Miracles, Simplicity, & Peace
From James
As a lover of fairy tales and cartoons, I have wanted to believe in miracles since I was a child. The notion that extraordinary things could happen—the deus ex machina, the lightning that appears out of thin air and makes everything all right—it felt to me that the extraordinary was right around the corner. And as I reflect, maybe it is true that miraculous things are happening, but maybe they’re so commonplace that we overlook them. Or perhaps we’re too quick to explain them away.
I was a weak applicant for medical school. For many reasons, I failed a lot of courses during my undergraduate years. Although I completed graduate studies, my combined GPA was not great. The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) was my chance to redeem myself. Improbably, one section of the MCAT focused on the topic of my undergraduate research. My exam score was high as a result.
Coincidence? It is so easy to say it was a coincidence that my undergraduate research focus showed up on the test that day. Was it merely a low-probability event or is that just where miracles live? Instead, I could ponder: Does the light, the divine, God, or whatever we wish to call it, does it actually care about me?
Right now, I am interacting every day with Memphians in the outpatient psychiatric clinic who have endured some unspeakable circumstances. Several of these people have transformed their traumas into meaningful futures. And in so doing, they are changing the meaning of their histories. Arguably, they are rewriting their past itself, something that would seem impossible. How can this be?
Having seen and felt these events as influenced by the Light, my eyes are wide open. Yet, it is an experience that is too overwhelming to sustain: The gratitude I feel causes me tears of joy that will not stop, and in such moments I have transfigured literally into a Quaker. The wonder I feel makes it impossible to complete my daily tasks, for being too close to the Light is not where I belong. This is far from a state of Peace.
In order to return to Peace, I find that I must invoke Simplicity in my daily life and work. Indeed, by telling myself, “I will help whomever I can reasonably help today, and that’s all I can do” I return to a balanced relationship with the divine.
Human. I am just a human. Work done with honest, or near-honest, intention is all I can do. And this is the real test of faith: I must trust that it will be enough.