Recently, I read a novel set several hundred years ago. One small detail in the story stayed with me. A woman who had never traveled outside her village was amazed to learn that a tailor had traveled seven miles from the nearest village to her village to deliver some dresses.
Seven miles.
I mentioned it to my book club because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I drive fourteen miles one way to school every day. I've hopped in my car and driven eight hours or more to see family and friends. I've traveled halfway around the world to Africa. And this weekend, I got on an airplane to attend a twenty-minute event simply because being there for two young men mattered to me. Seven miles doesn't sound very far anymore. Except it is. It depends on who's doing the looking.
For the past several years, I've practiced something I call living in “miracle mode.” For me, miracle mode isn't about waiting for something extraordinary to happen. It's choosing to notice how much of the extraordinary is already happening around us every day.
On my recent trip, I had plenty of time to practice. Sitting on the airplane, I began thinking about everything that had to happen for me to be sitting there. Technology helped move me through security. Someone had cleaned the plane. Someone had inspected and maintained it. Someone loaded the luggage. Someone stocked the food and drinks. Flight attendants welcomed us aboard. Pilots and air traffic controllers were doing their jobs. Hundreds of things I would never see had to happen for me to casually say: “I took a flight.”
Then I noticed the man sitting in front of me wearing headphones. I thought about the tiny devices in my own ears. My hearing aids. They connect through Bluetooth to my phone. I can listen to music, hear a phone call, or listen to a book directly through them. Once upon a time, hearing loss meant hearing less. In the case of my brother and niece, it would have meant hearing nothing at all. Now we have technology that can provide access to sound in ways that once would have been unimaginable. And we gave it an ordinary name.
Hearing aids.
I started thinking about how many miracles we've given ordinary names. Car. Electricity. Indoor plumbing. Air conditioning. Dishwasher. Emai
Then I started thinking about an ordinary Tuesday. I wake up in a home with electricity, running water, heat and air conditioning available with the flip of a switch. I brush my teeth with an electric toothbrush. I get into a car, fasten a seat belt, follow traffic lights, and travel fourteen miles to school without giving the distance much thought.
I can pick up a phone and hear the voice of someone I love hundreds of miles away. Better yet, I can FaceTime them and see their face. I can write something on my computer, attach it to an email, and send it to a printer miles away. They can turn my digital words into a full-color, spiral-bound book and send the physical book back to my doorstep. I can open a small device called a Kindle and choose from more books than I could fit on the shelves in my home.
I can come home to a man who, after thirteen years together, still flirts with me every day. We laugh. We hug. We kiss. We hold hands.
I can walk outside and see flowers that began as tiny seeds in the dirt. I can look up and watch the sun paint the sky as it disappears below the horizon.
And we call all of that: Tuesday. Maybe Tuesday isn't so ordinary after all.
That's what happens when we live in miracle mode. When we choose to live in a state of noticing, we become more receptive to what was already available to us. The more we notice, the more there is to notice.
GUS is always offering. A sunrise. A flower. A brilliant human mind capable of imagining something that doesn't exist yet and then creating it. A person we love. A conversation. A laugh. A Tuesday. Our part of that reciprocal relationship with GUS is being present enough to receive what is already being offered. Then something naturally follows our noticing. Gratitude. Not gratitude because someone told us we should be grateful. Gratitude because we noticed.
Miracles haven't become less common. We've simply given them ordinary names.
Car. Email. Hearing aid. Sunset. Friendship. Love.
Be Kinder Than Necessary (BKTN365™),
Jerilyn Brown
An Invitation
Notice one thing today you've called ordinary.
See the miracle within.
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