Unexplainable?

Careful there!

In the May 2015 issue of Guideposts there is an article by Robert Lesslie, M.D. titled Miracles in the ER, based on his book by the same name. However, in the front of the magazine where the contents are listed the subtitle of Lesslie's article is "A doctor's experience with the unexplainable." I certainly feel that is a mistake.

When I post a story as I did last time about answered prayer, I don't mean to offer that as proof. And I don't think articles like Lesslie's equal proof. I'm quite certain I would differ with the theology of Dr. Lesslie, as well as the Mayhews. But I do believe in the Divine, in miracles, in the value of prayer. These stories do serve as powerful reminders for me that there is more to life than the mundane - at least, as I understand things.

Having said that, I'm not troubled by the fact that nonbelievers will dismiss these events as natural - even if peculiar - happenings. Nothing in this life in truly unexplainable; unexplained at the time maybe, but not  unexplainable. No one knows all there is to know and no one ever will.

We all have our worldviews, and we interpret the various data accordingly. My reasons for adopting a spiritual worldview are several, but most of all are personal. I can't and don't expect everyone to follow me. I write to express my own views, and if others disagree that is absolutely fine.

Of course I recognize I may be wrong in my spiritual worldview. Maybe there is no God and no miraculous interventions. If I'm wrong, so be it. I may be wrong about lots of things in life. That is the nature of having a finite mind. But when people speak with absolute certainty, that is the sign of a closed mind.

Personally, I don't believe in the unexplainable. I believe in a Supreme Mind or Logos that orders existence.

Prayer Answered!

Scott Mayhew of Saratoga Springs Utah was in a real pickle. He was home alone, out in his garage working on his SUV when suddenly the vehicle became unstable and fell on him.

Crushed beneath the weight, with broken ribs and other internal injuries, Mayhew somehow managed to call out for help - for over an hour, but to no avail.

Then he tried prayer: "I just knew if I hung on long enough, my prayers would be answered and she would know to come home."

Miles away, Nicole, Scott's wife, was at work. She says had a gut feeling, experienced a spirit warning her to go home and check on her husband. She knew she must go check on her husband. By heeding her instinct she was able to save her husband's life.

Prayer answered! I do believe such things are possible. I have a real problem with the idea of prayer as imploring an old man in the sky to grant our wishes. Yet I can't help feeling that prayer somehow serves as a method of tapping into the Divine Source.

I can't explain such things. Nevertheless, theory will never trump the experience of these things - and I have experienced them in my own life. 

A Word About Crude Representations

My maternal grandmother had been a nurse when she was a younger woman. She gave birth to my mother when she was thirty-three years old and quit nursing in order to raise her new daughter and her second husband's three boys.

A story I always got a kick out of hearing Mom relate was when, as a child, she heard her mother talk about the male and female hormones which everyone have in their bodies, which give us our distinguishing features. Being a child, my mom came up with a rather novel if crude way of picturing hormones.

That is, she pictured miniature penises and testicles as male hormones and the female genitalia, of course, were the female hormones and these both coursed through the bloodstream and human system.

Now it never occurred to my mom to doubt all these little genitalia all humans have. After all, her mom was a nurse and knew about such things and certainly wouldn't deceive her.

I'm sure some of her little friends might have doubted such a picture. Others, no doubt, might have accepted it as perhaps not that far-fetched. (Remember, I'm talking about kids back in the old pre-internet, pre-information glut days.)

So what I see there is a crude depiction of reality. My mother hadn't nailed the exact truth, but she did have a vivid way of picturing it. I'm not sure how a preteen in that day might have grasped it better in a simple manner.

Sometimes those of us who are interested in the deeper reality we call God fall into the habit of picturing or talking about God in simplistic, even crude ways. Those who oppose the God concept do so also, I'm sure not in part because it makes the subject easier to dismiss out of hand.

So the old white haired and bearded guy in the sky is a crude representation. It is easy for God-believers to anthropomorphize God. We sometimes use metaphors like God as mother, father or friend which can be stretched to the point of absurdity.

Now in truth my mom at 8 or 10 didn't realize she was making a crude representation. It was the best her child's mind could conjure. Some God believers are also unwittingly crude in their representations of the divine. Right idea, wrong details.

At best I think the finite mind cannot begin to grasp the infinite.

Modern Miracles

I am reading the article Miracles That Stunned Doctors in the April Reader's Digest. Interesting stuff there.

These aren't miracles in the Humean sense but rather the types of things that while obviously not contrary to the laws of nature, are still so strikingly unlikely it causes those of us who hold a spiritual worldview to pause and see the divine.

Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of God working against the system. For the same reason I find evolutionary theory more credible than direct creation.

As for the types of miracles recorded in the above articles, many doctors will say "meh."

Others, such as Matt Linam, MD at Arkansas Children's Hospital, who oversaw the "miraculous" recovery from a brain-eating amoebae of 12 year-old Kali Hardig, might say "Number one, it was God's grace." As he did.

The Humean miracles I was brought up to believe in led me directly to the idea of a very capricious God. It leads directly to the "why do bad things happen to good people" conundrum.

But now I think of life as a spiritual experience. As such, if one looks for them, if one is open to them, there are lots of examples of divine activity to be found. At least that's the way I think about the matter now.

I'm increasingly becoming convinced there is a divine element in life. I believe that divine element can be connected to, and life much enriched when it is connected to. I seek to develop my intuitive sense and I search for synchronicities (and I find them).

It seems to me that life itself is a miracle, or if not then an inexplicable cosmic accident. Therefore I believe in the Logos. And I believe in miracles.