E. DuBose Post 13: Outside Reading 4

9APR12

Miracles

When was it that just being alive or seeing a caterpillar turn into a butterfly stop becoming a miracle?  Was it because it became ordinary and was no longer extra-ordinary?  Was it because we thing learned through science how the transformation works?  Why at all does the everyday bore us when there is so much going on in and around us?  Why as humans must we become tolerant or bored to things after they lose their "newness." I wish that wasn't so, especially in love and relationships.  And I wish it even more wasn't so in our relationship with God.  I remember first coming to Christ two years ago:  I was so full of Joy and just completely filled and consumed by Him.  I wished for so long that feeling wouldn't go away but it did.  Now I have to strive to be close to Him each day like that.  I feel like I was "high" on God and now I'm in withdrawal.  This longing for that "high" again, however, I know will only be fulfilled in Heaven when I see Him face-to-face.  Until then, I still have to remind myself to see the miracles in the everyday and to renew my love for God each morning.

I found it interesting how Lewis (or Chesterton, I can't quite remember which) talks about how only babies are actually really the ones that need the least imagination in stories.  They need to fantastic language or imagery because the simple opening of a door is amazement to them.  I believe Lewis is talking about how babies would be the only ones interested in history books and the like because the world just "plain" in itself is enough to cause awe.  Myth and fairy tales show a need for the fantastic in the human language.  It reveals our longing of being busy and entertained.  But is it myth that has allowed us to become numb to the "small" miracles, the everyday miracles.  

Going back to the "wearing" off effect of miracles, I struggle with the idea of really knowing something.  When I first became a Christian I knew the miracle for the first time and it was all I could think about, it was all I could talk about.  But now that the newness has worn off, it is no longer that way for me.  So do I still truly believe or do I need to consume God's miracle more and more, like a drug, to get the same effect?

So, when is it exactly that wonder stops creating fear and wonder?  And to obtain that sense of wonder again, how do we learn to know what is ordinary so we can consistently and constantly awe in fear and wonder at the extraordinary.