Wear the Tender Miracles

What a beautiful expression, I thought when I first heard this said a couple of weeks ago.

I’m not sure who said it, but that’s not so important. And  I thought isn’t quite right either. My reaction was more from the heart than the head; more visceral, more ‘real’ somehow than something concocted by the mind.

Now we’ve dealt with one of the ‘w’ questions writers so love, there is another that’s important to ask at this stage: What does this fantastic sentence actually mean?

Naturally I’d had this question from the beginning as well, but despite it going round in my mind almost like a mantra, I don’t think I’ve quite worked it out yet. Perhaps a part of the reason for this failure is the nature of my reaction when first hearing it that I mentioned above: My reaction was one of the heart, not of the mind, so harder to look at analytically.

Still, the emotions and even the (spiritual) heart itself originate in the mind. So, let me share with you what I’ve come up with so far.

Wear the tender miracles. It seems to be a very straightforward sentence. But is it merely a well-intentioned piece of advice? Is it more a spiritual injunction? Well, as I thought about it, I realised it was in fact both.

Certainly it feels like good advice – though before we can finally decide that, we need to work out the meaning and intent of the words we have. Mind you having said that, I have to say it resonates with me as something one might hear from a spiritual director, or read in a sacred text of some kind.

So, what exactly are tender miracles? Are they soft and gentle, happy happenings that come from some place ‘out of the ordinary’?

You know, in my Contemplative Photography practice and in my earlier Street Photography days, I had a few maxims that I worked by and tried to live by. One of those maxims was: There is no such thing as ordinary. Which is another way of saying that there is nothing that is not extraordinary, and therefore out of the ordinary.

Just now there are several Magpies making beautiful melodies outside the hermitage. I know very well that these vocalizations that for this particular species represent an expression of biological and or evolutionary impulses or drives.

But, is that all there is to it? I don’t think so. As I listen, I smile. And my heart feels something. I sense beauty, and realise that I am receiving a gift; you might even say it’s a miracle.

Biological imperative or tender miracle? Why can’t it be both?

How many times a day do we experience or encounter ‘little things’, that appear ordinary, but are hardly noticed (or not noticed at all?) in our hurried and harried lives? Yet, anyone of those little things may be a tender miracle waiting for you to come along.

I know, the glorious singing of Magpies is a fairly obvious miracle, not so hard to miss – if one looks at that way. But even then, I know we don’t always notice. And what about the smile from a random stranger passing on the street? Or the comforting warmth of the sun? All things easily missed and if we actually do notice, we likely will simply take for granted.

Talking about taking for granted. What about the million little things our loved-ones do for us every single day that we either don’t notice, or just let slide without any real attention? Better stop here: this list really could go on forever.

Now, wear. Of course we all know what wear means; we might wear a coat, a hat, shoes. We all wear clothes. There really is no end to what we humans can and do wear!

Perhaps, though there is a deeper way we can think about wear. When a hat (purely by way of example obviously) comes your way, you at the very least try it on to see how it fits, how it looks, how it feels.

Of course you do need to be paying attention when engaging in these tryings on don’t you? So why not as you live your lives and when miracles might be coming?

Well the first thing to be said is that in our busy, distracted and stressed out lives (sorry to be so repetitious) much of the time we aren’t ‘there and available’ to pay attention. It seems that our minds are rarely in sync with what we’re doing with out bodies, where we are or even when. The mind is more often than not way off in the future or stuck in the past somewhere.

So, if we want to wear the tender miracle, we need to begin to cultivate presence. We need to be paying attention to and in every moment we possibly can. It’s really just about Mindfulness . In this way we make ourselves available to actually notice and recognise when a miracle come to us.

Okay, the miracle has happened, you’ve noticed it, seen it for what it is, what now? Put it on! After all it’s yours. When you put on a new hat you look in the mirror: How does it look? How does it feel?

And as with the hat, if you like what you see, you proceed to go about your normal life, wearing the miracle for all to see. People will notice: after all if you are wearing a new hat and think it suits you, your demeanour, your smile, and your stature, the way you carry yoursef, will say it all.

But really that last bit is about yourself. Don’t forget yourself, share the good vibes with you. See yourself being contented, satisfied, grateful.  Wear the miracle lightly.

One word we haven’t really looked at is tender. We all know what tender means, and I’m sure you agree that not a lot of whatever we might call miracles could be described as tender. In any case, most of us know that life doesn’t really work that way.

Much of what we experience in life – both the big stuff and the little stuff – looks and feels more like hellish nightmares than some sort of ‘miracle’. Besides, a grumpy boss, or a sudden illness, are both to grab our attention more readily than singing Magpies.

Life is full of variables . It’s unpredictable in that we can”t know for certain what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and most of the time we won’t ever get to the why something happens either (there’s those ‘w’ words again).

What I’m going to say now is just my theory. I can’t say I’ve realised its truth. And I probably won’t get there anytime soon either.

Every single thing that happens in the Universe – absolutely everything – is a miracle. Why? Because everything that happens expresses – manifests – the laws of nature, the laws of life, the universe, and everything else.

Maybe the most tender, the most beautiful, the truest miracle is the one we are actually there and now, sorry here and now, to experience and acknowledge it for what it is, good, bad, or anything else.

Pay attention; be present in the presence of the miracle.

love from me to you.