Signs and Wonders

“Humans, they’re always lookin’ for signs, wonders, and miracles. As if turning sunbeams into wine using a grape wasn’t miracle enough.” Paraphrasing Terry Pratchett


When I reflect on Terry Pratchett’s wit I realise that like the fish in the ocean are completely unaware of the water wherein they live, move, and have their being, we too are blind to the great sea of cosmic miracles wherein we live, move, and have our being. All too often it is not until something tragic occurs, when the rug of our world is pulled out from under us - like a fish getting pulled from the water, that we are compelled to open our eyes and awaken to the world around us. It was not for nothing that the Master taught ‘many will not enter the Kingdom except by much tribulation’.

A friend once said, “You never truly know your own country until you leave it.” and it is amusing that you never know that you never know. Spiritual experiences are journeys to alternate realities in which you leave what was familiar far behind and embark upon a journey of sublime discovery. Such experiences precipitate huge changes or, put more precisely, huge corrections to our understanding of reality. 

In such moments an entirely new awareness of and appreciation for the things around us and our place in the universe is born. Our ‘eyes are opened’, we are ‘born again’ – ‘born from above’, stirred awake from our long slumber.

Over and over we see this metaphor employed to communicate the realisation of something marvellous, a gospel: that something greater than we can imagine lies at the heart of creation. This reality reaches beyond the furthest horizons of our imagination all the way down into the hidden deeps of our soul and on. In such moments we discover our very existence is a miracle, wrapped in mystery, and crowned from beginning to end in wonders.

The sages, seers, prophets, and spiritual teachers, across all the ages proclaim: ‘the kingdom of heaven is within you,’ ‘fear not, believe only. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom,’ ‘the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, even now is!’

Out of this abundant joy, ever welling up in the soul, springs forth the energy to transform ourselves and all Creation.

People keep looking for signs, wonders, and miracles, all the while failing to realise that they are a sign, a wonder, a miracle.