Small Miracles

Today time opened up just enough for a small lull, and I had the opportunity to talk with a friend whose 93 year old grandfather just passed away. We'll call my friend Matthew. Matthew had just arrived back from the three-day funeral proceedings, chock full of rich Catholic tradition in the small town he comes from. Matthew isn't known for being super expressive with his emotions, but I could read in his face all the small ways he was changed. Mostly I saw signs of joy and love, mixed up beautifully with those of loss and grief. Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever liked his face more than I did today, sharing this moment with him, listening as he spoke.

The funeral was wonderful, he said, with almost the entire family there. Being the small town that it was and his grandfather a well-liked man, much of the town had come to pay their respects. There was Catholic ritual galore, and the Rosary was recited many times. I asked how he was doing, how his family was doing, and offered my support should he need it. "No," he said, "I got most of it out at the funeral, I think," and I knew he was telling the truth. He felt lucky because the family had left a day before he did, and he got to spend a day with just his grandmother. They took a nap.

As I listened, I realized the speakers in the room were playing an incredible live version of Jeff Buckley's already entrancing take on "Hallelujah." And I thought to myself, how curious. Here I am, in this room of all rooms, on this day of all days, sharing so sweetly with this friend of all friends, hearing this song of all songs.

It smacked of God, friends. It tasted of miracle. A small respite during a busy work day, the sacred in the profane, a holy silence at the heart of a furious and buzzing building. This could all be coincidence, of course, and it is a trait unique (so far as we know) only to humans to superimpose meaning onto otherwise entirely natural phenomena.

But was it? Was it coincidence, that is? I don't know. I can't say for certain. But something in me finds that explanation, the scientific explanation, the numerical explanation so unsatisfying. If the events of our lives, large and small, can be chalked up to enough monkeys jumping on enough typewriters for enough millennia such that a Shakespearean sonnet eventually emerges, well...where does laughter come from? Where do the great, history-altering masterpieces of literature, art, music...where do they come from, truly? What compels us to create, to get out of bed each morning and greet the day, even when tragedy weighs heavy on our hearts and minds? And what allows us to wake up other times with the strangest echoes of joy and anticipation rattling about in our chests?

Sometimes I see it, feel it, flashes of it, in a look, or a spoken word, or a face, or a hug. And I have no name for it, but I can't help but believe in it, but love it, but commit myself to it yet again and ask it to take up residence, in my hands and feet and eyes and lungs and mouth, ask it to fill the hollow parts in me, to mend the broken ones, to soothe my wounds and to kiss my tears. And somehow I am content to have no answers and do only this. Somehow I feel full, and rich, and blessed, and important. Somehow I will see this day through, not knowing at all where it ends or if I will be falling asleep with a broken heart or a well of joy--or maybe both. And this is why I have faith, because, I have no answers yet feel strangely compelled to live this day through anyways. To do anything differently would go against everything inside that makes me me. So I breathe, and close my eyes, or bow my head to pray, or look up towards the sky and wonder at this curious miracle called life. And I am content to wonder.