The Miraculous is a Mode of Thought

An episode of the Speakings podcast, hosted by Sondra Charbadze, titled "The Miraculous is a Mode of Thought" was published on August 16, 2023 and runs 16 minutes.

August 16, 2023 ·16m · Speakings

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Summary

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠comment ⁠here⁠⁠. I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link. The key points in this "speaking": Is the miraculous simply a supernatural happening? Like God is a supernatural entity? Richard Rohr’s distinction between Jesus of Nazareth and the universal Christ: Jesus as a pattern, archetype, and meme. Beliefs are about facts, which refer to objects in the world. But the whole of reality is no object at all, and so cannot be captured by beliefs. A particular spiritual framework is not about facts, but is a lens through which one sees the world, or a way of cleaning the lens of perception (though most modern religious people do not understand this and make religion about facts, thereby falling into irrational beliefs). A lens is always clear and silent. If you see your glasses lenses, it's because they have a smudge that needs to be cleaned. Perhaps this is the origin of the sense of the sacred in religious belief: one senses that to make the lens an object (i.e. by taking off the glasses and examining them) is to be blind while one does so, or to abandon the very lens that you are examining. To speak of the sacred is to always distort it, though sometimes these distortions are necessary. In the same way, the miracle is not a supernatural happening. Rather, the miraculous and the mundane are relative modes of sight, always conditioned by context. We can learn to see the world as miraculous. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future topics, you can email me at [email protected]. You can also check out my website at ⁠www.sondrawriter.com⁠, where you'll find my essays and links to ⁠my memoir⁠. Music is L'épisode cévenol by Circus Marcus, from the Free Music Archive. License type: CC BY-NC.

Episode Description

You can find the synopsis of this episode, further notes, and a convenient place to ⁠comment ⁠here⁠⁠. I will also periodically update my thoughts on this episode's content at that same link.

The key points in this "speaking":

Is the miraculous simply a supernatural happening? Like God is a supernatural entity?

Richard Rohr’s distinction between Jesus of Nazareth and the universal Christ: Jesus as a pattern, archetype, and meme.

Beliefs are about facts, which refer to objects in the world. But the whole of reality is no object at all, and so cannot be captured by beliefs.
A particular spiritual framework is not about facts, but is a lens through which one sees the world, or a way of cleaning the lens of perception (though most modern religious people do not understand this and make religion about facts, thereby falling into irrational beliefs).
A lens is always clear and silent. If you see your glasses lenses, it's because they have a smudge that needs to be cleaned. Perhaps this is the origin of the sense of the sacred in religious belief: one senses that to make the lens an object (i.e. by taking off the glasses and examining them) is to be blind while one does so, or to abandon the very lens that you are examining. To speak of the sacred is to always distort it, though sometimes these distortions are necessary.
In the same way, the miracle is not a supernatural happening. Rather, the miraculous and the mundane are relative modes of sight, always conditioned by context.
We can learn to see the world as miraculous.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future topics, you can email me at [email protected]. You can also check out my website at ⁠www.sondrawriter.com⁠, where you'll find my essays and links to ⁠my memoir⁠.

Music is L'épisode cévenol by Circus Marcus, from the Free Music Archive. License type: CC BY-NC.