the mystery

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.--Thich Nhat Hanh: 

sometimes i think we've lost the mystery.

we are uncomfortable with what we can not explain- we are so trustful of our minds and chose them over all else.  one of the best things about kids is there comfort with the magical- their desire for it-their need of it.  it makes me wonder if we are socializing away from the truth- away from the places of miracle.  children hold on to it- and slowly, it fades away.

this time of the year especially, and at the ages of 4 and 6 and yes, even 12 (but it is zoe) the magical comes into question.

i hear the kids conversations in the back seat of the car where early logic meets faith.
"but everyone knows he can't fit down the chimney, so he uses the door."
"yeah and sometimes there isn't even a chimney."
"but does he really have reindeer?  and do they really fly?"

several times this week i've been asked the dreaded question, "mommy is santa real?"
this pains me.
maybe i'm over thinking it, but i feel like i'm torn between looking my child in the eyes and lying to him or, alternatively and probably worse, stealing the pure joy of possibility and mystery from his precious little heart.  this is where it begins.

and it slowly fades away.  oh the loss of it.

so as parents, this time of the year makes us question the absoluteness of truth-telling and appreciate the complexity of moral ethics.  but we also go through our own faith vs. logic battle.  instead of the existence of a man dressed in red, we struggle with whether a baby could also be God, and how a virgin could give birth. we are quick to denounce the mystery of Jesus, the miracle of the transcendence of the spiritual into the ordinary.  we like to keep the beauty of a snowy night, a bright star, a young family on a donkey, some wise men.  but that is often where it is left and we just celebrate the guy in the red suit flying through the night sky and putting presents under our tree.   

but don't we still crave the mystery?  i do. and i still believe fully in miracles- small ones and big ones.  as a medical student, a resident, a friend and a mother, i've been to many, many births.  and even though i understand and can teach the biology of the creation and growth of a fetus and it's maturation to a full term baby, every time i've watched a baby born, i've cried.  because there is something you can't describe in the biology that is so clearly present at birth and so clearly absent right after death- a soul.  the mystery of the life inside us.

this time of the year is ripe for returning to that place of our original selves.  to embrace our children's vision that maybe there is more to life than we can see with our eyes, or even understand with our minds.  to believe that all around us is miracle and magic if we look- if we chose to engage in the possibility.

let's hold tight to the mystery.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.—Unknown

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time. --T.S. Eliot

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. --Bob Dylan