In the film Religulous, a Christian Jew named Steve Burg explained to Bill Maher that he believed in God because God did miracles. As an example, Burg said he once held a cup out the window and asked God to fill it with rain. In a few minutes, it started pouring. Maher's reply was that if that happened to him, he wouldn't think it was a miracle; he would just think it was raining.
If Maher thought Burg was naive, he would really think I was incredulous. Why do I believe in God? Because of the stuff that keeps happening to me, like the other day. I'm back from Saudi Arabia now, hanging out in Monterey CA, and I've been driving my wife and daughter to work in the morning. Last Friday, daughter says she will drive herself and mom to work, because she wants to have lunch with mom. Then daughter asks if I will drive mom to work first and come back, and then daughter will leave with the car (giving daughter a few minutes extra sleep). I say fine, drive wife to work, and come home. As daughter is about to leave with the car, wife calls to say she she needs the car later in the morning; can I drive daughter to work, leave the car off at wife's location, and walk home? I again say fine. So I'm driving daughter to work, and she wants to go through Starbucks drive-thru to get a cup of coffee. I suggest we don't have time, because wife needs the car in just a few minutes; maybe we can just stop off at the East Village Cafe which is closer, and daughter can run in and get her brew. She does so, and while I'm waiting for her I scan my way through the AM radio channels and hear the local station interviewing a musician named Mike Beck. He sings a song he wrote about an Army girl in Iraq called Amanda Come Home. I really like the song, and after it's over the interviewer says Mike and his band will be playing at a local bar that night. Wife, daughter, and I go to hear them and stay until midnight. It gives me a chance to do two things I love; listen to good live music and support small town American talent.
And that's why I believe in God. If any of the elements of the story above had fallen out of sync, the whole thing wouldn't have happened.
OK, Bill, I know it's so weak you could poke holes through it with a garden rake. But that's the way it is.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Recognizing miracles is half the joy! BTW, "Amanda Come Home" is one of my own Mike Beck favorites too.
That was lovely. It is all in one's perspective. When one's perspective is up, the miraculous is just God being God, when the perspective is toward ourselves, there is no God, only nature, and nothing special about that.
Interesting. I'm going to think about it for a while.
Thanks.
Post a Comment