Witness A Miracle Quotes

And then I feel as if I'm witnessing a miracle, as ever so slowly she raises her face towards the moon. I watch her drink in the sight, sensing the flood of memories she's unleashed and wanting nothing more than to let her know I'm here. But instead I stay where I am and stare up at the moon as well. And for the briefest instant, it almost feels like we're together again.

I feel to invite women everywhere to rise to the great potential within you. I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity. I hope you will not nag yourselves with thoughts of failure. I hope you will not try to set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.

I have been finding treasures in places I did not want to search. I have been hearing wisdom from tongues I did not want to listen. I have been finding beauty where I did not want to look. And I have learned so much from journeys I did not want to take. Forgive me, O Gracious One; for I have been closing my ears and eyes for too long. I have learned that miracles are only called miracles because they are often witnessed by only those who can can see through all of life's illusions. I am ready to see what really exists on other side, what exists behind the blinds, and taste all the ugly fruit instead of all that looks right, plump and ripe.

To witness miracles unfold in your experience, count your blessings and be thankful. Perceived small blessings accumulate to be the most powerful.

And sometimes when you witness a miracle it makes you believe that anything is possible.

I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.

Isn’t it wonderful, how words and paper can embroil us so? We are witnessing a miracle, dear heart.

And sometimes, just showing up, burial spices in hand, is all it takes to witness a miracle.

His [Thomas Edison] method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense. In view of this, the truly prodigious amount of his actual accomplishments is little short of a miracle.

My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed--though ignoring them will change you also. Swede said another thing, too, and it rang in me like a bell: No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will.

Every day the average person will witness six miracles. But it isn’t that we don’t believe in miracles—we just don’t believe that miracles are miracles. There are so many miracles all around us.

May I invite you to rise to the great potential within you. But don’t reach beyond your capacity. Don’t set goals beyond your capacity to achieve. Don’t feel guilty or dwell on thoughts of failure. Don’t compare yourself with others. Do the best you can, and the Lord will provide the rest. Have faith and confidence in Him, and you will see miracles happen in your life and the lives of your loved ones. The virtue of your own life will be a light to those who sit in darkness, because you are a living witness of the fulness of the gospel (see D&C 45:28). Wherever you have been planted on this beautiful but often troubled earth of ours, you can be the one to “succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (D&C 81:5).

Rules are made to be broken, but hearts are broken to be made. It is a big miracle to be loved "because" of your inadequacies, not "despite" them. And nothing can be as fascinating as walking tall on the same road that once witnessed your fall.

What I have learned from the year past is something about miracles--miracles of healing and answered prayer and unexpected happy endings. Each came quietly and simply, on tiptoe, so that I hardly knew it had occurred. All this makes me realize that miracles are everyday things. Not only the sudden, great good fortune, wafting in on a new wind from the sky. They are almost routine, yet miracles just the same. Every time something hard becomes easier; every time you adjust to a situation which, last week, you didn't know existed; every time a kindness falls as softly as the dew; or someone you love who was ill grows better; every time a blessing comes, not with trumpet and fanfare, but silently as night, you have witnessed a miracle.

If I had seen one miracle fail, I had witnessed another; and even a seemingly purposeless miracle is an inexhaustible source of hope, because it proves to us that since we do not understand everything, our defeats—so much more numerous than our few and empty victories—may be equally specious.

It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he’d witnessed one of those small, everyday miracles of spring. Like a licked-clean foal taking its first steps on wobbly legs. Or a new butterfly pushing scrunched, damp wings from a chrysalis.

The true signature and perhaps even the miracle of human love is helplessness, and all the more miraculous because it is a helplessness which we wittingly or unwittingly choose; in our love of a child, a partner, a work, or a road we have to take against the odds.

You've witnessed what you c-c-c-call a miracle and now you believe-you believe everything," Pastor Merrill said. "But miracles don't c-c-c-cause belief-real miracles don't m-m-m-make faith out of thin air; you have to already have faith in order to believe in real miracles.

As I do not seem able much to heal, then maybe I can simply be a responsible witness to the miracle of the ordinary soul.

I cannot prove that gods do not exist. Nor can I prove that the world and everything in it was not created by an entity or entities in the distant past. But I can tell you that in the millennia we elves have studied nature, we have never witnessed an instance where the rules that govern the world have been broken. That is, we have never seen a miracle. Many events have defied our ability to explain, but we are convinced that we failed because we are still woefully ignorant about the universe and not because a deity altered the workings of nature.

That was the splendid thing about life: Though it was cruel, it was also mysterious, filled with wonder and surprise; sometimes the surprises were so amazing that they qualified as miraculous, and by witnessing those miracles, a despondent person could discover a reason to live, a cynic could obtain unexpected relief from ennui, and a profoundly wounded boy could find the will to heal himself and medicine for melancholy.

But in those days, I thought that by believing in magic and miracles, by believing hard enough, harder than anyone on earth, I would be made witness to the sublime. And so, what I was doing on the rooftop was praying. I was praying for the gift of flight, for the black umbrella and the hidden angels to aid me.

Miracles still happen today... A healed marriage. A healthy family. A job you love. Every one of us has been a witness to a whole host of miracles... let Him have a chance to work a miracle in your life once again.

Many bright people are really in the dark about vegetable life. Biology teachers face kids in classrooms who may not even believe in the metamorphosis of bud to flower to fruit and seed, but rather, some continuum of pansies becoming petunias becoming chrysanthemums; that's the only reality they witness as landscapers come to campuses and city parks and surreptitiously yank out one flower before it fades from its prime, replacing it with another. The same disconnection from natural processes may be at the heart of our country's shift away from believing in evolution. In the past, principles of natural selection and change over time made sense to kids who'd watched it all unfold. Whether or not they knew the terms, farm families understood the processes well enough to imitate them: culling, selecting, and improving their herds and crops. For modern kids who intuitively believe in the spontaneous generation of fruits and vegetables in the produce section, trying to get their minds around the slow speciation of the plant kingdom may be a stretch.

Unconditional love does not ask for anything in return. This pure love never creates dependencies or debts. It simply exists. An absolute energy, it never ends. It instantly connects lifetimes centuries apart and promises that all loved ones will be entwined throughout eternity. Witness

I have witnessed people transform cancer cells into healthy cells simply by thinking about them. I have witnessed human minds affecting the physical world in myriad ways. And once you see that happen..once this becomes a part of your reality, then some of the miracles you read about become simply a matter of degree.

Mithra’s birth was witnessed by shepherds and by Magi who brought gifts to his sacred birth-cave of the Rock. Mithra performed the usual assortment of miracles: raising the dead, healing the sick, making the blind see and the lame walk, casting out devils.

Despite this invisible caring, we prefer to imagine ourselves thrown naked into the world, utterly vulnerable and fundamentally alone. It is easier to accept the story of heroic self-made development than the story that you may well be loved by this guiding providence, that you are needed for what you bring, and that you are sometimes fortuitously helped by it in situations of distress. May I state this as a bare and familiar fact without quoting a guru, witnessing for Christ, or claiming the miracle of recovery? Why not keep within psychology proper what once was called providence—being invisibly watched and watched over?

When I tell people this story, they assume the miracle I am referring to during that long-ago blizzard was the birth of a baby. True, that was astonishing. But that day I witnessed a greater wonder. As Christina held my hand and Ms. Mina held Mama's, there was a moment- one heartbeat, one breath- where all the differences in schooling and money and skin color evaporated like mirages in a desert. Where everyone was equal, and it was just one woman, helping another. That miracle, I've spent thirty-nine years waiting to see again.

Seeing the joy in my wife's face, I am witnessing another miracle. One, for a long time, I believed I would never see again. Love so potent, so whole and true, that it hurts, because even when you convince yourself that it will last forever, you know enough of the world to see how things break and fade, but somehow, some way, you believe this love will be the exception. That it alone will last.

But if you didn't know about magic, if you were born Normal or just ignorant, and then you saw some magic - if you witnessed a miracle with your own eyes - would you just leave it be? If you got a glimpse into a secret world, would you pretend it hadn't happened? Or would you spend the rest of your life trying to find a doorway?

We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years.

Your desire and willingness will call forth witnesses to Awakening, and there is nothing in form that can speed up Awakening – for form but witnesses to the desire within.

The real difference is this: the Christian says that he has knowledge; the Agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the Christian accuses the Agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit the limitations of his mind. To the Agnostic every fact is a torch, and by this light, and this light only, he walks. The Agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to establish what is known as the miraculous. We would not believe to-day the testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised. The church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. If we cannot believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who have been dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing? The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied that “the miraculous” is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that 'the miraculous' was expected, that it was their daily food.

Every day the average person will witness six miracles. But it isn't that we don't believe in miracles-we just don't believe that miracles are miriacles. There are so many miracles all around us.

The real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.

I am looking at him, I am witnessing a unique physiological phenomenon: John Shade perceiving and transforming the world, taking it in and taking it apart, re-combining its elements in the very process of storing them up so as to produce at some unspecified date an organic miracle, a fusion of image and music, a line of verse.

A few moments later they witnessed the miracle. The man with the Charlie Chaplin mustache, who had been a down-and-out tramp in Vienna in his youth, an unknown soldier of World War I, a derelict in Munich in the first grim postwar days, the somewhat comical leader of the Beer Hall Putsch, this spellbinder who was not even German but Austrian, and who was only forty-three years old, had just been administered the oath as Chancellor of the German Reich.

This religion so great in miracles, in men holy, pure and irreproachable, in scholars, great witnesses and martyrs, established kings - David - Isaiah, a prince of the blood; so great in knowledge, after displaying all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects it all and says that it offers neither wisdom nor signs, but only the Cross and folly.

Take more selfies. Not because you need validation or likes or comments. but because you are here on this earth. Alive and holy and true. And yes, your beauty deserves to be seen and known, most especially by you. You are worthy of being the subject of your own art. It is okay to capture the process of your own becoming. To be your own kind and gentle and fierce witness. To learn the truth of your eyes and your skin and your bones. To choose to show what wants to be shown, to name what wishes to be named, to claim ownership of the story that is told about you by being the one to tell it. Dear girl. YOU are the greatest art you will ever create. The masterpiece. The magnum opus. You’re it. However you want to be. Look at yourself now, miracle that you are, look at yourself and soak in the wonder, until you no longer want to look away.

Never had he thought, never once, that such a woman existed, one who stood so close to God that God's own voice poured from her. How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice. It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching, lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven. It was a miracle and he wept for the gift of bearing witness.

Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week - a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards. I'm sorry, but nope. Such things are worth our notice every day of the week, but to call them miracles evaporates the strength of the word. Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying order and climbing up out of the grave - now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of the earth. My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear mirales because they fear being changed - though ignoring them will change you also. Swede said another thing, too, and it rang in me like a bell: No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will.

In my lifetime I have witnessed far too many miracles to believe in impossibilities, and so I am officially modifying the definition. im·pos·si·ble [im-pos-uh-buhl] Old definition: Unable to be done. New definition: Unable to be ignored until done.

My God is in the business of miracles. And my God does not want anyone to suffer in hell. He wants all of his children to come to him—yes, even those of us “monsters” that are in or have been in the abortion industry. Hate comes from hell. Mercy comes from Christ. When we have hate in our hearts, our spirits are damaged. Be careful with your words. Not only are you a living witness of Christ and his truth, but you could put your own soul at risk. “Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). When we hate, we are no better than those who kill. I

But there is pleasure, is there not, unrivaled by any other feeling in the world, to reach the last page of a book and know that you have lived in it, that you have stood witness to the performance of momentous deeds at the hands of extraordinary personalities? Do you not sometimes marvel at how the construction of a beautiful line can leave you either shaking with laughter or bawling like an untended infant? Is that not a miracle which deserves as much scrutiny as the wonders of science and nature?

I bear witness of that day when loved ones whom we knew, to have disabilities in mortality, will stand before us glorified and grand; breathtakingly perfect in body and mind. What a thrilling moment that will be. I do not know whether we will be happier for ourselves, that we have witnessed such a miracle or happier for them that they are fully perfect and finally free at last.

We did not speak of what we had seen. At the time, to speak of it seemed worse than sacrilege: We had witnessed a thing so terrible that it acquired a dreadful holiness. It was a miracle of evil. It was not possible to say with words what we had witnessed, and so we kept it safely guarded until the time we could bring it out, and show it to others, and say, 'Behold. This is the worst thing man can do'.

Whisper sweetly the tenderness of the moment. Let the love teach you the true meaning and passion of this experience we share. With gratitude and reverence for the blessings and miracles I receive and witness, my heart still beats as the little things die to be reborn with a greater joy for life in each moment.

They have been witnessing miracles at Thetford for three hundred years, ever since they turned up a cache of relics, neatly labelled, that included rocks from Mount Calvary, part of Our Lady’s sepulchre, and fragments of the manger in which the child Jesus was laid. Now comes the greatest miracle of all, Thomas Cromwell, the Putney boy: who holds that the passage of time does not add lustre to fakes, and that there is no need to reverence a lie because of its antiquity.

You need not fear the Higher Court will condemn you. It will merely dismiss the case against you. There can be no case against a child of God, and every witness to guilt in God’s creations is bearing false witness to God Himself. Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him and therefore speaks truly. It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it up. The case may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof. The Holy Spirit will not hear it, because He can only witness truly. His verdict will always be “thine is the Kingdom,” because He was given to you to remind you of what you are.9

so that it can be witnessed and sealed into the pattern.

This is the need of the church today. The church is not in great need of miracles, gifts, teachings, or knowledge. Today the church needs the ministry of Christ.

The ‘Resurrection’ to which they bore witness was, in fact, not the action of rising from the dead but the state of having risen;

The first step in witnessing a miracle is believing it will happen.

Fame wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for education. It’s only of concern to schoolteachers. Oh no, we are not talking about fame, but what I call eternity. Believers call it the kingdom of God. The way I see it, all of us more demanding people, those of us who long for something better and have that one dimension too many, would be incapable of living if, apart from this world’s atmosphere, there weren’t another air to breathe; if, apart from time, eternity didn’t also exist, the kingdom of authentic life. Mozart’s music is a part of it, as are the poems of your great writers. So too are the saints who performed miracles, died as martyrs and set a great example to people. But the image of every authentic act, the strength of every authentic emotion, are just as much a part of eternity, even if nobody knows about them, witnesses them, writes them down and preserves them for posterity. There is no such thing as posterity in eternity, only contemporaneity.

Every day the average person will witness six miracles. But it isn't that we don't believe in miracles-we just don't believe that miracles are miracles. There are so many miracles all around us.

As he watched her, Colin was visited by the strangest feeling, unfurling warm and buttery inside him. It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he'd witnessed one of those small, everyday miracles of spring. Like a licked-clean foal taking its first steps on wobbly legs. Or a new butterfly pushing scrunched, damp wings from a chrysalis. Before his eyes, she'd transformed into a new creature. Still a bit awkward and uncertain, but undaunted. And well on her way to being beautiful. Colin scratched his neck. He wished there were someone nearby he could turn to and say, 'Would you look at that?

We climbed a hill, and then sat on rocks that were adjacent to each other. We kept on staring at the sky. Words were not needed, for in the silence between us we understood each other. Feeling exhilarated, she stood up and looking at the sky said " Isn't it a miracle to be alive and to be able to witness the beauty of nature!" And I smiled at her, feeling the ecstasy of that moment in complete bliss!

As the cubs slept, Peggy licked their burnt-orange coats clean and watched over them diligently. The way she looked at them as they slept, you knew she would do anything to protect them. Even with only one good paw. Even if it meant she would have to sacrifice her own life to keep them safe. Witnessing that kind of unconditional love was a miracle of nature. Moments like those are what made me want to become a vet. Secretly,

During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church [...] But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe.

Miracles. Events with astronomical odds of occurring like oxygen turning into gold. I've longed to witness such an event, and yet I neglect that in human coupling, millions upon millions of cells compete to create life for generation after generation until finally, your mother loves a man and out of that contradiction against unfathomable odds, it's you-only you-that emerged, to distill so specific a form from all that chaos. It's like turning air into gold. A miracle.

As I lay in my bed unable to sleep I challenged Him: Pull out another miracle. Send him back. You can do that. You’re God. At that point in my grief, I envisioned how utterly fantastic it would be for others to see what a mighty and awesome God we serve. They could witness a modern-day miracle! I was convinced the only way for this to happen was for God to send Joseph back. It would be a win/win situation! Dozens would come to know Jesus—and —I’d have Joseph home in time for supper.

In the marshes the buckbean has lifted its feathery mist of flower spikes above the bed of trefoil leaves. The fimbriated flowers are a miracle of workmanship and every blossom exhibits an exquisite disorder of ragged petals finer than lace. But one needs a lens to judge of their beauty: it lies hidden from the power of our eyes, and menyanthes must have bloomed and passed a million times before there came any to perceive and salute her loveliness. The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Wherefore it would appear that this number was thus allied unto her for the purpose of signifying that, at her birth, all these nine heavens were at perfect unity with each other as to their influence. This is one reason that may be brought: but more narrowly considering, and according to the infallible truth, this number was her own self: that is to say, by similitude. As thus. The number three is the root of the number nine; seeing that without the interposition of any other number, being multiplied merely by itself, it produceth nine, as we manifestly perceive that three times three are nine. Thus, three being of itself the efficient of nine, and the Great Efficient of Miracles being of Himself Three Persons (to wit: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), which, being Three, are also One:—this lady was accompanied by the number nine to the end that men might clearly perceive her to be a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the Holy Trinity. It may be that a more subtile person would find for this thing a reason of greater subtilty: but such is the reason that I find, and that liketh me best.

I don't myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn't given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn't given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins-not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It's the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You'll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don't think you help people by making their conduct of no importance-you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that's what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.

This massive, nearly incomprehensible economic miracle you are witnessing outside your window is due to one group of people and one group of people only – men.  And it was a transaction (the most important and original economic transaction) that incentivized men to make and build nearly everything on the planet - sex for resources.  Men build things, women give them sex.  Men produce things, women give them children.  Men accrue wealth and resources, women continue their genetic line.  Sex (or more Darwinistically speaking, progeny) is what gets men out of bed in the morning, off to school, into rush hour, off to the office, off to the factory, off to night school, off to war, or off to the lab to make money so that they might someday attract girls.  If there was no sex, if there were no women, if there was no female youth and beauty, men would still be living in caves, only mustering their resources to perhaps create beer and poker to bide the time.  Alas, the ONLY reason you have planes, trains, and automobiles, the only reason an economy exists, the only reason anything outside the sky exists, is because men built it.  And men built it in exchange for sex.

Because of A Prayer for Owen Meany, many of my readers assume I am “religious.” I go to church only occasionally—like a lot of people, I believe in God in times of crisis. But I have had no religious “experience”; I’ve never been a witness to a miracle. The reason A Prayer for Owen Meany has a first-person narrator is that you can’t have a religious experience or witness a miracle except through the eyes of a believer. And the believer I chose, Johnny Wheelwright, has been so tormented by what happens to his best friend that he is more than a little crazy—as I expect most witnesses to so-called miracles are. Both Johnny Wheelwright’s anger and his craziness are inseparable from what he saw. The other religious question I am asked about the novel—second only to “Are you a believer?”—is “Do the capital letters mark Owen Meany as a Christ figure, sort of like those red-letter editions of the Bible?” Sort of, yes. To have Owen speak in red letters might have been too expensive for my publishers, but I also thought the capitals would be more irritating than red letters. Owen’s voice is irritating, not only because of how it sounds but because of how right he is. People

Perfect moments, what did they even mean? They were blind luck, that was all. Coincidences. Statistical anomalies. I did some Googling and it turned out somebody had actually bothered to do the math on this, a real actual Cambridge University mathematician named John Littlewood (1885-1977; thank you, Wikipedia). He proposed that if you define a miracle as something with a probability of one in a million, and if you’re paying close attention to the world around you eight hours a day, every day, and little things happen around you at a rate of one per second, then you’d observe about thirty thousand things every day, which means about a million things a month. So, on average, you should witness one miracle every month (or every thirty-three-and-one-third days, if we’re being strictly accurate). It’s called Littlewood’s law. So, there you have it, a miracle a month. They’re not even that special.

Today, she is standing at the top of a mountain and appreciating the majestic panoramic view of mesmerizing Himalaya. As a kid, she used to look up in the sky and wish for wings to fly up to the mountains. And now after a long wait of many years, she is standing here and living her dream. It’s the moment when she can’t believe her eyes because what she always dreamed of has come alive. She looks with amazement as if she’s witnessing a miracle. It is the moment of her life. She just wants to feel it. There are beautiful clouds below her and there are snow clad mountain peaks emerging from those clouds. The white peaks shining in blue sky among white clouds look like glittering diamonds to her. The view of the large lush green meadow surrounded by mountains under blue sky with a rainbow circling the horizon has put her in a state of tranquility. As the sun starts drowning in the horizon, the sky begins to boast his mystical colours. The beautiful mix of pink, orange and red looks like creating a twilight saga. She opens her both arm and takes a deep breath to entwine with the nature. The glimmering rays of the moon are paying tribute to her by kissing her warm cheeks and her eyes twinkle in bright moon light. She raises her face towards the moon and senses the flood of memories which she wants to unleash. The cool breeze lifts her ruffled hair and blows her skirt up. She closes her eyes and breathes deep as if she wants to let her know that she is finally here and then she opens her eyes and finds herself on the same wheelchair inside a room with an empty wall in front of her eye. Tears rolls down from her eye but these are the tears of Joy because she is living her dreams today. The feelings comes to her mind while waiting for her daughter who is coming back home today after her first expedition of a high range mountain ~ AB

I am looking at him, I am witnessing a unique physiological phenomenon: John Shade perceiving and transforming the world, taking it in and taking it apart, recombining its elements in the very process of storing them up so as to produce at some unspecified date an organic miracle, a fusion of image and music, a line of verse.

I am looking at him, I am witnessing a unique physiological phenomenon: John Shade perceiving and transforming the world, taking it in and taking it apart, recombining its elements in the very process of storing them up so as to produce at some unspecified date an organic miracle, a fusion of image and music, a line of verse.

And so it was, that when they taunted him, saying, “If you are the Son of God, come down from that cross!”—the man called Jesus did nothing. Yet three days later, quietly and unobtrusively, when there were no witnesses and no crowds and no one to whom to prove anything, he did something a great deal more astonishing—and the world has been talking about it ever since. And in this miracle is found your salvation, for you have been shown the truth, not only of Jesus, but of Who You Are, and may thus be saved from the lie about yourself, which you have been told, and which you have accepted as your truth. God invites you always to your highest thought about yourself.

Understanding Jesus as a sacrificial lamb, in effect, is to understand the very heart of Christianity. All of His magnificent sermons, all of His miracles and the sum total of His wonderful teachings taken together would not save the best of His disciples (Peter actually denied Him when the chips were down, after having witnessed all these things). But His blood saves us all. His sacrifice pays off our debts to God in full. Acting like Jesus won’t get you salvation. Emulating His moral character, His unique way of doing things or His high principles will make you a better human being, to the degree that you are able to mimic Jesus. But it is His blood that cleanses, and that’s all. That’s the simple difference between genuine Christianity and a great deal of religion that merely goes by the name of Christianity. In the simplest terms, our realization that we need to be cleansed and our going directly to Him for that cleansing results in our salvation. Passover is a living picture of how salvation is properly obtained, as we shall see.

Don’t do anything—no repetition of mantra, no repetition of the name of God—just watch whatever the mind is doing. Don’t disturb it, don’t prevent it, don’t repress it; don’t do anything at all on your part. You just be a watcher, and the miracle of watching is meditation. As you watch, slowly, slowly mind becomes empty of thoughts; but you are not falling asleep, you are becoming more alert, more aware. As the mind becomes completely empty, your whole energy becomes a flame of awakening. This flame is the result of meditation. So you can say meditation is another name of watching, witnessing, observing—without any judgment, without any evaluation. Just by watching, you immediately get out of the mind.

Look at it this way: Jesus is Jewish. The disciples were all Jews. The apostles were all Jews. All the people saved at Pentecost were Jews. The first Christian church in the world, the Church of Jerusalem, was entirely Jewish. That church sent missionaries throughout Asia and the Mediterranean and, at great pain and expense, brought the first Gentiles to salvation in Jesus Christ. Every Gentile saved today, every church we have built, every seminary, every missionary society — all can be traced back to the original courageous efforts of the Jewish believers of Israel who took the Gospel of Jesus Christ, on pain of death, throughout the known world. You’re reading this book because of the Jews and their witness. It’s time to return the favor.

Jarvis had to keep avoiding the increasing numbers of both rioters and fleeing citizens as well as a number of people in cars with the same idea. He was surprised to feel annoyed. Here was the first honest-to-goodness miracle he was witness to in his entire life as a clergyman and he wasn’t able to see it because he had to keep his eyes on the road. Why were the mysteries of faith so inscrutable?

And when he was privileged to witness the miracle of Owen Meany, my bitter father could manage no better response than to whine to me about his lost faith—his ridiculously subjective and fragile belief, which he had so easily allowed to be routed by his mean-spirited and self-imposed doubt. What a wimp he was, Pastor Merrill; but how proud I felt of my mother—that she’d had the good sense to shrug him off.

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Before meeting you, I was praying to find you.. the thought of you, that prayer in particular was enough to cheer me up no matter how sad I was. Now, you are here before my eyes, do you know how I feel? I feel as if I am flying in my dreams. I have witnessed the miracle of my life.. You are a miracle, my miracle, you are an angel from heaven. Without you, I wouldn't have known the magic of life, I would have rejected life itself. I love you!

Mr. Brock’s account of his adventure in London has given the reader some short notice of his friend, Mr Macshane. Neither the wits nor the principles of that worthy Ensign were particularly firm: for drink, poverty, and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served to injure the former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed of any share of the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a rank in the army, but pawned his half-pay for drink and play; and for many years past had lived, one of the hundred thousand miracles of our city, upon nothing that anybody knew of, or of which he himself could give any account. Who has not a catalogue of these men in his list? who can tell whence comes the occasional clean shirt, who supplies the continual means of drunkenness, who wards off the daily-impending starvation? Their life is a wonder from day to day: their breakfast a wonder; their dinner a miracle; their bed an interposition of Providence. If you and I, my dear sir, want a shilling tomorrow, who will give it us? Will OUR butchers give us mutton-chops? will OUR laundresses clothe us in clean linen? — not a bone or a rag. Standing as we do (may it be ever so) somewhat removed from want,[*] is there one of us who does not shudder at the thought of descending into the lists to combat with it, and

A little of her would mourn the end of the play that she’d never get to see, but the moment she was caught up in the birthing, the trivialities of a pre-written drama would be swept away in the thrill of the unfolding natural one. It was such a privilege of a job. Every time that she helped to bring a new life into the world, her soul felt as if it were witnessing the birth of the Christ child all over again and any tiredness was dispelled by the joyous miracle. What power had guns and tanks against such simple renewal?

HEBREWS 2 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2For since  athe message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and  bevery transgression or disobedience received a just  cretribution, 3 dhow shall we escape if we  eneglect such a great salvation? It was  fdeclared at first by the Lord, and it was  gattested to us  hby those who heard, 4 gwhile God also bore witness  iby signs and wonders and various miracles and by  jgifts of the Holy Spirit  kdistributed according to his will.

HEBREWS 2 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2For since  a the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and  b every transgression or disobedience received a just  c retribution, 3 d how shall we escape if we  e neglect such a great salvation? It was  f declared at first by the Lord, and it was  g attested to us  h by those who heard, 4 g while God also bore witness  i by signs and wonders and various miracles and by  j gifts of the Holy Spirit  k distributed according to his will.

But you of all people!” I said to him. “Look at me—I never was a believer, not until this happened. If I can believe it, why can’t you?” I asked Mr. Merrill. He began to stutter. “It’s easier for you to j-j-j-just accept it. Belief is not something you have felt, and then not felt; you haven’t l-l-l-lived with belief, and with unbelief. It’s easier f-f-f-for you,” the Rev. Mr. Merrill repeated. “You haven’t ever been f-f-f-full of faith, and full of d-d-d-doubt. Something j-j-j-just strikes you as a miracle, and you believe it. For me, it’s not that s-s-s-simple,” said Pastor Merrill. “But it is a miracle!” I cried. “He told you that dream—I know he did! And you were there—when he saw his name, and the date of his death, on Scrooge’s grave. You were there!” I cried. “How can you doubt that he knew?” I asked Mr. Merrill. “He knew—he knew everything! What do you call that—if you don’t call it a miracle?” “You’ve witnessed what you c-c-c-call a miracle and now you believe—you believe everything,” Pastor Merrill said. “But miracles don’t c-c-c-cause belief—real miracles don’t m-m-m-make faith out of thin air; you have to already have faith in order to believe in real miracles. I believe that Owen was extraordinarily g-g-g-gifted—

If he noticed a female convict with a baby in her arms, he would approach, fondle the baby and snap his fingers at it to make it laugh. These things he did for many years, right up to his death; eventually he was famous all over Russia and all over Siberia, among the criminals, that is. One man who had been in Siberia told me that he himself had witnessed how the most hardened criminals remembered the general, and yet the general, when he visited the gangs of convicts, was rarely able to give more than twenty copecks to each man. It’s true that he wasn’t remembered with much affection, or even very seriously. Some ‘unfortunate wretch’, who had killed twelve people, or put six children to the knife solely for his own amusement (there were such men, it is said), would suddenly, apropos of nothing, perhaps only once in twenty years, sigh and say: ‘Well, and how’s the old general now, is he still alive?’ He would even, perhaps, smile as he said it – and that would be all. How can you know what seed had been cast into his soul for ever by this ‘old general’, whom he had not forgotten in twenty years? How can you know, Bakhmutov, what significance this communication between one personality and another may have in the fate of the personality that is communicated with?… I mean, we’re talking about the whole of a life, and a countless number of ramifications that are hidden from us. The very finest player of chess, the most acute of them, can only calculate a few moves ahead; one French player, who was able to calculate ten moves ahead, was described in the press as a miracle. But how many moves are here, and how much is there that is unknown to us? In sowing your seed, sowing your ‘charity’, your good deeds in whatever form, you give away a part of your personality and absorb part of another; a little more attention, and you are rewarded with knowledge, with the most unexpected discoveries. You will, at last, certainly view your deeds as a science; they will take over the whole of your life and may fill it. On the other hand, all your thoughts, all the seeds you have sown, which perhaps you have already forgotten, will take root and grow; the one who has received from you will give to another. And how can you know what part you will play in the future resolution of the fates of mankind? If this knowledge, and a whole lifetime of this work, exalts you, at last, to the point where you are able to sow a mighty seed, leave a mighty idea to the world as an inheritance, then…

Malcolm Muggeridge, once a keen British social and cultural critic who in his old age became something of a religious fanatic. While working on his own documentary on Mother Teresa for the BBC, aired in 1969, he felt he had experienced an authentic miracle: After filming footage in a dark residence called the House of the Dying, Muggeridge was astounded to discover, when later viewing the footage, that the images were in fact clearly visible. Muggeridge himself exclaimed: "It's divine light! It's Mother Teresa. You'll find that it's divine light, old boy" (MT 27). (I like that "old boy" remark-so distinctively British.) Unfortunately, Muggeridge's cameraman, Ken Macmillan, calmly pointed out that the effect was the result of a new kind of film created by Kodak. But Muggeridge's "miracle" had by this time already spread and is still being talked about. To Hitchens, however, the significance of the episode is very different: "It is the first unarguable refutation of a claimed miracle to come not merely from another supposed witness to said miracle but from its actual real-time author. As such, it deserves to be more widely known than it is" (MT 27). But, alas, the average person is far more inclined to believe in "miracles," however fake, than in the debunking of miracles, however real.

Because of A Prayer for Owen Meany, many of my readers assume I am “religious.” I go to church only occasionally—like a lot of people, I believe in God in times of crisis. But I have had no religious “experience”; I’ve never been a witness to a miracle. The reason A Prayer for Owen Meany has a first-person narrator is that you can’t have a religious experience or witness a miracle except through the eyes of a believer. And the believer I chose, Johnny Wheelwright, has been so tormented by what happens to his best friend that he is more than a little crazy—as I expect most witnesses to so-called miracles are. Both Johnny Wheelwright’s anger and his craziness are inseparable from what he saw. The other religious question I am asked about the novel—second only to “Are you a believer?”—is “Do the capital letters mark Owen Meany as a Christ figure, sort of like those red-letter editions of the Bible?” Sort of, yes. To have Owen speak in red letters might have been too expensive for my publishers, but I also thought the capitals would be more irritating than red letters. Owen’s voice is irritating, not only because of how it sounds but because of how right he is. People who are always right, and are given to reminding us of it, are irritating; prophets are irritating, and Owen Meany is decidedly a prophet.

Another bottle was brought out and poured into the reservoir. Once more I climbed inside the car and pressed the spurter button. Once more nothing happened--and once more, when we looked inside the reservoir, we found it empty. "Two litres!" I said. "Where has it all gone?" They'd vaporized, evaporated. And do you know what? It felt wonderful. Don't ask me why: it just did. It was as though I'd just witnessed a miracle: matter--these two litres of liquid--becoming un-matter--not surplus matter, mess or clutter, but pure, bodiless blueness. Transubstantiated. I looked up at the sky: it was blue and endless. I looked back at the boy. His overalls and face were covered in smears. He'd taken on these smears so that the miracle could happen, like a Christian martyr being flagellated, crucified, scrawled over with stigmata. I felt elated--elated and inspired. "If only..." I started, but paused. "What?" he asked. "If only everything could..." I trailed off. I knew what I meant. I stood there looking at his grubby face and told him: "Thank you." Then I got into the car and turned the ignition key in its slot. The engine caught--and as it did, a torrent of blue liquid burst out of the dashboard and cascaded down. It gushed from the radio, the heating panel, the hazard-lights switch and the speedometer and mileage counter. It gushed all over me: my shirt, my legs, my groin.

faith does not come through witnessing supernatural works or miracles, but through God’s Word: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). You may ask, “What is the specific word that produces faith?” It is the word that reveals who our heavenly Father is. This is how we discover who He is—by seeing and believing for ourselves who He claims to be—and this occurs most often as God meets us in our trials. Where Was God? So why did God lead the Israelites to the waters of bitterness at Marah? Why did He not provide fresh water? Considering that He took control of an entire sea of water for them, it should have been easy for Him to change the waters at Marah! All He had to do was speak, and those waters would have been purified before the Israelites ever arrived. Why did

In 1919, 1920, 1921, the entire Jewish press was assaulting the Romanian state, unleashing disorder everywhere, urging violence against the regime, the form of government, the church, Romanian order, the national idea, patriotism. Now, as if by a miracle, the same press, controlled by the same men, changed into a defender of the state’s order, of laws; declares itself against violence. While we become: ‘the country’s enemies’, ‘extremists of the Right’, ‘in the pay and service of Romania’s enemies’, etc. And in the end we will hear also this: that we are financed by the Jews. ... We have endured outrage after outrage, ridicule after ridicule, slap after slap, until we have come to see ourselves in this frightening situation: Jews are considered to be defenders of Romanianism, sheltered from any unpleasantness, leading a life of peace and plenty, while we are considered enemies of our nation, with our liberty and life endangered, and we are hunted down like rabid dogs by all the Romanian authorities. I witnessed with my own eyes these times and lived through them, and I was saddened to the depths of my soul. It is dreadful to fight for years on end for your fatherland, your heart as pure as tears, while enduring misery and hunger, then find yourself suddenly declared an enemy of your country, persecuted by your own kind, told that you fight because you are in the pay of foreigners, and see the entire Jewry master your land, assuming the role of defender of Romanianism and caretaker of the Romanian state, menaced by you, the youth of the country. Night after night we were troubled by these thoughts, occasionally feeling disgusted and immensely ashamed and we were seized by sadness.

As I have thus suggested that the Devil himself has politically spread about this Notion[Pg 269] concerning his appearing with a Cloven-Foot, so I doubt not that he has thought it for his Purpose to paint this Cloven-Foot so lively in the Imaginations of many of our People, and especially of those clear sighted Folks who see the Devil when he is not to be seen, that they would make no Scruple to say, nay and to make Affidavit too, even before Satan himself, whenever he sat upon the Bench, that they had seen his Worship’s Foot at such and such a Time; this I advance the rather because ’tis very much for his Interest to do this, for if we had not many Witnesses, viva voce, to testify it, we should have had some obstinate Fellows always among us, who would have denied the Fact, or at least have spoken doubtfully of it, and so have rais’d Disputes and Objections against it, as impossible, or at least as improbable; buzzing one ridiculous Notion or other into our Ears, as if the Devil was not so black as he was painted, that he had no more a Cloven-Foot than a Pope, whose Apostolical Toes have so often been reverentially kiss’d by Kings and Emperors: but now alas this Part is out of the Question, not the Man in the Moon, not the Groaning-Board, not the speaking of Fryar Bacon’s Brazen-Head, not the Inspiration of Mother Shipton, or the Miracles of Dr. Faustus, Things as certain as Death and Taxes, can be more firmly believ’d: The Devil not have a Cloven-Foot! I doubt not but I could, in a short Time, bring you a thousand old Women together, that would as soon believe there was no Devil at all; nay, they will tell you, he could not be a Devil without it, any more than he could come into the Room, and the Candles not burn blue, or go out and not leave a smell of Brimstone behind him.

in order to increase the probability against the testimony of witnesses, let us suppose, that the fact, which they affirm, instead of being only marvelous, is really miraculous; and suppose also, that the testimony considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof; in that case, there is proof against proof, of which the strongest must prevail, but still with a diminution of its force in proportion to that of its antagonist. 12. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.

He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the 'younger set,' in which it was the recognized custom to attract masculine homage while playfully discouraging it. If he had probed to the bottom of his vanity (as he sometimes nearly did) he would have found there the wish that his wife should be as worldly-wise and eager to please as the married lady whose charms had held his fancy through two mildly agitated years; without, of course, any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred that unhappy being's life, and had disarranged his own plans for a whole winter. How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created, and to sustain itself in a harsh world, he had never taken the time to think out; but he was content to hold his view without analyzing it, since he knew it was that of all the carefully-brushed, white-waistcoated, buttonhole-flowered gentlemen who succeeded each other in the club box, exchanged friendly greetings with him, and turned their opera-glasses critically on the circle of ladies who were the product of the system. In matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than any other man of the number. Singly they betrayed their inferiority; but grouped together they represented 'New York,' and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine in all the issues called moral. He instinctively felt that in this respect it would be troublesome - and also rather bad form - to strike out for himself.

I may add as a fourth reason, which diminishes the authority of prodigies, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this the better understood, let us consider, that, in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and that it is impossible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China should, all of them, be established on any solid foundation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these religions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is attributed; so has it the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that system was established; so that all the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other. According to this method of reasoning, when we believe any miracle of Mahomet or his successors, we have for our warrant the testimony of a few barbarous Arabians: And on the other hand, we are to regard the authority of Titus Livius, Plutarch, Tacitus, and, in short, of all the authors and witnesses, Grecian, Chinese, and Roman Catholic, who have related any miracle in their particular religion; I say, we are to regard their testimony in the same light as if they had mentioned that Mahometan miracle, and had in express terms contradicted it, with the same certainty as they have for the miracle they relate. This argument may appear over subtle and refined; but is not in reality different from the reasoning of a judge, who supposes, that the credit of two witnesses, maintaining a crime against any one, is destroyed by the testimony of two others, who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues distant, at the same instant when the crime is said to have been committed.

He always perceives this world as outside himself, for this is crucial to his adjustment. He does not realize that he makes this world, for there is no world outside of him. Everything you perceive as the outside world is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification. from: A Course In Miracles 12.III. 6.6 and 7.4 "Forgiveness is an earthly form of love" (W-pI.186.14:1). A Course In Miracles "Remember always that you cannot be anywhere except in the Mind of God." ACIM Chap 9.VIII.5.3 ACIM Chapter 2, Section V "The Function of the Miracle Worker" Paragraphs 8-18 Commentary by Robert Perry "The only solution lies in being willing to look within, upon our own defiled altar. There is a place in our mind that was created to be totally devoted to God, but we have defiled this place with other devotions. We need to be willing to walk into the church of our mind and witness the desecrations on this altar. Only then will we really see "the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary" (8:1). Are we willing to look on the unequivocal fact that we need healing? Only then will we open up "the real vision" (8:4), which will allow us to see past what our physical eyes see and gaze on the light of purity beyond.

The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events. Anyone who cared to could have checked out the accuracy of what they reported. The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection under such circumstances had it not occurred. The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of orthodox Christians. Against the idea that there could have been a deliberate falsifying of the text, no one could have corrupted all the manuscripts. Moreover, there is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the church fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate any such tampering with the Gospels. The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by hundreds of people, friends and enemies alike; that the apostles had the ability to testify accurately to what they saw; that the apostles were of such doubtless honesty and sincerity as to place them above suspicion of fraud; that the apostles, though of low estate, nevertheless had comfort and life itself to lose in proclaiming the gospel; and that the events to which they testified took place in the civilized part of the world under the Roman Empire, in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish nation. Thus, there is no reason to doubt the apostles’ testimony concerning the miracles and resurrection of Jesus. It would have been impossible for so many to conspire together to perpetrate such a hoax. And what was there to gain by lying? They could expect neither honor, nor wealth, nor worldly profit, nor fame, nor even the successful propagation of their doctrine. Moreover, they had been raised in a religion that was vastly different from the one they preached. Especially foreign to them was the idea of the death and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah. This militates against their concocting this idea. The Jewish laws against deceit and false testimony were very severe, which fact would act as a deterrent to fraud. Suppose that no resurrection or miracles occurred: how then could a dozen men, poor, coarse, and apprehensive, turn the world upside down? If Jesus did not rise from the dead, declares Ditton, then either we must believe that a small, unlearned band of deceivers overcame the powers of the world and preached an incredible doctrine over the face of the whole earth, which in turn received this fiction as the sacred truth of God; or else, if they were not deceivers, but enthusiasts, we must believe that these extremists, carried along by the impetus of extravagant fancy, managed to spread a falsity that not only common folk, but statesmen and philosophers as well, embraced as the sober truth. Because such a scenario is simply unbelievable, the message of the apostles, which gave birth to Christianity, must be true. Belief in Jesus’ resurrection flourished in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified. If the people of Jerusalem thought that Jesus’ body was in the tomb, few would have been prepared to believe such nonsense as that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And, even if they had so believed, the Jewish authorities would have exposed the whole affair simply by pointing to Jesus’ tomb or perhaps even exhuming the body as decisive proof that Jesus had not been raised. Three great, independently established facts—the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith—all point to the same marvelous conclusion: that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Someone brings up “Sandwiches,” and someone else a Bottle, and as night comes down over New-York like a farmer’s Mulch, sprouting seeds of Light, some reflected in the River, the Company, Mason working on in its midst, becomes much exercis’d upon the Topick of Representation. “No taxation— ” “— without it, yesyes but Drogo, lad, can you not see, even thro’ the Republican fogs which ever hang about these parts, that ’tis all a moot issue, as America has long been perfectly and entirely represented in the House of Commons, thro’ the principle of Virtual Representation?” Cries of, “Aagghh!” and, “That again?” “If this be part of Britain here, then so must be Bengal! For we have ta’en both from the French. We purchas’d India many times over with the Night of the Black Hole alone,— as we have purchas’d North America with the lives of our own.” “Are even village Idiots taken in any more by that empty cant?” mutters the tiny Topman McNoise, “no more virtual than virtuous, and no more virtuous than the vilest of that narrow room-ful of shoving, beef-faced Louts, to which you refer,— their honor bought and sold so many times o’er that no one bothers more to keep count.— Suggest you, Sir, even in Play, that this giggling Rout of poxy half-wits, embody us? Embody us? America but some fairy Emanation, without substance, that hath pass’d, by Miracle, into them?— Damme, I think not,— Hell were a better Destiny.

Imagine that you are watching a really great magic trick. The celebrated conjuring duo Penn and Teller have a routine in which they simultaneously appear to shoot each other with pistols, and each appears to catch the bullet in his teeth. Elaborate precautions are taken to scratch identifying marks on the bullets before they are put in the guns, the whole procedure is witnessed at close range by volunteers from the audience who have experience of firearms, and apparently all possibilities for trickery are eliminated. Teller’s marked bullet ends up in Penn’s mouth and Penn’s marked bullet ends up in Teller’s. I [Richard Dawkins] am utterly unable to think of any way in which this could be a trick. The Argument from Personal Incredulity screams from the depths of my prescientific brain centres, and almost compels me to say, ‘It must be a miracle. There is no scientific explanation. It’s got to be supernatural.’ But the still small voice of scientific education speaks a different message. Penn and Teller are world-class illusionists. There is a perfectly good explanation. It is just that I am too naïve, or too unobservant, or too unimaginative, to think of it. That is the proper response to a conjuring trick. It is also the proper response to a biological phenomenon that appears to be irreducibly complex. Those people who leap from personal bafflement at a natural phenomenon straight to a hasty invocation of the supernatural are no better than the fools who see a conjuror bending a spoon and leap to the conclusion that it is ‘paranormal’.

#14: SNAP OUT OF IT! One of the primary reasons for our unhappiness and discomfort is our attack thoughts. All day long, without even realizing it, we’re attacking ourselves and others. Attacks don’t have to be massive to inflict real damage—each small attack, from a negative thought about ourselves to a cold comment toward another person, adds up. Attack breeds attack. Attacking others in our mind or in our actions directly harms us. Our attack thoughts and actions are particularly dangerous because they can be so subtle and insidious that we might not realize how much they’ve taken over our minds. But as fiendish as they are, they’re surprisingly easy to let go of. All it takes is an ordinary rubber band. One day—today—wear a rubber band on your wrist. Whenever you notice an attack thought arise, flick your rubber band against your arm. Does this seem jarring? Good! It’s exactly what you need to literally snap yourself out of your unconscious attack thoughts. Once you’ve snapped out of the attack cycle, it’s time to clean up your thoughts. Use this exercise based on lesson 23 of A Course in Miracles: “I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.” The moment you snap the rubber band, witness your attack thought and say to yourself: I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts about________. You can fill in the blank with whatever you’re attacking, whether it’s broad or very specific. Practice this exercise throughout the day. Notice your attack thought, snap out of it with your rubber band, and then use the Course message as a reminder that you can think your way out in an instant. Miracle

One day in the dojo (the martial-arts studio) before our karate class began, I witnessed the power of a concentrated focus unlike anything that I’d ever seen growing up in the heartland of northern Missouri. On that day, our instructor walked into the room and asked us to do something very different from the form and movement practices that were familiar to us. He explained that he would seat himself in the center of the thick mat where we honed our skills, close his eyes, and go into a meditation. During this exercise, he would stretch his arms out on either side of his body, with his palms open and facedown. He asked us to give him a couple of minutes to “anchor” himself in this T position and then invited us to do anything that we could to move him from his place. The men in our class outnumbered the women by about two to one, and there had always been a friendly competition between the sexes. On that day, however, there was no such division. Together, we all sat close to our instructor, silent and motionless. We watched as he simply walked to the center of the mat, sat down with his legs crossed, closed his eyes, held out his arms, and changed his breathing pattern. I remember that I was fascinated and observed closely as his chest swelled and shrank, slower and slower with each breath until it was hard to tell that he was breathing at all. With a nod of agreement, we moved closer and tried to move our instructor from his place. At first, we thought that this was going to be an easy exercise, and only a few of us tried. As we grabbed his arms and legs, we pushed and pulled in different directions with absolutely no success. Amazed, we changed our strategy and gathered on one side of him to use our combined weight to force him in the opposite direction. Still, we couldn’t even budge his arms or the fingers on his hands! After a few moments, he took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and with the gentle humor we’d come to respect, he asked, “What happened? How come I’m still sitting here?” After a big laugh that eased the tension and with a familiar gleam in his eyes, he explained what had just happened. “When I closed my eyes,” he said, “I had a vision that was like a dream, and that dream became my reality. I pictured two mountains, one on either side of my body, and myself on the ground between the peaks.” As he spoke, I immediately saw the image in my mind’s eye and felt that he was somehow imbuing us with a direct experience of his vision. “Attached to each of my arms,” he continued, “I saw a chain that bound me to the top of each mountain. As long as the chains were there, I was connected to the mountains in a way that nothing could change.” Our instructor looked around at the faces that were riveted on each word he was sharing. With a big grin, he concluded, “Not even a classroom full of my best students could change my dream.” Through a brief demonstration in a martial-arts classroom, this beautiful man had just given each of us a direct sense of the power to redefine our relationship to the world. The lesson was less about reacting to what the world was showing us and more about creating our own rules for what we choose to experience. The secret here is that our instructor was experiencing himself from the perspective that he was already fixed in one place on that mat. In those moments, he was living from the outcome of his meditation. Until he chose to break the chains in his imagination, nothing could move him. And that’s precisely what we found out.