miraC les and the Paradox of art

Mother Nature is a coverup. It’s 100% authored, directed, engineered and powered by Elokim Unincorporated. Every moment, everything appears out of nowhere, miraculously. For those of you who believe miracles are absurd, dangerous, and a threat to the entire endeavor of science, Nature, it turns out, is nothing more than consistent miracles.

The problem is, you get used to the way things work, and begin to believe that all your interactions are with a closed system that’s just there because it’s just there. That this is all there is. You start confusing the show with reality.

So, along comes a miracle of the inconsistent variety. Maybe even an open miracle, shifting the most fundamental parameters of nature. Or better, a hidden one, dressed up as though it were perfectly natural.

Like one of those situations where things don’t look good. At all. And whatever direction you take only confirms to you that there is just no way out. To which everyone else nods their heads. Especially the experts. At which point the totally unexpected occurs, life flies for a moment on eagles’ wings, and you find yourself in a place better than you could have ever prayed for. You know you didn’t make this happen. You know there’s no one here on earth who could have orchestrated it. So you look up to the heavens and say, “G‑d, I love you!”

Whatever door just opened, you find yourself in interaction with the Director of the show. Which means you just discovered that this is a show. And that there is a Director. And that you are a character in this show. Okay, you have (limited) freedom within the script—so maybe it’s a game, and there’s a Programmer (who is also the User), and you are a sentient sprite. Whichever way, everything now changes.

Is that good change or bad change?

Definitely, very good change. Because now your current existence is no longer just a natural consequence. Existence is a deliberate, voluntary act that does not have to be. Nothing has to be. Everything could be otherwise. It’s only this way because there’s a purpose in it being this way that it’s this way. Knowing it’s a show means you’re in constant contact with the Director of the show.

Knowing it’s a show just means knowing it all from a higher context. Context provides a possibility of direction, purpose and meaning—all of which could not be if this was just a place that just is because it just is. The universe, life, and the science of it all becomes a whole lot more amazing. It becomes actually worth taking care of.

In other words, a miracle comes to demonstrate that nature is also miraculous. Like Moses keeps telling Pharaoh, “So that you will know that the earth belongs to G‑d.”

So, is Mother Nature a total fake? Only if you take her at face value. You need to know her deeply. Nature, we said in the last installment, is a modality of G‑d. G‑d as He is Elokim, in restraint and disciplined, so that He can get a real world. In that sense, Nature is real. So, science is real.

Miracles don’t make science irrelevant. They give science meaning.

Now, if this is the purpose of a miracle, what would be the best way for the Director/ Programmer/User to pull it off?

Should He shout, “Cut! Turn up the lights!”? Should he hack the game and make super weird things occur?

Well, that would certainly shake your sense of reality. And it would tell you that He’s got a huge amount of power. But it doesn’t give you a sense that He’s running the show.

Because it means that the only way He can get His way is by breaking the rules.

If, on the other hand, the Director/ Programmer/User interacts with you within the system and through the system, directing it in every which way without breaking a thing, answering your prayers through means you would never have expected, responding to your behavior in the most surprising ways, and yet all within the realm of the natural world—then you know that, hey, He is truly the Master of All Things. He is the Master even as the things are running.

Indeed, the more pedestrian the miracle, the more impressive. The weird and the wonderful have their “wow” factor, but then life switches back to its normal humdrum, and you submit once again to the predictability of everyday life. It’s when you see that nature doesn’t lose a beat to perform the supernatural that you begin to seek its Master under every rock and behind every circumstance. It’s these seamless interweaves of miracle and nature, impossible and possible, Creator and creation that get G‑d what He’s really out for—that get G‑d down to earth.

The difference in G‑d consciousness that results from the two experiences is chasmic. For a true life example, take the story of the spies whom Moses sent to tour the Promised Land.