Michael and I were watching TV last night, in the family room, and we both heard noises from upstairs, like someone walking around up there. The floors always creak. Michael looked at me, his eyes wide.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yep.” We both looked at Lola, asleep on the sofa. It wasn’t her. If a person had been making the noise she would’ve been barking her head off. She was sound asleep.
There was no other human being or living creature in the house except Mother, and her room is on the first floor.
These noises clearly came from upstairs.
“What made that noise?” Michael asked me.
“It was a ghost,” I said cheerfully.
Of course, it could’ve been the wind. It could’ve been the house just making noise – it’s an old house, built in 1968.
I prefer to believe it was a ghost.
my old house, on a rare snowy day
Years ago I had a work friend who would never let her children trick or treat or even use the word “Halloween” because her pastor told her it was sinful to celebrate the pagan holiday. [Never mind that a Christmas tree is actually pagan and we celebrate the day on a formerly pagan holiday…]
I’m sure she saved a lot of money on candy, but I’m equally sure that her children didn’t benefit from her refusal to acknowledge Halloween.
Children need to believe in magic.
How can we tell children about the miracles in the bible and yet tell them there is no magic in the world? What about the Holy Spirit?
Children have finely-tuned bullshit meters because the world hasn’t completely brainwashed them into rationalizing everything unpleasant or scary.
me at age 7, with Barbie of course
My grandmother saw a vision of my grandfather after he died, sitting next to her bed. That brought her great comfort.
Was she dreaming? Was she delusional?
Maybe. I cannot say scientifically exactly what she saw or if it was really my grandfather’s ghost sitting there but so what? God sent her that ghost/dream/delusion or whatever because she needed to see him. She found the strength to keep going because she believed he was there with her. She was reassured.
Reassurance is key to human beings.
This past spring, cardinals took up residence in my backyard. Sometimes they were in the front yard. It seemed like every time I walked outside or looked outside I saw a cardinal. This gave me great comfort in a dark time. I’ve read in many sources that cardinals are messengers of comfort from someone who has passed. My spring was really stressful -- not feeling good, then needing the pacemaker surgery and then trying to recuperate. The past 6 months have been very difficult. The cardinals helped me to not give in to fear or sadness. So are they really messengers? Who knows. I was comforted by their presence. That’s all that really matters.
I haven’t seen many cardinals recently, though.
I also consider rainbows reassuring. I reached down to pick up the TV remote yesterday morning and found myself staring straight at a small rainbow on the carpet of the family room. The colors were vivid. Again, I felt comforted. Thank you God.
my grandparents with my mom and her brothers, about 1940?
I am always amazed when people say they believe in God, and they believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but they don’t believe in ghosts or anything supernatural.
How can you believe in a divine presence that cannot be experienced with the five senses and NOT believe in the supernatural?! Seems contradictory, to me.
OK my fundamentalist friends, how do Miracles figure into your worldview then?
The bible talks about Miracles all the time. Jesus was responsible for 37 Miracles. There were apparently more than that, but they didn’t all get recorded.
Today, we might call Jesus a magician, and search for how he tricked us. Of course, his final trick, rising from the dead, beats everything else by a mile.
I don’t mean to make light of the miracles in the bible. I simply want to point out that if we close our minds to magic and to miracles, we lose a lot of what makes life interesting and bearable.
I think there may be spirits in my house, and that’s fine by me.
I have asked God for miracles in my life and he has granted them -- like years ago when I asked him to give me a family, and he came through with my beautiful children.
A few days before my pacemaker surgery, I dreamed that I was in a house at the beach, and all around me were my relatives who are in heaven – my dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. I was very happy to be there, and yet I couldn’t interact with them. I think it was God’s way of telling me it wasn’t my time yet. They are all waiting for me, and I will rejoice when I can finally see them again, but I still have work to do here on earth.
The creaking floors of this house, the cardinals in the yard, the rainbows I see in unexpected places – they all remind me there is a loving God and he sends us signs, all the time, no matter how dark things seem. We just have to pay attention.
Don’t close your mind to the magic, or you might never think to ask for the miracles.
me and my two miracles, Christmas 2010
