Religion and Miracle Moments

[jenny-livingston]

Wow, those stories are beautiful! Thank you for sharing them with us.

This is a good question, but a difficult one for me to articulate my feelings about. I had an extremely religious upbringing, but chose to leave my family’s religion when I was 17. That was 15 years ago. My spiritual belief system since that time has continued to change and grow. I don’t believe in any specific theology, and to be honest, I still don’t know what I believe about “God.” But I do know that I’ve experienced many “miraculous” circumstances. Are they luck? Blessings? Medical miracles? I don’t know, and I generally try not to question it too much. Rather, I am just incredibly grateful for those things.

The most beautiful and spiritual thing that has ever happened to me took place during one of my most traumatic hospital stays. My daughter was a toddler and I was hospitalized for the 4th time in just a few months. I was missing her and deeply mourning lost time with her. I’d recently left the hospital with PFTs in the 70s and was returning, just three weeks later, with numbers in the 30s. My health was so unstable, I was incredibly sick and I remember lying in my hospital bed, just sobbing. I said (either out loud or to myself – I don’t remember which now) “I can’t keep doing this alone.” And in that moment, I felt such a strong presence in the room with me; a presence that I knew was my sister. I can’t even explain how I knew it was her, but I’ve never been more sure of something in my life.

I didn’t dare move for fear of losing that feeling, so I just lay there silently crying. Eventually the moment faded away, but I have never forgotten what it felt like. I’m still not sure how or what exactly happened, but it was a very beautiful moment that provided so much comfort and strength.

When I’m asked what I think about God, heaven, or an afterlife, I still don’t have an answer. But that night in the hospital will always stick with me and make me believe that there might just be something after this life….

[tim-blowfield]

Thankyou for sharing your spiritual experiences. We both do believe in God and Jesus as Lord and Saviour in the Christian tradition. We have had multiple experiences where we have felt a presence encouraging and guiding us. My parents were involved in a spiritualist group during the Second World War when dad’s brother was in Northern Italy as an escaped POW, uncontactable, for 3 years. During one seance dad’s mother appeared an said ‘Clifford is alive and well’ She was the only person to use his name as Clifford. (I do not advocate trying to contact the dead but if a such person contacts you I have no issue.) When our oldest daughter was born tests indicated that she was affected by the Toxoplasmosis my wife had had earlier in the pregnancy. Many people in the CMS community joined in prayer and two days later the test was repeated and was completely clear. Doctors were dumbfounded – it should not have cleared so completely.
While in Kenya teaching at Egerton College we experienced a number of times extraordinary guidance and protection for which no rational explanation accounts. When we returned in 1978 we experienced more. We needed a home and a real estate agent suggested one. I drove past it and had the feeling as if God was saying “that is where I want you”.
I do not believe because of these experiences but it was the result of being presented with the historical evidence of the Bible that Jesus did indeed live, preach, teach and die. Since then I (we) have seen prayers answered, some declined, sometimes there has seemed silence. Some answers have come from studying the Bible, occasionally by wise advice from friends, few visions, some feelings and so on.
Our travels with CF have been affected. We have been felt led so often to pursue various options. When Doctors wrote her off, as when they said she would not survive, reassurance occurred too often to be a coincidence.

[paul-met-debbie]

Not being alone (separate). Peacefulness. Acceptance. Gratefulness. Comfort and support. Beauty. Miracles. The voice of God. Silence. Reassurance.

For me, these are all accounts of what I call Wholeness. This is what happens when we breathe gently, the mind is still, when conceptualizing breaks down. When there is surrender, the end of resistance. This is what lies beyond everything happening.

For most this happens as moments in time and when the mind returns, they are either rejected, rationalized or accepted within the framework of the person. This can be religion, spirituality, gratefulness – anything known. But the origin of all those moments lies in the unknown. That which is before everything, timeless, formless, without boundaries. That which is called by various philosophies or religions the realizing of Dao, Om, God, Jhwh, Brahman, Allah, I Am, Oneness, non-duality, awareness, etc. But actually, it is that which can’t be named. We cannot (and need not) understand this or take the mind along in it, but somehow we apparently can realize this, receive it, hence all these experiences.

We all have moments like these. We all know how it feels when the mind is still for a short while. When we are in awe of something beautiful like nature, a work of art, a new born life, when we feel compassion or when the mind has no words like when a loved one dies, or when we are in the silence of a church or other temple of religion, when we are feeling unconditional love or utter despair. These are the moments of wholeness-in-action. In these moments we can experience super-personalness. Another word for this is Divinity or Wholeness. We are directly in touch with the miracle of nature and being, without the interference of the mind.

If you learn to still the mind, these moments eventually grow out into a permanent experience of peaceful steadiness and the mind will reside more and more. You are no longer at the mercy of that what happens. You are in the soft and caring hands of the unknowable limitlessness in which everything miraculously happens. You can rest in the aliveness of being, that is constantly there, the presence of existence. That what happens does not define you anymore, nor does it trouble you.

There is no need to wait for this to happen after this life. It is happening already to all of us now, hence the glimpses. We are it, it is our very essence. It is subtle, but powerful and unconditional. Only the mind separates us from realizing this. It is always presenting itself to us, waiting for us to accept its unrequited and unconditional love. When we quieten the mind and finally accept, it becomes all pervading and we dissolve into it. It is the end of separation. We no longer experience life through the limited interface of the person. Everything is seen as it is: a miracle, totally unknowable and complete.

“Each moment you are alive is a gem, shining through and containing earth and sky, water and clouds. It needs you to breathe gently for the miracles to be displayed” (Thich Nhat Hanh).

Being blessed with a body that lets us notice every breath we take and leave, we have the perfect condition for noticing the Great Miracle that we all are.

Namaste,
Paul