Don't Waste The Miracle

“Don’t waste the miracle.”

These are the words that decorated my favorite coffee cup for years.  I didn't really know what it meant - but I felt blessed by those words; they would help me see each day in a new way. (Since then, I have seen these words as the title of a rather typical Christmas poem, but for some reason I have been unwilling to give a concrete meaning to them and in doing so limit their possibilities.)   To be blessed  by something I don’t ascertain logically (although maybe I might understand it intuitively) demonstrates to me of the amazing power of words to bring experience to the surface. And be changed by it.

In college, I learned to look for layers of meaning, to analyze words, to recognize patterns, to catalog human experience, but the power of words really explodes in their transcendent meaning: the meaning that triggers a response that is beyond than the concrete and deeper than the conscious. It is this meaning that we recognize, we receive, and our eyes grow big.

 In an article entitled the other side of reason, Madelaine L’engle  talks about a child who read A Wrinkle in Time when she was eight or nine. The then now woman says about the book, “I didn’t understand it, but I knew what it was about”.  L'engle says as long as we know what it’s about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain."  That is transcendent power. 

The first chapter of John explodes with the potential of transcendent power. It gives us the experience of creation and incarnation without a single detail of the event, and yet we know that the Word has come to earth “full of grace and truth.”  We know that Love has come. We know what it’s about.  Transcendent meaning increases our ability to believe.

Transcendent meaning implies both a bigger meaning and a smaller meaning.  It is bigger in that it recognizes a universal truth might be experienced by all, and a smaller meaning in that it is a personal truth that is instrumental in personal formation and transformation. “Don’t waste the miracle.”  I know these simple four words can hold a universal truth, but also will speak this truth differently to each person that reads them.

It also reminds me not to underestimate the power of symbol, metaphor, and ritual, or ability of humankind (including children) to experience transcendent meaning, even if it isn't something they can put into words.

Hmmm. Words may trigger meaning that you may not have words for...Ironic, isn't it.