ORLANDO. For the past 64 days, I have been posting A Miracle A Day with an intention to remind all of us that miracles are all around us, awaiting our discovery, ready to lift us to a higher perspective in which all of life is seen and experienced as a miracle.  And then there was Orlando. Your heart may be asking, “where is the miracle today?” I for one have given it a great deal of thought over the past few days.

Apparently when Einstein said “there are two ways in which to live your life, one as if nothing is a miracle, the other as if everything is a miracle,” he wasn’t aware of a world in which mass shootings of innocent people had become commonplace. Apparently he was not aware of a world in which hatred, judgment, violence and vengeance ran rampant. But wait!  He did. Einstein lived through World War II, a war born of hatred and mass genocide.  Visiting the U.S. when Hitler rose to power Einstein never returned to his war torn homeland.  Still, he was able to recognize the possibility that life would be better, more harmonious, more joyful if one could discover a miracle in everything.

As the U.S. reels with the tragedy of the Orlando shootings the impact is bound to give rise to feelings of anger and outrage. Vengeance may peek its head out of dark places in the mind. But none of these emotions or reactions will end this violent cycle in human history. “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only Love can do that,” orates Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Apparently Doctor King did not live during such times either. But wait! He did. He lived during a time of extreme racial discrimination and intense hatred, so much so that he was assassinated for his efforts to drive out hatred and bring us to a new level of tolerance and acceptance.

What Einstein and Dr, King had in common was the ability to look beyond the visible, beyond the current circumstance to a greater vision, one in which everything is whole and everything is a miracle. And they lived their lives in accordance with their vision.

Perhaps the miracle we can observe today is leaders such as these who have graced our lives with a message of great vision and who lived according to it. Perhaps it is the people right here and now who will not be shaken and will not give up on a world awakening to love. Perhaps it is the law enforcement responders who risked their lives to stop the horror. Perhaps it is the survivor who risked his life to help another out of the terrifying chaos or to do his best to stop the bleeding. Perhaps it is in the courage of those who found a way to survive, to assist the law enforcement responders with clandestine text messages. Perhaps it is in the hearts of loved ones who have lost a precious person in their lives but will somehow find a way to forgive, not the violence, not the hatred, but the spiritual essence of a perpetrator so encased in darkness that he could express none of the Light in himself, only hatred. Perhaps it is in the hearts of each of as we refuse to give up, as we refuse to accept a world asleep. Perhaps it is in our refusal to accept that more violence will answer our cry for peace. Perhaps it is in the knowing there IS indeed a way to live in harmony and the refusal to give up hope until it is realized. Perhaps it is in the place within our hearts where an awareness of the oneness of all things pulls us to a higher vision. Perhaps it is in the commitment we make to ensure a safer world not only through legislation, but through education and the modeling of tolerance, acceptance and love. Perhaps it is in a commitment to starve hatred and feed love.  Perhaps it is simply to hold a vision greater than what appears before us until that vision takes form and holds each of us. Perhaps it is in the realization that the vision is God and has been holding us all along.

©2016. Reverend Eileen Patra