It's a miracle! It's a miracle!

My father is not unusual among the faithful, whatever their religion might be, with a selective bias in tagging some fortunate developments as miracles while referring to the unfortunate ones--from deaths of children to natural disasters--as simply a variation of "god's will hath no why."

But, more than once in my younger years, father has commented about how even everyday happenings can be miracles.  Like when a friendly face swings by when we feel down. A neighbor knocking on the door only to share some sweets. A good Samaritan's act.

Father's logic was that if a god--imagine Kali, for instance--were to appear in front of people, well, most would run in fear and that, therefore, god sends these human messengers instead.

As an agnostic, and then as an atheist who came out of the religious closet, I never cared for the godly explanations.  But, I do agree with him that miracles happen every single day.

They happen all the time.

As she started her medical schooling, my daughter remarked more than once that given how delicate and complex the human anatomy and biochemistry are, it is a miracle that more of us are not dying all the time.

When I saw those bright stars up in the sky on a dark Tanzanian night, those sparkling lights above seemed like miracles.

A pretty young woman smiling at me is always a miracle.  Heck, any woman smiling at me is a miracle!

The Willamette River and the blackberries are miracles.

In my interpretations, that is what Walt Whitman wrote about:

Miracles
by Walt Whitman 

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of  the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night  with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer  forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.  

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with  the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves— the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?                                  source