If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time spent in the trenches of human experience, it’s that we’ve been utterly and completely lied to about miracles. They aren’t the dramatic, parted-seas, water-into-wine kind of events we’ve been sold on since we were children. Those are just cosmic parlor tricks, the sort of flashy spectacle a divine being puts on to impress the easily distracted. The real miracles, the ones that hold any genuine weight, happen in the relentless, soul-crushing banality of our daily lives. They are the small, quiet, profoundly absurd moments that, if you’re paying attention, reveal the grand, cosmic joke of existence. As the great philosopher of the ordinary, G.K. Chesterton, once observed with his signature blend of wit and profundity, “The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.” He just forgot to add that they happen when your dryer doesn’t eat a sock, or when the coffee machine decides to work.
This isn’t about some watered-down, feel-good platitude. This is about a radical re-evaluation of what constitutes the holy. It’s about acknowledging that the divine isn’t just found in mountaintop epiphanies or whispered prayers in ancient cathedrals, but in the frustrating, hilarious, and often deeply humbling moments of everyday life. This is where our spirituality truly lives and breathes—not in the abstract, but in the gritty reality of a Tuesday afternoon.
Consider the minor, unassailable victory that is finding a parking spot directly in front of the post office on a Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. This isn’t a random occurrence; it’s a direct intervention from a higher power with a keen sense of irony. It’s God’s way of saying, “I see you, and I appreciate your struggle, but I’m not going to give you a winning lottery ticket. Here’s a parking spot. Enjoy your fifteen seconds of minor triumph.” And we do. We walk from our car with a slight swagger, as if we’ve just conquered a small piece of the universe as we proclaim out loud, for absolutely no one to hear, “rock star parking!” We’ve momentarily defied the laws of chaos and emerged victorious. That, my friends, is a miracle. It’s a fleeting moment of grace in a world that specializes in making us feel small and insignificant.
This is the very essence of optimism. Not the naive belief that everything will be perfect, but the resilient, stubborn conviction that even in the midst of overwhelming absurdity, there are small victories to be found. It’s the flicker of hope when the light turns green just as you approach the intersection, saving you from another soul-crushing minute of waiting. This isn’t a sign that your life is on a perfect path; it’s just a wink from a universe that, for a moment, decided to play nice.
And then there’s the truly profound, humanistic miracle of communication. Think about a child explaining a complex emotion using only a half-eaten lollipop and a profound stare. You’re sitting there, trying to figure out why they’re upset, and they just point, shove the sugary stick back in their mouth, and suddenly, you get it. The meaning transcends words. That’s not just communication; that’s a direct download of pure, unadulterated humanism. It’s the kind of a-ha moment that spiritual leaders spend their entire lives trying to replicate with incense and gongs. We, on the other hand, get it from a sticky, six-year-old guru. This is the essence of spirituality, not in some grand revelation, but in the messy, unfiltered truth of human connection. As Ralph Waldo Emerson, a man who knew a thing or two about the divine in the everyday, mused, “The sun shines today also.” He meant that the divine is always present, even if we are looking for lightning bolts in the sky when the real show is happening right in front of us.
Let’s not forget the absolute, unassailable miracle of your smartphone not autocorrecting “ducking” to something truly embarrassing in a text to your boss. That’s not just good luck; that’s a moment of grace. A small, digital reprieve from a chaotic and merciless universe. It’s a subtle reminder that while technology might be trying to undermine our every social interaction, there are still glimmers of hope. It’s a tiny victory in a long, losing war against our own devices, a perfect example of optimism in action. This is where humanism and technology awkwardly intersect, revealing the fragile humanity behind the cold, hard logic of the algorithm. It reminds us that for all our advancements, we are still prone to digital foibles, and our salvation often comes in the form of a successful predictive text.
The mundane is our sacred space. It is where our resilience is truly tested and where our faith, in whatever form it takes, is either solidified or shattered. It’s where we find the courage to get out of bed on a Monday morning, not because we expect some grand reward, but because the act itself is an act of defiance against apathy. It’s the spirituality of showing up. It’s the humanism of making the best of a bad situation. As the great absurdist Albert Camus understood, “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.” He was, of course, talking about pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity. But I think he’d agree that getting through a traffic jam with your sanity intact is a comparable feat.
We are so obsessed with the grand and the spectacular that we miss the profound. We wait for a burning bush while the universe is quietly setting fire to our toast, leaving us with a perfectly mundane and yet deeply meaningful burnt offering. The miracles of the mundane aren’t about defying the laws of physics. They’re about finding the divine in the ridiculous, the sacred in the silly, and a glimmer of hope in the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of it all. It’s a testament to our ability to find awe not in what is extraordinary, but in what is so pathetically, brilliantly ordinary. It’s a reminder that our spirituality isn’t found in grand pronouncements, but in the quiet, humble moments of everyday life. Our humanism isn’t just a philosophy; it’s a living practice of seeing the extraordinary in one another, and in ourselves, one mundane miracle at a time. It’s the simple act of looking at the messiness of our existence and saying, with a wry smile, “Well, isn’t that something?”
Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is our ability to find meaning in a universe that doesn’t seem to care. We are the meaning-makers, the narrators of our own absurd story. And in every parking spot, every autocorrect fail, and every perfectly toasted piece of bread, we are writing the next chapter of our sacred text. What else could you possibly need?
Justin Lockridge 
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