What Does a Miracle Look Like?

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle. - Albert Einstein

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle. - Paulo Coelho

Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds. - Norman Vincent Peale

As someone who has been writing a personal journal for over 30 years, I find it interesting to thumb through the pages of my history and smile at the musings of someone who struggled with things that don’t seem large to me now, someone who cherished victories that paled in comparison to future wins and someone who struggled with the things he witnessed during his many years working on various “interesting” projects.  As one grows through Life experience, it can often seem like one is reading about the journey of a different person.

A lot of people are fascinated by what someone with my background would write in my journals and some have gone out of their way to find ways to obtain them just to take a peek.  Occasionally, some have succeeded and have obtained insight into how I think, what I think about and who I associate with.

Some have said “thanks, I will never sleep again” when seeing the details of some of the projects I have worked on, frightened by things I stopped worrying about a long time ago.

And some have even added funny footnotes that I still cherish when I read them (thanks, Darrell M. – it only took you two years of trying).

In the challenging times that we face in the world today, a world filled with unlimited potential and great uncertainty at the same time, thousands of people write to me with the classic “I don’t know why I am telling a stranger this but ….” and then proceed to ask for guidance regarding a great challenge before them.

While I answer the occasional note that really tugs at my heart or where I have some useful context, I cannot answer all of them even though I wish I could honor their trust and transparency with a reply.  However, as I read some similar emails this morning, I feel compelled to share an entry in my journal that I wrote at a particularly difficult time in my Life.

Here it is - unedited, raw, grammatically imperfect and in the words of a cold, heartless, ruthless, analytical Wall St. / government / military strategy advisor. 

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What Does A Miracle Look Like?

This roller coaster has felt insane but while it is only in the last few years or so, I see that the seeds necessary to produce it were planted many years before.

It took a while to produce fruit then.

By the same token, seeds necessary to produce a better harvest don’t produce fruit overnight either.

One takes time to produce the critical mass to knock you off the rails.

One takes time to produce the energy required to lift you back upon the rails.

One cannot be ignorant of the first and be impatient with the second.

And in the germinating of the seeds to recovery also comes the lessons required to avoid repeating the mistakes and sins committed or some variant of them.

Meanwhile, the bad side also has momentum and even if one is doing the right things now, it take a while for the bad stuff to coast to a halt or at least slow down long enough for “the good side” to get a grip, to begin to exert influence to change the direction or to produce a better harvest.

And so while I know I am a good person, the fact that it’s taking some time for recovery to take place must never allow me to undermine my sense that I am a good person or to give up.

While difficulty appeared to be instant, unprovoked and out of the blue, it was years in the making.

How can I expect healing to be any different?

I press forward – for myself, my family, my friends and my legacy of service to others.

Time, faith, lessons learned (and applied), friendship, love and support do heal all wounds.

In the meantime, I, like the farmer who sows his seeds in the spring, need to tend the garden patiently and diligently until the harvest arrives …. in faith that it always does.

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Dedicated to the people who possess the courage to share their innermost feelings, fears, needs and desires with a complete stranger.

Your miracles are coming. 

They may not look like what you think you need or what you asked for but they are coming and they are exactly what you need.

Be ready.

Be strong.

Remember.

In service and servanthood,

Harry (a miracle participant)

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Addendum – Faith and Prayer – April 30, 2014

I was speaking to someone the other day about the Rosary and discovered that while they had been taught the Mysteries of the Rosary, they had not been taught their meaning.

We were discussing the Sorrowful Mysteries which are known to Roman Catholics as:

• Agony in the Garden
• Scourging at the Pillar
• Crowning With Thorns
• Carrying of the Cross
• The Crucifixion

But I am surprised to discover how many Roman Catholics have not been taught the subjects to reflect upon for these Mysteries and thus an important element of the Rosary is missed.

The meanings for the Sorrowful Mysteries are:

• Agony in the Garden – Repentance for sins and mistakes (what have I learned)
• Scourging at the Pillar – For a spirit of mortification (accepting sacrifices until difficult times pass)
• Crowing With Thorns – For moral courage
• Carrying of the Cross – For patience
• The Crucifixion – For grace during the most difficult of times / final perseverance

I thought this might be an appropriate and useful reminder for Roman Catholics who have written me over the years in regards to prayer during difficult times.

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The 13th Principle of Overcoming Adversity

Last week, I wrote about The 12 Principles of Overcoming Adversity and was overwhelmed by the email responses to it.

While I haven’t gotten through the many emails I have received, a significant percentage of respondents had a question in common that I would paraphrase as follows:

After years of a good, great or successful Life, these things are hard to believe in when Life suddenly seems to get stuck.  Why is this and what should I do about it?

I remember reflecting upon this in my Life when I wondered why things suddenly seemed to stop moving and then I came across something that answered the question for me.

Of the many times I have made presentations, there were a couple of times when the coordinators of the events checked out my background (which is not unusual).

However, what was interesting was that when I arrived they were startled to see that I was perhaps 20+ years younger than they expected.  Each time, the coordinators made comments along the lines of expecting someone much older and how I had obviously compressed a lot of living into my Life.

And so when I became “stuck”, I wondered why someone with so much “success” had suddenly “paused”.

That was when I came across this quote by John O’Donohue which contains a hint to the 13th Principle of Overcoming Adversity:

“Many people who are secretly weary of work have never taken themselves time, or taken time out or away from work, to allow their spirits to catch up”.

<substitute any word for “work”, depending on your own circumstances>

This statement was a punch between the eyes for me.

While my early Life was a whirlwind of success by many people’s standards, I never slowed down to ask questions like:

What does this mean?

What can I do with this ?

Where do I want to take this?

And I never slowed down to express what might have been a better expression of gratitude.

As T.S Eliot wrote in “Four Quartets”:

“We had the experience but missed the meaning”

With that realization, it occurred to me that my “pause” was the Universe / God’s way of saying “You must understand the lessons from your Life up to now in order to proceed”.

And while many of my professional projects have checkpoints to determine how the project should continue, I had missed this principle when it came to my personal Life and how it should continue.

So to those who feel stuck, perhaps the downtime is actually not the negative event that you perceive it to be but is in fact breathing room - a pause to provide your mind and soul with an opportunity to catch up to where you are physically.

This pause can be a double-edged sword.

You can dwell upon the “pause”, increasing your frustration level and tearing yourself apart to figure out why your Life has taken an unwanted detour.

Or you can say thank you for the downtime, take the time to learn the lessons from your past, express gratitude for those lessons and then decide what your next adventure looks like.  While a sense of urgency may tell you that it is insane to roll with this pause, it has been my experience and the experience of many I have spoken to that if you fight the pause, the resistance gets greater.

However, that does not mean that you stop taking action altogether.

I would compare this experience to getting caught in a riptide (which I have personally experienced).  You don’t swim against the riptide since eventually you will become exhausted and drown, fighting against a force much stronger than you are.

And if you stop swimming altogether, you drown also.

However, if you swim parallel to the shore, you eventually swim free of the force that threatens to drag you out to sea and you can make it safely to shore ….. ready to resume the Journey that is your Life.

And so to those who expressed frustration or anxiety over being stuck, I offer this.

The next adventure in your Life might be new success on the existing Path of Life or it might involve embarking upon a whole new Path.

In order to continue on the Journey, the knowledge from one’s past must be understood and appreciated without fighting the process required to accomplish this.  In order to reach this understanding, the desired execution of your Life sometimes needs to take a breather while your soul / mind / sense of understanding catch up to where you are.

Life is calling you to swim parallel to the shore for a little bit instead of swimming against the tide.

Be grateful for that opportunity, embrace it and take advantage of it.

The next step of your Journey requires it and won’t happen or will be delayed until you have learned the lessons required to set out again upon the Path.

And therein lies the secret of the 13th Principle and what you are called to do with it for yourself and others once you discover it. 

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The 12 Principles of Overcoming Adversity

I have been blessed and honored by many people who reach out to me when they are experiencing personal or professional difficulties. 

There is also a running joke amongst some of my friends who know how many times I have been stopped in the streets of New York and elsewhere by complete strangers who, needing help, walked up to me and opened a conversation with a line similar to “Excuse me, Reverend ……”.

The one thing that I prefer to share with people who ask for help are personal stories that I have lived, to help give others context that “I know your pain and this is how I know”.  I’m not merely spouting clichés or repeating something I just read and people are often simultaneously startled and appreciative of my transparency.

A few of those stories came to mind the other day as I was reviewing some items in my journal.  With that in mind, I thought I would share my top twelve favorite principles that I share with others when asked for help.

Here they are, in no particular order and not representing an exhaustive list.

The 12 Principles

1. Be patient with everyone and everything, especially yourself.  Not everything can be directed exactly as we want it and exactly when we want it to be.  There will be moments of weakness.  You are not human if you don’t know what I am referring to.

2. Remember to express gratitude for the small things around you.  If you can’t be grateful for the small stuff, why should you be entrusted with bigger things?

3. Have faith that things will work out, because they always do, often despite our best efforts to the contrary.

4. Remember the importance of the universal laws that “you must ask to receive” and that “you must answer the door when opportunity knocks – opportunity doesn’t kick it down for you and drag you out kicking and screaming”.

5. It is critical to follow your bliss and not bend to someone else’s, personally or professionally.

6. Miracles come from unexpected sources when least expected and often at the last minute.  Even to atheists and agnostics. :-)

7. Perseverance sometimes requires you to do nothing.  Doing nothing is sometimes equally as important as doing something.  Silence matters.

8. My corollary to the previous point.  We should take action when we can, even if all we can muster is not as much as we would like.  Action matters – perfection is not always required.

9. There is always a lot of love around us but we need to be open to receiving it and the help that often accompanies it.

10. The world doesn’t owe you a damn thing but it sure has a lot to offer if you want to step up, assert your value / worthiness and take it.  If you don’t, someone else will.

11. Lessons, no matter how painful, repeat at difficult or inconvenient times until we “get it”, often with an ever-increasing frequency and sense of urgency (or sense of “pain”).

I wish I could identify the easiest or most difficult one to learn or which one was most important but I cannot since different combinations were woven together at different times.  However, if I were to pick the one that seemed most common in my own Life, it is #11. :-)

Ah yes, I promised twelve reasons.

Here is the twelfth.

12. In your uniqueness, there will be lessons learned that are unique to you.  Treasure them and share them with others when you can.  In our difficult times comes our greatest learning opportunities – about Life, about others and about ourselves. You will look back on the difficult times with a sense of gratitude at some point.

I wrote this blog with one person in mind – that person knows who they are.

To others, I would like to offer this long distance dedication.

I dedicate this musing to the people who helped me to learn these lessons (way too many to name here), to the people who are learning their lessons now and to those who have not yet been “blessed” with the opportunity to do so but who will probably be forced to at some point in their Life.

Take care and create a great day for yourself and others, because merely having one is too passive an experience.

In service and servanthood,

“Reverend” Harry :-)

Addendum – August 16, 2013

For those who are exploring where they are on their journey, the book “Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom” by John O’Donohue is a HIGHLY recommended read.  Please have a highlighter handy – you will need it.

Addendum – August 18, 2013

After a heavy response to this blog, I felt compelled to muse about The 13th Principle of Overcoming Adversity.

When Disclosure Becomes a Problem

I know of a businessman with a very difficult problem.

He is sitting on a dream business deal that will serve him well and which is, in fact, one that he and his family needs desperately.

Despite the possibility that it is a deal “made in heaven”, there is one problem.

In order for him to consummate the deal, he needs to disclose personal and professional details that he has been keeping secret for a long time. The difficulty is that the details will frighten the people who rely on him and they are an embarrassment to him from the perspective of his peers.  That’s what he thinks and his perspective is his reality.

If he could only get past what he thinks others will think of him in the short term, executing the deal will free him of all his problems in the long term.  But he can’t get past what he expects will happen to him in the short term and so he remains paralyzed … needing to do something and being afraid to do something at the same time.

Meanwhile on a global level

I wonder if senior politicians, especially in the G8 / G20, are caught in the same difficult position.

Think of the following challenges in the world that they deal with on a daily basis:

• population growth and the Earth’s ability (or inability) to sustain our ever-increasing population
• global climate change, regardless of the cause
• the shell game (some would say Ponzi scheme) that is the modern global economics engine
• the ever-increasing difficulties we face with easily obtained fresh, clean water
• the challenge with running out of “clean” oil as we are forced to rely more on oil sands-type oil or difficult, controversial extraction techniques such as fracking or SAGD
• growing concerns about technological singularity, the notion that at some point, technology will gain enough self-awareness that it may determine that we are no longer needed or wanted
• ever-increasing concern about the threat from terrorists and how our efforts are often one step behind theirs instead of the other way around
• growing concerns about the safety of our food supply, whether it is the debate over GMO, food additives, preservation techniques, impact on the soil, etc.
• the difficulty of finding the balance between personal privacy and national security
• the threat that exists from our nuclear weapons stockpile, not only from a nation wilfully using such weapons but the threat of accidental detonation or a hacker compromising or launching them
• other concerns, including natural events (of terrestrial or off-terrestrial origin) or other concerns that specific government / military groups monitor but don’t speak about publicly.

What do the experts say?

For every “expert” who claims that these are not real challenges or are challenges that have already been solved, there is another “expert” who claims that there is no evidence that any such solutions have been found.

And the political leaders stand in the middle, facing the dilemma of having to choose between leading their nation, attempting to solve problems that are not easily solvable (if at all) versus being reduced to being a public relations officer, peddling “the good news” that all is well in the world, now and forever.

I am, of course, ignoring the politicians who are merely in it for their own benefit. They are human, after all. :-)

The businessman I referred to earlier will influence a few people with his dilemma, whether the influence comes from continued paralysis or execution.  A small number of people will pay the price or benefit as a result of his choices, no matter which way he goes.

The same is not true for politicians.

Seeing it from their perspective, is it better to leave the masses “fat, dumb and happy” as the expression goes, leaving “stuff” for the masses to figure out later when it hits them in the face or should we panic millions of people now without having a solution in-hand?

I don’t know what the right answer is.

It is true that we can’t fix something unless we bring it out into the open and with that thought in mind, it is easy to be critical of those who hold secrets.

It is, however, also true that sometimes things are a lot uglier when they are brought out into the light and we then wish we had never exposed them at all.

Either way, cognitive dissonance cannot be cured nor does it go away by merely ignoring the pain one feels when difficult choices need to be made.

Ignorance can be bliss or it can be fatal

Successfully overcoming our challenges depends on how late we wait before addressing them and how creative and unified we can be when we need to be.

As long as we don’t wait too long.

In service and servanthood,

Harry