All These Things And More: A Journey To The Miracles, rev. 12/24/17

In 1956, a 7 year old boy sat in a Sunday School basement classroom and was listening to the teacher talk about the miracles a great healer and teacher was performing, 2000 years ago. Something moved in the marrow of that boy’s bones the first time he heard that that teacher and healer declared that those miracles would be performed, in fact even more than those miracles would be performed, by us. What?

He looked around the room to see if anyone else was experiencing what he was experiencing. He even asked the teacher to read the passage again. He was not sure he had heard it right the first time. OK, the teacher said, and he read the passage again, somewhat perplexed at the student’s request.

It did not appear to the boy that anyone else in the room, including the teacher, was having the same kind of reaction to this passage that the boy was having, a reaction that would change the boy’s whole life, from bottom to top. The boy, without knowing it at the time, was stunned. Something was awakened inside the boy’s heart and the boy’s mind that was dormant before that passage was read. In that one moment some inner knowing of some infinite truth inside that boy’s heart and soul turned from a spark into a beacon.

Being 7 years old, he had only a child’s context for that life changing event. Yet he did know something important had been revealed. His bones knew it, his heart knew it, his soul knew it, and his mind had no sense of what any of that meant in his child’s world, or what to do with that cognition.

And, for the next 12 years, he kept looking for clues to unlock the obvious message from that one passage, clues that would tell him more about that profound prediction. He kept looking for other people’s experience of that passage, that verse, that prediction, and was consistently surprised by the gap between his experience of that passage, that prediction, and other peoples sense of that one verse [John, 14:12]. OK, everyone has their own path, their own experiences, but are our experiences so dramatically different? Apparently so, he came to understand, painfully.

Through his adolescent years, and all the physical, mental and emotional chaos we navigate during those years, one anchor of an experience never went away. There was that knowing, deep inside his consciousness, often sub-conscious to his awareness, that there were miracles to be performed, but the question remained: how do we learn to do those things?

And, aren’t we supposed to be helping each other to learn how to do those things? Apparently not, according to his world. He found no-one else to be interested either in that passage or that prediction in the same way his heart and soul and mind were interested. Yes, faith is a factor, a fundamental factor in the equation, yet he found no other substantive formula nor mechanism in any of the teachings he keenly listened to, either on Saturdays or Sundays or during his weekly schooling. Nor did anyone else seem to have the same consuming compulsion to search for the answers to the questions that were driving him from a very deep place inside his psyche.

The very normal confusion of those years was never abated with any reliable knowledge that could provide him a sense of what to do, who to talk to, where to go to find more answers to the questions brought up by that one life changing passage on that day in the 7 year old boy’s world. To be sure, there were solutions provided, yet there was always the question of the practical, “rubber hits the road” kind of formulaic mechanisms that seemed to be left unanswered. Faith is a powerful force, and does work miracles. Is there more that can complement that powerful force? How will we consistently, predictably, formulaically perform the same kind of and even greater miracles than that great healer and teacher of 2000 years ago?

And so began that young adult’s journey to find those answers. That journey had its challenges, as everyone’s does. Your journey, my journey, everyone’s journey is to heal the wounds of our childhood, navigate the whirlpools of life’s painful lessons, and develop a mature, compassionate, thriving relationship to the rest of our world.

He had to face his dysfunctional tendencies to isolate, to blame, to hide, to self-absorb, to indulge, to fix against his woundedness, and to slip into despair. He made mistakes. He had to learn to define his purpose, to act with courage, to be faithful to the people in his world, to care and to act with wisdom. He learned to learn from his mistakes. He learned to accept responsibility and rebuke any tendency to blame, rather to forgive. He had good help. And his search continued. Where are the formulae that that great healer and teacher was using, what were the mechanisms? Did they even exist?

Turns out that they did and do exist. Faith is absolutely a factor, and it is by no means the only factor. Faith drove that man to keep searching for decades, despite any and all obstacles to that search. His search and his faith that there were concrete mechanisms the you and I can put to work, that faith was rewarded. He discovered formulae that have in fact been held back from the world for the last 2000 years. Humankind was brutal to that teacher and healer 2000 years ago. It has taken these last 2000 years for humanity to evolve to a point at which it is acceptable to powers that be to risk revealing the powerful mechanisms that that great healer and teacher was working with. That is a bold statement. I have spent my entire life searching and discerning whether I could find such a truth, believe such a truth, stake my life on such a truth. My search has been rewarded.

The point is this: that great healer and teacher from 2000 years ago was not making any empty claim. He was creating a momentum that today is still at work and producing miracles. You are a miracle. You may be well aware of that. You may not believe it at all. Or you may be somewhere