One of Mormonism’s, and organized religion’s, fundamental premises is that the basic elements of our lives must be as they are. God created the cosmos, the Earth, and us. God mandated certain types of relationships. God mandated certain forms of social cialis institutions. Etc.
As reality comes into better focus, one of the first things we realize is the miraculous nature of most of what we thought had to be just as it is. For example, why is there something of any kind, instead of nothing at all? The wisest among us cannot answer that question. Far from being travelers at a routine way station, each and every one of us is a flat-out miracle.
The same applies with regard to many of what we regard as life’s mundane aspects. What about the feelings created when two people fall in love? What about the radically different, but no less amazing, feelings that slowly form over the course of a long life shared with others in various ways – with an intimate partner while raising children and contributing to a community; with the arts or other causes? What about the feelings we have as we watch the lives of those for whom we care the most unfold in their unique ways?
After considering the miniscule probability that any of these particular, and utterly wonderful, feelings would come into being, we should regard them as miracles.
Compared to this, many aspects of my Mormon existence felt at the time, and feel even more with the benefit of hindsight, like tight rope walking. The endless series of rules that had to be complied with, theoretically to perfection, in order to get to the Celestial Kingdom. The Herculean task of raising children so that they would defy the odds, and each and every one of them would walk that same tight rope.
There was nothing wonderful about that tight rope, despite how hard I tried to convince myself that it was a great deal. In fact, it was only a great deal when compared to something far worse – the loss of our ability to choose. And ironically, I now realize that the entire story of the pre-existence, life is a test, our role as soldiers in the continual battle between good and evil, the Celestial Kingdom, etc. was a big part of the mechanism that cut off my choices, and forced me into a that long rope over the black chasm – an exercise profoundly ill-suited to my exploration oriented nature.
Now, I see life as an astonishingly beautiful and complex web of opportunity. Each part of it that resonates to my core is a miracle.
If given half a chance, almost all of us have the ability explore this fecund environment while feeling for whatever will make us more. This search is more about discovering who we are than anything else. I am still occasionally astonished at what I find out in myself in this regard.
Few things make my happier than watching my children engage in this process. I have no idea where they are headed. How could I? How could my parents have foreseen what I am today?
I have no desire to constrain what my children do. I feel privileged to occasionally be consulted as they make their decisions, and am pleased that at most, what I have to say plays a minor role in their thinking.
Watching them evolve – each becoming the miracle only she can be – is one of my greatest pleasures.