The classical idea of a miracle is, of course, an event that defies the laws of nature in some way. So in the Old Testament the parting of the Red Sea or getting water from a completely solid rock are both paradigm examples of miracles. It would be fair to say that it has been a very long time since anyone has recounted an event that defied the laws of nature. In fact, I doubt if many people actually believe in miracles of the sort recounted in either the Old Testament or the New Testament.
However, I think that there is something to the idea of a miracle that we can hold on to even if we do not have an event that defies the laws of nature. Let us define this much weaker notion of a miracle as follows. It is an event (a) the occurrence of which has an enormously positive effect upon one’s life and (b) the occurrence of which is so improbable that one is not in any way warranted in believing that such a thing would happen. When I think about the extraordinary success of Star Wars (the original trilogy whose first film appeared in the late 70s), I think of miracles of this sort.
The technological wizardry of the film was indeed fascinating. But that cannot begin to explain the success of the film. Nor can the plot, which is as simple as it gets: good versus bad, with a little romance lite thrown in for good measure. That success of the original series has, I believe, just about everything to do with a hope that is shared by most of its viewers: the hope that if our lives could be sufficiently attuned to the Good (with all that this implies in terms of complete self-mastery), then we could produce miracles of the sort that I have just defined. For the series of films suggested that when an individual is sufficiently attuned to the Good, then she or he gets to waltz with the improbable.
Waltzing with the improbable was the essence of Yoda. The essence of his persona was not that he performed miracles of the biblical kind. Rather, it was that he was able to avail himself of probabilities that most never could see if only because he knew when and when not to do a thing. Moreover, he always did whatever he did in just the right way.
I do not know whether George Lucas had read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. But recall Aristotle’s thought that there are many ways to things that are wrong, but only one way to do that which is right. In Star Wars, Lucas plays out this point with uncanny brilliance.
Chanukka and Christmas are both about miracles. In the former case, oil for lighting the menorah lasted 8 days when it should have only lasted 1. In the latter case, Christ is born. In recent year, of course, both events on the religious calendar have come to be more about spending money than anything remotely miraculous. In fact, religion almost seems to get in the way of the moment.
Part of the problem may be that people are celebrating the sort of miracles that seem not to occur any more. Yet, if my assessment of Stars Wars is correct, then miracles can still occur provided that we humans are properly attuned to the Good. They may not defy the laws of nature, but their impact can utterly defy the imagination. And I have come to wonder whether technology with all of its wonders has become an insuperable impediment to individuals being properly attuned to the Good.
Having the latest has become a kind of cultural imperative. People are distraught, not because what they have is not working or does not do the job more than adequately, but merely because they do not have the latest kind of whatever it is. This desire for the latest has become a kind of fetish fed by technology itself. This craving for the latest item has increasingly warping our relation to ourselves and to others. And this, in turn, makes doing the right thing in the right way increasingly more difficult. Not only that: We are increasingly less responsive to those who so behave towards us.
If the behavior of Black Friday is any indication, then in their eagerness to have the latest, way too many people will literally trample upon others. And a person who is ready to trample upon another for a mere thing is not likely to even notice, much less be moved by, a smile. And a gesture of kindness is more likely to be misinterpreted as a threat.
Friendship and romantic love stand as two of the greatest miracles of life. And every indication is that either relationship has to happen in just the right way in order for either to flower as it should.
Friendship and romantic love is about two entirely unrelated people becoming marvelously inseparable and flourishing, with each trusting the other in ways that were heretofore simply impossible even to imagine. Each kind of relationship takes otherwise mundane pieces of behavior and endows that behavior with significance, because the mundane now affirms and nourishes in ways that simply cannot be anticipated.
Not only that, it turns out time and time again that the mundane is a vehicle a very special opportunity—an opportunity that would not have come about had it not been for the fact that either was so accustomed to the other in just the right ways.
And if that were not enough: the mundane never gets old. How could the mundane get old when it is the occasion for so much that it is wonderful? The very wording here speaks to the ways in which friendship and romantic love, at their best, are miraculous. For by definition, the mundane is supposed to be that which is tiring and unrewarding? Yet, that mundane walk that a couple regularly takes across a bridge—the walk that increasingly we do not have time for because we are so busy—may be just the thing that keeps alive their passion for one another. It is the occasion for the gifts come about rather than the gifts that come about being an excuse for the absence of such occasions.
There is no gainsaying the miracles that defy the laws of nature. And I, like most, would not mind fixing my eyes upon such an event. Or so I suppose. In the meantime, though, I am so very pleased that I have been the beneficiary of some extraordinary miracles of life. If a miracle that defies of the laws of natures comes along that will be just fine. But it will have to be a pretty good one in order to complete with miracles that have touched my life. If there is a God, I cannot believe that he would want it any other way. That is Chanukkah as it should be. That is Christmas as it should be.
