![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
Everyday Miracles
Certain pieces of my writing seem to generate a lot of feedback over a long time. One such item is a very short piece I wrote on the Eucharistic Miracle at Lanciano. In a nutshell, the story goes that an Italian priest in the 700’s was doubting God. And just to stick it to him, God miraculously turned the eucharist and wine into actual physical flesh and blood, which has been preserved to this day.
A concerned Christian wrote me wanting to make sure that I took this story seriously, writing in part:
Tim, what has happened in Lanciano, proved to the monk that He truly is there, body and blood. This is a staggering miracle! A miracle that renowned scientists have concluded is authentic, beyond any doubt. There names are all listed, and their findings are documented. You may have already read the page that, in great detail, describes their findings.
This phenomenon is too magnificent and precious to doubt Tim. Please believe it and cling to it. Never forget it, for Jesus Christ himself came to us…again.
Really, I don’t have any desire to dismantle the miraculous for anyone. If it fills and uplifts one’s life to believe something like this, then by all means - do it. But for myself, I’m increasingly finding it more miraculous than anything that I’m merely alive, that I’m living life, that I have a job and friends and people that I love. What point is there to looking far afield for miracles in medieval Italy when all of existence is itself a miracle? If Jesus Christ is anything at all, then he is present in all things. His mystery is spirit incarnating in flesh, which is the very mystery of our own existence. As in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus proclaims: “Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” No priest and no church and no religion has any special rights to limit or restrict or define what’s a miracle and what’s not. It all is. Every last bit…
- TALITHA CUMI
- A quote from an Alan Watts thingy
- Pre-Distressed Jeans are a Lie
- The Jesus Videos
- Durga reappears
- Prev: Alchemical Braindamage
- Next: Our Own Little Worlds
February 18th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Right on Tim. Well put.
February 19th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
that is one of the ironies im sure god smiles at: we have a cut, and it heals and we go about our business. but when a statue leaks tears, or some other “miracle” which confounds the “laws of nature” happens, we yell it from the rooftops. the laws of nature are the real miracles, that anything doesnt obey the rule of entropy in the first place, that things regenerate, grow, heal, and evolve is the truly mind blowing thing.
February 19th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
in the poisoned mind of some Muslims killing, and burning because of cartoons? Or is God in the injustice of the capitalist sytem that has created an unfair concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. I have nothing against capitalism or Islam but I do have a problem with ideology that makes sure life has additonal suffering.
I also have a deep problem with the number of strokes, the babies born with physical diseases, babies aborted naturally, people who look like werewolves. There is no insurance and no security in life. The blessings a person has today may be wiped out tomorrow by floods or fires.
And lastly I don’t mean to be silly but what happened to the dinosaurs? They lived in a universe that allowed their destruction. Are the spirits of dinosaurs still evolving somewhere?
Just because humans have consciousness does not mean we do not live in a universe of the absurd. I don’t doubt life is a mystery but it is also really fucked up and miserable for billions of life species.
February 19th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
Yep - god’s in all that stuff. Pretty cool, right? He’s even there when things aren’t fair, when they hurt and when we don’t understand them. Maybe even more so!
February 19th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Multiple sages in different traditions have put forth the idea that the world is created and destroyed thousands of times every second. After acclimating to this idea, miracles of the mentioned short gain a certain insistent resonance that forces any question of plausibility aside: after the inexpressible overflowing miracle of the present moment, of having a self, can one dare to skeptically dismiss any story of the spirit?
If all the world is sign and holy script, can one speak of the Bible, translated by culturally-conditioned and fallible humans, inconsistent, laden with paradox and mystery and historical impossibility, the limited and finite product of the totality of its times and all history preceeding, how can we say it is anything BUT truly inspired by the Lord? (as a Christian would say)
Like the leopard’s spots, passed from generation to generation in the fertile 4-dimensional organism we call “species,” through and via and not other than life and death: it speaks to itself in the silence.
Sufi tales of miracles contain stories where the sea instantly becomes a sea of gold coins, or where the world is instantly filled with wish carrying treasures in their mouths, which vanish immediately. The temple is destroyed and rebuilt, and no man can prevent the passage of the One who walks…
The Absolute is Absolute. No conditioned being can move it, it moves all and alone is. I am not a personality. I am something that is so designed to act as though it believes itself to be a personality. The purpose of this complicated construction is to provide another instance of the Truth realizing itself. “I was a hidden treasure and I longed to be known.” The thing, little by little, dismantles its projected world from the inside and is somehow all the more present in the world.
The Absolute is absolute, if the Eye in the Sky should close for one instant, all creation would collapse. Atlas holds the world, Mithras turns the outer sphere, Job had the right idea. There is no need to mentally rehearse the future, or dwell on the past.
That which is styled by men “God”, is in ALL that stuff!
February 19th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Life itself is a miracle, no real christian should have to read some tabloidish 8th century account of holy alchemy, to be convinced of the divinity of christ. That is a bunch of horseshit. And plus I find it ironic how you quote from the book of Thomas where the eucharist would be a non-factor, because Jesus was not crucified in the book of Thomas! duh… You’re a fucking loser and hypocrite Tim. Go stuff your face with some more 7/11 and maybe you’ll get some real inspiration to write.
February 20th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Roy! I recognize you! You can change your name a million times, but my unabiding love for your lantern of ultimate truth will always find you!
Waiting for you to rip off a good one about Tom Robbins or Kurt Vonnegut, I always love that.
Still waiting to hang out,
Daddy
February 20th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Roy, I just wanted to tell you that I truly cherish our time spent together and I think of you as a brother-in-arms, or just a brother.