Reading the morning paper, including the editorial page, I was reminded of just how different many of us think and respond to the same events and challenges. The haves are clinging to what they have, while the have-nots are clamoring for a piece of the pie, while the humorists are making fun of all of us. It seems that some things never change, in spite of our technological advances and increased knowledge. We still remain fallible human beings capable of inflicting pain on each other as well as being able to laugh at ourselves even while loving greatly and knowing ourselves as loved and known.
Waking to another beautiful day in Adams County, I was reminded of a quote I read sometime ago by Albert Einstein. He is to have observed that “Either everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle.” I have been pondering that observation recently as I’ve gazed out over our rolling hills, orchards, and wooded mountainsides. We, who are blessed to live in Adams County, find it all too easy to forget just how beautiful this area of the country truly is, and I include myself in that observation. Einstein’s “either everything is a miracle or nothing is” reminds me of just how amazing, and yes, miraculous, everything is. It is so easy to get caught up in our day-to-day details and concerns, our partisan politics, our abilities and creativity, etc., that we forget we are part of an amazing, miraculous organism…the planet Earth and the greater cosmos.
With our developed brains, we tend to see ourselves as separate from the rest of creation, somehow superior, but even with our buildings and art and music and scientific advancements, we are still just a minute part of a much larger organism. A friend, devoted to scientific knowledge, argues that science proves that there is no God, that everything can be explained, but I find myself aligning myself with Einstein, whose amazing mathematical equations opened the door to so much knowledge, that, like him, I see the cosmos, our planet, and our place in it as a miracle. Just because something can be explained does not make it any less miraculous, perhaps even more so. After we discover how everything works, the question still remains: why? Why do things work the way they do? Who or what designed something so miraculous?
And so, sitting here on this beautiful August day, I am reminded of the wisdom of Alan Watts when he wrote that “humans were created so that the universe could experience itself. Through our eyes the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory and magnificence.” And if that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is!