Day 341

13. What Is a Miracle?

A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time's limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love's awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.

A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely to understand its ways. A miracle inverts perception which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified.

Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God, upon the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and endless joy.

The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there.

Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality.

Today's Lesson:

I can attack but my own sinlessness,
And it is only that which keeps me safe.

Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so dear and deep and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your Holiness. How pure, how safe, how holy, then, are we, abiding in Your Smile, with all Your Love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him.

Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness, for it contains the Word of God to us. And in its kind reflection we are saved.

Miracles I'm noticing:

First of all, I love section 13 above. It's so simple to understand miracles as already here in our world to quench our thirst right here today. We just need to open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts to see what is right in front of us. Miracles are everywhere, and always have been - we maybe just haven't been awake to see them. So WAKE UP, everyone!

Yesterday I spoke at the Twin Cities Council for Quality in Minneapolis. The group was smaller than I expected - I was told there would be 75, and I'm guessing about 40 were there. But it was a great group. You know how sometimes it feels like everything is just "on" and you're on a roll? That's how I felt yesterday. I was talking about setting goals for 2008 and why resolutions usually seem to fall flat - because we're not setting resolutions we're passionate about. I did a small amount of subtle selling because I wasn't getting paid for this speech, so I thought I could get some advertising in. Afterwards one person told me she was very impressed with my blend of "selling" and "telling" so that was good.

But the most interesting comment came from one gentleman who stopped by to tell me that everything I said was biblically based. I took that as a compliment, and told him that people really do recognize universal Truth.

That was pretty cool, because I've never been blatant about the spiritual dimension about which I speak. I flashed back to a time a few years ago when my speaking mentor, Bob Ash, said the same thing to me, long before I really "got" that. Call it what you will - biblical, spiritual - it doesn't matter to me. I realized that as I was typing today's lesson. I used to get really defensive whenever I would hear someone speak of God or the Bible or anything religious because I was raised in such a fundamental home that I was turned off by those things.

I realize now that that wasn't God's fault. I shouldn't take out on Him the interpretations of people around me. I sense that He has always been waiting around for me to "get it" and now He's smiling as I speak to corporate audiences all over about goal setting and thinking and results and outcomes, when really He's there guiding what I say, making sure I don't say anything to turn anyone off the way I've been turned off.

That awareness - and recognition by that man in the audience - is my miracle for today!