A PERSONAL COURSE IN MIRACLES

A miracle, according to the dictionary, is an unexplainable event that we attribute
to the supernatural. According to Albert Einstein “either everything is a miracle,
or nothing is a miracle.” Is the awesome balance and intricacy of the patterns and
forms of life throughout the universes random, or a miracle, the manifestation of a
supernatural intelligence? 

How we answer this has everything to do with the way we live our lives. 

An otherwise meaningless piece of paper was the difference between life and
death for my family and me in 1938. For years, I thought it was random, a matter
of luck that we escaped from Hitler’s Vienna. Then one day it occurred to me that
maybe there was a reason my Dad studied for a degree he never got to use.
Australia was the only country taking in ANY refugees at that critical time, (he
had already been picked up and held by the Nazis) and then only with evidence
that they could help develop the land. The otherwise meaningless piece of paper
that saved my life was my Dad’s degree in Agriculture. 

Throughout the decades during which I believed that what happens in life is
simply “the luck of the draw,” I was something of a control freak. I lived in
defiance of anything that stood in the way of my accomplishing my goals.
Outwardly, I was successful in achieving what I set out to do: working my way
around Europe, changing citizenship, establishing a career, marrying and bringing
my family back together. But inwardly, there was something missing. Life was
struggle. Everything was a challenge, something to overcome, to conquer, and to
survive. The belief that I alone was in charge of directing my life left me feeling
empty inside. 

When I began to recognize patterns in the sequence of events in my life that did
not correspond with my carefully formulated goals and plans, everything changed.
Perhaps there was a reason, a purpose after all. As these previously unrecognized
patterns revealed themselves, I began to pay more attention to my intuition,
dreams, physical symptoms, as well as the meaningful coincidences in my life.
(According to Jean Houston, a coincidence is a miracle in which God prefers to
remain anonymous.)

As I paid attention to these signs and signals and took them into account in my
decision-making, life became less of a struggle, and less lonely. It was like walking
hand in hand with an unseen Presence, One that operates outside of our conscious
awareness. 

Since September 11th, 2001, there have been countless stories of individual lives
that were saved by apparent miracles. But what about those who did not escape
the disaster of September 11th or the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, or the Holocaust? If Einstein is right, and either everything is a miracle or nothing is
miracle, then injury, suffering, death must also be part of a larger plan or picture. 
It is so much more difficult to accept miracles when our loved ones are killed or
injured in national or natural disasters than when they are mysteriously saved.
Once we embrace the concept of supernatural influence, however, we must accept
as miracles the manifestations that are contrary to our expectations, wishes and
prayers as miracles, not just the outcomes that seem to be an answer to our
prayers and intentions. 

As we become more and more conscious of the hidden factors influencing our
actions, the picture becomes increasingly complex. Each feeling, impulse, thought
or action may have thousands of causes and consequences, and how we choose to
explain or perceive events has a lot to do with our perspective. Circumstances that
may seem inexplicable on a personal level can become understandable when we
take other people’s points of view into account. Rejection became less of a source
of hurt and blame when I understood the fear behind the behavior of those who
rejected me. Events that did not make sense physically, like fast growing cataracts
at age fifty five, made sense when I looked at them as a psycho-spiritual lesson:
the need to see the world through new eyes. Nevertheless there were instances
where it did not matter how many factors I took into account; the jigsaw puzzle
simply would not come together. 


The Big Picture is simply too vast, too complex for even extended human
capacities to comprehend. We must simply trust that the unseen power in charge
of the grand design has our collective best interests at heart. 


It may be a leap of faith to believe in miracles, but it does not render us
powerless. On the contrary, it opens an opportunity to work in co-operation with
the unseen power, to co-create the miracles of our lives. In New Thought circles
this is known as manifesting. 


Manifesting involves making plans, setting specific goals and intentions, and
then letting go of the outcome. 


The unseen hand can play some funny tricks with regard to outcome. I envisioned
living in a waterfront condo on North Shore Drive, Chicago, when I married my
husband. But he moved us onto a sailboat in Florida, and rented a house for the
rest of our years together. Twenty years later, I live in a waterfront condo on
North Shore Drive. North Shore Drive, St. Petersburg, not North Shore Drive,
Chicago, but the manifestation of my vision nevertheless. The supernatural also
played a role in the decision to close my counseling practice. The voice of Spirit
had been calling me more and more insistently into personal process, writing and
channeling, but I was afraid of giving up my source of income. Fear drove me to
put a lot of energy into promoting my practice, but previously successful

strategies to stimulate referrals did not work. For four long months the telephone
did not ring. Finally, I set a date for closing my practice. Within twenty-four hours
the phone was literally ringing off the hook. I would put down the receiver from
one referral, and there was the next one on the line. Within two days, I had all the
clients I needed to carry the practice until the closing date. 

It is not easy to live as if everything is a miracle. To co-create with the Creation is
an enormous responsibility. But it certainly is not dull! Recent explorations have
brought me into contact not only with guides, angels and masters in other
dimensions, but alien life forms from other parts of the galaxy, not all of whom
have our best interests in mind. Discerning these different “voices”, monitoring
the seen and the unseen requires constant vigilance and awareness. Yet confusing
as it gets, I would not give it up for all the certainty, all the seeming security in
the world.