s job is to constantly monitor Marty’s blood pressure and spring into action if it gets too low. In all that time Marty hasn’t had a single fall or a concussion!

Is that a miracle? Ask Marty!

AN ALIEN INVADER

A number of years ago I was in my home, in the middle of doing something, and was distracted and annoyed by a fly, buzzing all around the room, lighting first one place, then moments later whizzing off to someplace else.

Finally, I was so irritated that I decided to take decisive action. From my life-time arsenal of tricks, I drew on one I perfected back in Junior High School, during seventh grade math class.

I was too inept to perform any of the math problems, and too bored to actually learn how to do them properly, so I turned my attentions elsewhere.

During springtime in Kansas, the temperatures rise, windows would be opened, and the occasional fly, curious about the nature of quadratic equations, would venture in.

So, I turned my attention to the fly. What I discovered is that, if a fly landed on the flat surface of my desk, and if I very quietly brought my right hand to within a foot or so of it, and then VOOMP!, suddenly swooped in on the fly, I could catch it alive in my hand!

So I made productive use of my math classes by developing a great expertise at catching flies. (My guess is that Pythagoras probably never caught a fly in his entire life.)

So when I discovered a fly buzzing around my house several years ago, I knew just what to do. I called on the well-honed skills of my youth and snatched it up.

Then I took it to the door, walked a few steps outside, opened my hand and sent it aloft.

Then I went back inside.

But a few minutes later I heard the buzzing again.

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So, I repeated the procedure. This time I took it a little farther out before I released it.

Then I went back inside and closed the door.

Bzzzzzzzzz.

The fly was back in again! So once again I went over to catch the fly. But this time I noticed something very interesting.

The third time it was much easier to catch the fly! It offered very little resistance. Then I caught it and released it several more times. It got still easier each time. Finally, when I opened my hand, the fly just stayed there. I reached down with my other hand and petted its wing!

I could see the wing move down when I petted it, and then the wing came up again when I stopped. But the fly didn’t rush away. I had a pet fly that I had tamed!

The fly stayed close at hand for the next couple of weeks, the rest of its life span. Then it disappeared.

I’ve reflected on this episode many times since then. It had a profound effect on my thinking.

You go along thinking that “this is the way things are.” Things are all set up in their appropriate places, categories and relationships, with all their boundaries and definitions in place.

Then something can happen where you feel a close connection with something that seemed impossibly distant. A creature that before seemed like just an unreachabe alien “bug,” suddenly became a sentient being, with whom I could have a deep, profound communication!

It seemed miraculous.

So, let us return to our original quote from Einstein, in which he says people either believe everything is a miracle or believe nothingis a miracle.

Einstein himself aligned himself with those who believe that everything is a miracle. I believe he is right. Miracles are everywhere. And they are where we go to mine the future. Miracles provide the loam where we go to harvest hope and possibility.

Miracles?

I’m with Einstein.

David Evans

© 2019 David Evans