As all of us impressionable kids sat on those rocks, in awe of this breathtaking moment, the counselor quietly said, "you are all witnessing a miracle."
He then proceeded to explain how everything before our eyes was a miracle in itself: the daily cycle of a sunrise to a sunset, the thousands of trees in the belly of this canyon, the millions of stars above our heads, and each one of us sitting there that night experiencing this sacred daily event.
Maybe the most profound statement that night was being told how each of us was a miracle. It was a statement that has literally stuck with me all of these years.
The most cynical of men can excuse our existence as nothing more than a meaningless series of luck and coincidences but I will never reduce my life or yours to some dogmatic principle based on a lack of faith or disbelief.
We are miracles. Each of us.
Consider the life cycle. We are carried inside our mother's womb for 9 months to the point of finally entering this physical world. From infancy to adolescence to young adults to adults to our twilight years.
Each of us stamped with our own thumbprint to never be duplicated again.
We are not random numbers. We are uniquely created; each of us with a purpose, filled with significance and worth.
I think of every person who has ever crossed my path; even those who exited life well before their potential was ever realized.
I think of an alcoholic best friend who opened his heart to unloved kids and stared each of them in the face and told them you are indeed loved, you are indeed noticed. I think how great a burden it must be to quietly be tormented with your own lack of self-worth while trying to save everyone else as he himself was drowning.
I think of the best person I know. A woman who was not supposed to survive beyond a few hours after entering this world due to an erratic and rapid heartbeat. Now, here she is impacting everyone's lives she delicately attempts to help.
Miracles. The alcoholic best friend who lost his battle against himself. The woman who still struggles with a rapid heartbeat yet lives life as if her heart can handle anything.
I think of you. Each person who kindly shares a piece of his or her life with me here on this lonely island we call a community.
I don't think of miracles in terms of changing water to wine or raising someone from the dead.
I think miracles are much simpler in design yet unrecognized by our cynical minds.
Look at each loved one in your life. Think of all of the circumstances that had to take place for them to be in your life. Tiny miracles that resulted in a larger more recognizable one.
November 2007, a miracle walked into my life. I could chalk it up to a series of coincidences and good fortune but for me to do that, I would have to diminish her relevance and meaning in my life.
And I sit here in October, 2009, knowing that her mere presence in my life is more life changing than a simple water to wine miracle.
Sometimes, I stumble into those God does not exist blogs and I shake my head. What a sad existence to believe there is no purpose in life. What a hopeless belief system to believe that we are merely random numbers without a creator; without a carefully thought out blueprint.
But what I do see when I read those blogs by atheists are miracles. It is a miracle to have a Creator that allows us to accept or deny Him.
Some people need to experience a water to wine miracle before they grasp a simple principle as faith and label it a miracle.
Personally, I think water alone is a miracle.
I will wake up tomorrow, God willing, and that will be a miracle.
Life is too short to wait for some large miraculous event. There are tiny miracles all around us.
As I sat on those rocks at the edge of the Mogollon Rim in 7th grade; watching the sunset, our counselor used the idiomatic phrase, "you can't see the forest for its trees."
Thirty years later, I get it.
We are so overly concerned with detail, we miss the larger picture.
Life is a forest made up of miracles called trees.
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