October 2020 — pg. 15
Some months ago I found myself doing a bit of
research. You know what that means these days don’t you?
Googling! I was googling my way around the internet
seeing what I could turn up about miracles. I clicked on the
“images” tab to see what might surface in response to my
“miracles” query.
As I scrolled, one image jumped out at me. The photograph
captured the scene of a late evening winter landscape in the
center of which stood a scaffold-like structure, perhaps 15
feet high. Affixed to the scaffolding was a series of all caps
letters forming words, each letter formed by a series of clear
bright lightbulbs. These beacons of light shining in the
darkness formed a sentence so stunning it took my breath
away. The sign said:
THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE.
The audacity and boldness of such a public proclamation
scandalized me. It turns out the sign was one of six public
announcements posted around the town of Stirling,
Scotland, as part of an art project by Nathan Coley. The
inscription, “THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE,”
was taken from a 17th century royal proclamation made
in a French town believed to have been the site of frequent
miracles.
I can’t get the sign out of my mind. It haunts me and yet in
a good way. It has me wondering about things like — what if
we had a similar sign on the front lawn of all of our churches
that said ...
THERE WILL BE MIRACLES HERE.
What if we had such a sign posted in the front yards of
our homes?
Let that settle over you a bit. I mean, why wouldn’t we do
such a bold and audacious thing?
WAYPOINT:
Let’s ask ourselves the questions. One of these signs
(albeit invisible) is posted in all of our churches
and, yes, over all of our homes. Everything we
do and say communicates one sign or the other.
Which is it in your case?
We tend to think of miracles as rare, exceptional and
extraordinary happenings that defy the natural laws and
normal order of things. We approach miracles as though
they were exceptions to the rule. But what if this kind of
thinking is exactly backwards. What if miracles were the
rule and the absence of miracles, the exception? I guess the
bigger question is what is our theology of the miraculous?
Whether we have thought it through or articulated it clearly,
we all do have a theology of miracles. Whether visible or
not, each one of us has one of the two signs posted over our
lives. Which is it for you: THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES
HERE or THERE WILL BE MIRACLES HERE?
+ Photograph by Ghost of Kuji/Flickr
/there-will-be-no-miracles-here