Pioneer Miracles

Miracles are in the eye of the beholder. When I was a faithful missionary, I saw many miracles having to do with healing. Now that I look back on it with my Atheist eyes, I believe they had nothing to do with God. Was I right then or am I right now? It depends on who you ask.

As one who experienced what I thought were miracles at the time, I can tell you that faithful people will see miracles happen around them. That doesn’t mean that they will happen in a specific case where we want it to happen. It’s sort of like claiming that deja vu doesn’t happen because I can’t produce it when I most need it.

This is very similar to the catalyst for my own faith crisis.

In order to maintain my emotional health I have had to diminish my belief in an interventionist God. This means that I view most stories of the miraculous as coincidence, self fulfilling prophecy, perception, or some combination of the above.

I do not preclude unexplainable good fortune happening. It does sometimes. But I don’t feel like I can depend on it or reliably repeat it and so it doesn’t form a part of my world view.

In support of my worldview, I noticed some journal entries from JS where Emma was sick. They baptized her in the Mississippi and she felt better. The next day she was worse. I believe that some of what is reported to us as pioneer miracles is like the above scenario.

As a complete tangent – In a book of historical fiction by Anita Stansfield there is a conversation between JS and Emma about why JS could seemingly heal others while their own children died. Joseph’s fictional response was something to the effect that God gave him spiritual knowledge of who should live and who should die. If I were Emma – I would be ticked!

I tried searching the archives but only came across 17 miracles one. Why don’t we have miracles of healing these days? Is it because we don’t’ talk about them or do they not happen? Were those pioneer miracles made up? or did they look at things differently and perceive things differently.

In the director’s commentary for 17 miracles they discuss how they do not have a list of the 17 miracles. Two people could watch the same movie and arrive at 17 differently or even arrive at different numbers of miracles. Would one person’s list be more right than another? Would it matter if something that you felt was miraculous was part of the creative license of the movie making process and had no basis in historical events?

I was talking to a friend who lost her son a few months ago. Her faith is shaken to the core, as is her husbands. My heart goes out to them and breaks for the things well meaning members are saying to them at church. Such as “God has an amazing lesson for you through this trial”.

I believe it comes down to this. I minimize, downplay, and even sometimes dismiss people’s belief in the world of the miraculous to validate my painful experience. I believe that well meaning individuals may minimize, downplay, and even sometimes dismiss people’s negative experiences to validate their belief in the world of the miraculous.

One is not necessarily more noble than the other. I believe that both are part of human nature.

My advice regarding this couple is to listen like you have perhaps never listened before. Be willing to be accepting and supportive of their feelings and thoughts even if thay don’t match with your own. They need a true friend right now.

We overlook the miracles amongst us.

The very fact you exist and can reason about existence is a miracle.

The very fact that we did not perish in a nuclear war between 1950 and 1990 is a miracle. So is the fact we have not been flattened by a comet.

Healings happen ALL the time. All living humans have experienced it at some point.

If we cannot see the miracles around us, we can’t see the bigger ones.

I have a hard time believing in stories such as a lady going around a large rock to find fresh baked apple pies to feed her family to get through a long pioneer trek.

I don’t question that story (maybe some details), but I clearly see in my mind another ticked off pioneer that was trying to hide pies from everyone else!

Ha. There is that possibility. To put a more positive spin on it I’m going to imagine one sister that sees another pioneer in need, makes her an apple pie but wants to give anonymously, the sister hides the pies and then comes up with some cockamamie reason for the less fortunate sister to go around a large rock. The less fortunate sister finds the pies, gives the credit to god… and she’s probably not incorrect in her assumption.

Oddly enough the pie story is fantastic, but the details don’t strike me as something someone would imagine. Why apple pies? Why not some more obvious food?

Cadence, I have experienced what I believe to be miracles (things that are unexplainable without some directing hand outside of humanity) at least two times in my life. I’ve considered them every which way possible, and I can’t see them as anything else.

Thus, as I said earlier, I don’t discount others’ stories of the miraculous automatically. I don’t accept them automatically, but I don’t reject them automatically, either. I don’t claim to understand them to any degree whatsoever, but my own experiences lead me to believe that miracles do happen.

I believe that many of the miracles we hear about are stories elaborated on over time. There may be some kernel of truth at their core but that truth is long lost to time. But we take comfort in these stories. Rollo May (an existential psychologist) believed that many individuals’ distress was due to the lack of myth in their lives. He didn’t use that word to mean “untrue story” but rather to mean “meaningful structure”. He was all for these “myths” if they give our lives meaning.

A few years back, a woman in my ward was bearing her testimony and telling us about a horrific accident that her daughter had been in. This accident killed two of her young grandchildren and severely injured another who is still recuperating several years later. She told us how as she walked into the hospital to see her family she suddenly saw one of her dead grandchildren standing there jumping up and down in excitement exulting over her new bodiless state. It renewed her faith in God and gave her great comfort to see her recently deceased granddaughter so happy. Did this grief stricken grandmother really see such a thing? I suppose I have my doubts about its reality. However, there is no way on earth that I am going to try to dissuade her from believing a story that gave her such joy in a time of great trial. No one would.