by Shawn Phillips
I just opened my email to find one with the subject line, “The [unnamed supplement] Miracle.”
My response was visceral and yet, my disdain for gaudy marketing required I open it. Inside the miracle was immediately announced: “Yes, it’s a miracle! We now have product for shipping.”
Are you kidding? It’s a miracle that I can now send you money? Hoorah! It’s a new the new low-bar for a miracle! Let the trumpets sound.
Now I hate to be the one to break it to these boys, but putting a simple powder in a bottle with a cheap label on it is way this side of a miracle. It doesn’t even qualify for “product development.” It’s simple packaging, no more complex than bagging groceries.
Miracles… Seems they aren’t what they used to be.
The Decline of Miracles
What reaction do you have when you see the claim of “miracle” on an email or advertisement? Does it provoke a favorable response, a curiosity or anything at all?
I suspect most of us have become skeptical—and justifiably so. “Miracle” has been overused and abused to the point that it’s often shady and meaningless at best.
But does the abuse stop there or is there a deeper, more destructive force in play here? Is the abuse of “miracle” having a more profound negative side-effect on you and I. Could it be quietly draining our desire and even capacity to believe? And a result, are we becoming a harsher, more staunchly rational, less “inspired” society?
By definition, a miracle is: “an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God.”
It strikes me that miracle once connected us to a hopeful, positive energy.
In the Christmas Classic movie, “Miracle on 34th Street,” there’s a line when (Santa) Kris Kringle is on trial and says: “I’m a symbol. I’m a symbol of the human ability to suppress the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives. If… you can’t believe, if you can’t accept anything on faith, then you’re doomed for a life dominated by doubt.”
Doomed!
I don’t want to be doomed!
I wish not to be doomed to a life dominated by doubt. But I can see how it could happen, when most everything we’re exposed to daily, even the news, is somewhere between a manipulative lie and a “harmless” exaggeration. You and I are basking in the fuel that ignites a life of doubt and suspicion.
Yet, if we allow this abuse of our “miracle bone,” our desire to believe, to shut-off or weaken our openness, wonder, and dreams; then we’ve succumb to a subtle form or terrorism.
Certainly we’re better people, a better society, when we suppress the “selfish hateful tendencies” and accept some things on faith. And without doubt I believe there are some things we should believe in and that we need to believe. It’s what we humans do best.
Believe We Shall
It is human, very much so, to have dreams, hopes and desires—to quietly hold the slightest glimmer of possibility that some how, some way there is a Santa Claus, even though ever fiber of your rational mind knows it’s not so.
To say, “Yes!, I believe in miracles!,” is not to be weak, dependent and helpless but rather to hold space for possibility, to embrace, celebrate and keep the wonder alive.
For Santa, like so many things which are the best of mankind may not be intended as literal interpretations. Which is to say that red suit, white beard and sleigh is the social icon, the marker we use to represent the goodness, kindness and love of ourselves and our fellow man.
That’s what it means to “believe.” For belief requires doubt, for without some doubt it’s not belief but certainty. It’s not always literal, it’s not always provable. It needn’t be, which is why we’ve been given belief.
For belief requires doubt, for without some doubt it’s not belief but certainty. It’s not always literal, it’s not always provable.
To Believe is Choice
How do you believe in a world that’s intent to defraud you, to use your belief against you? How do you love in a world where people hurt people?
You just do.
Hopefully, ideally with your eyes wide-open and with awareness. But even then you’ll lose a few and be wiser for it. And even when you’ve been handed the short end, may you resist the temptation to make the mistakes of one, the truth for all.
We see a bad cop on the news, we need not believe all cops bad. We get taken by a bad contractor and needn’t believe all contractors bad.
We choose and create our beliefs. To do so freely we must take responsibility. When we’re “at the wheel,” when we avoid the trap of being the victim, we may fall but are quick to get back up.
You may believe in your team, or your children and even our president. Eventually, at one time and another your belief will be tested. Not broken. For belief is not theirs to break, it’s yours and mine.
Struggle with that? Think it’s out there—dependent on them?
Consider that you’re free to believe that the economy will improve—even though there’s endless evidence that it’s not moving that way, now, not “really.” So, you would be rational, perhaps even “wise” not to believe but which feels better? Which offers more energy, more hope? Which will get you moving in the right direction regardless?
Right? Belief has a positive energy about it.
So, why not believe?
What if millions of us chose to believe in our economy, or our leaders right now? What if we believed in our ability to eat right, to live well, to thrive?
Choose to believe in good people doing good things for you. Believe that there is good food that’s fast; then find Tokyo Joes. Believe that not every company is out solely for money, some are driven by purpose and passion; then find Full Strength, the world’s best nutrition shake.
Believe that there are books worth reading, that there are fitness gurus worth following, and that there is a strength a capacity deep inside you’ve yet to tap into that can change your life.
But most of all believe in yourself. For that is the belief that will change your life, and light the world. By practicing believing you strengthen your capacity to believe, even in yourself.
Try it, now. You’ll be better for it—and so will the world.
What if the real miracle is believing?
Now it’s your turn… What are you better for believing in, now?