Everything’s A Miracle

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

I choose option two. But in days of darkness – news of yet another mass shooting in the U.S. (in the most sacred of all places, a church) and the dreariness that accompanies our annual fall trek through leaden skies and shortening days – I personally need reminding that miracles exist.

And my Higher Power did that for me about a week ago. I was driving alone, early on a Sunday morning – which has a certain amount of reverence to it, yes? I was heading to my granddaughter Naomi’s 4^th birthday party breakfast from our lake house and the dial was set to Sirius XM The Loft, a channel I don’t always listen to. I felt I was on a mystical journey listening to performers I didn’t know – Bryndle, who sounded to me like Fleetwood Mac – and others I did know – Van Morrison and Miles Davis. It was to the strain’s of Davis’s trumpet, cruising along an angled country road I adore, watching dark clouds begin to break and allow slivers of bright sunlight to poke through, that I saw her. Or him. Right there in the ditch, staring at me, pouncing up and down on something. A bald eagle!

Now I don’t know what bald eagles mean to you. Maybe you see them all the time, or perhaps you’ve never had the pleasure of making one’s acquaintance. Years ago, when I used to do my grief-stricken walks on the trail around the small lake near my country house, I’d be watching for eagle sightings like a hawk. Ha. The odd time – very odd, maybe two or three? – I’d spot one, high in the trees that border the water. I’d just stand there, eyes and neck straining, waiting for take off. Wow. I’d watch it soar, wishing I could do the same. They’re majestic birds. Powerful. Awe-inspiring. That’s the reason they were chosen as the emblem of the U.S.

They represent freedom. An eagle sighting, for me, is truly miraculous and I walk as if I’m soaring for the remainder of the day.

So, on that Sunday, I had to turn around on that narrow country road and get a better look. I managed to get a picture, albeit a grainy one, as she (it was of significant size and I’ve just learned that female bald eagles are a third of the size larger than males) reluctantly hopped away from her prey. We regarded each other for a while, then my cell rang, so I left her to her future feast.

I drove on, chatting (Bluetooth, so safely) with my sister for a bit, then a song I’d never heard before, Everything’s A Miracle, by an artist I’d never heard of before, Greg Trooper, came on.

We walked through the heat of the city
Till the sun finally set and let us be
And I said babe, oh my child, that’s not a miracle
But she said everything’s a miracle to me

And Trooper’s voice and guitar sounded simple yet heavenly. And the song and its message was perfectly timed to end as I arrived at my destination. Oh my.

To walk through the heat of a city? To feel and watch a sunset while strolling hand-in-hand with your lover? What are these things, if not miracles? What is existence – for the brief time we’re blessed with these unbelievable bodies from which to experience it – if not a miracle?

I discovered, sadly, that existence is no longer a miracle for Greg Trooper as he passed away of pancreatic cancer on January 15^th of this year, two days after his 61^st birthday.

His message stays with me. The protagonist in Trooper’s song opted for “nothing is a miracle” and cut that girl loose, seducing him the way she was, with all that magic and mystery mumbo-jumbo. And I’ll admit, I used to be a bit that way too, a realist adhering to the dictionary definition of miracle: an event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a divine or supernatural cause. But realism is kind of dull and completely useless in times of trouble. But wait . . . Random House has a second definition of miracle: a wonder; marvel.

Wonderful. Marvelous.

Pablo Picasso agreed with Einstein and put it this way: “Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.”

We all dissolve eventually. I see Earth as a dear mother, patiently waiting, always, to swallow back up her precious treasures. Before She starts taking us back, doesn’t it sound like fun to try to consistently view life – as a child does – through eyes of wonder, eyes of marvel?

Website photo is of my grandson Beau looking at life through eyes of wonder, marvel and a gold #4 balloon.