Less magic

The universe has lost its magic. I think I stopped believing in a God that would intervene in the physical world all that much, and, as a result, the world seems a lot less safe. I think the miracle narratives are valuable not so much because people were getting cured of various ailments, but because they show that the Lord cares, and that his love is inconditional.

I'm a bit ashamed to say that, for a period, I used to read plenty of little signs here and there. But after reading Sandra's blog, I have taught myself not to. "So God would send me a sign that I may after all survive my PhD, and not delay by a milisecond the deathly car accident that took Sandra's two-year old?" Well, maybe not.

But anyway, the world still felt empty with or without direct divine intervention. Even the experiential God was hard to sense, for me it was a totally new way of relating to the Divine...

This yukky dry spell did not go away. But the other night I think I grasped why. It's all well and good to have my own sense of God. But of the people around me might have another. I think I was being introduced into someone else's experiential landscape, someone fairly close to me.

I realised that it was no help being on my little Quaker cloud when the people I love are not on it with me. And so I embrassed this dry spell for the time being. This all happened in one split second though. Next thing I knew I was back on the dry spell.

At school, during tests, one of our teachers used to ask: how's the grub? We used to grumble something mildly annoyed in way of a response. I sometimes picture God asking the same question.

(On this empathetic note, I'm actually happy to report that another mum who also lost her baby and who lives close-by has gotten in touch with Sandra. They've met a few times. She'd never mentionned anyone like this before, or any kind of support system solid enough to cope and not disintegrate in the face of this tragedy. I don't know Sandra at all, but I was devastated by her divorce. Blogs are a funny thing.)