I don't do supernatural. I'm highly suspicious of all miracle stories, mostly because I can't make sense of them not happening when they should. So I tend to block them out entirely as a made up pile of fairy stories laced with wishful thinking and the occasional coincidence.
But in the name of intellectual honesty I probably should admit that there is one supernatural phenomenon I experientially believe in. That is that if you ask God in prayer to help you out in serving God and neighbour, God will more often than not carry you there. Not all the time, and not necessarily the first time you ask, but when it works it really works.
The first time I experienced this I was about fourteen. I was one of the most enthusiastic go-to-church types and I always had all the right answers in church. I was seriously coasting and finding it incredibly easy to know exactly what to say and what to do (those were the days). At some point the church was really short of children's catechists and my mum encouraged me to put myself forward. Needless to say I was the youngest catechist by an average of about 40 years.
I crumbled under the responsibility. I sort of realised that I was not entirely sorted-out myself. I was not the most charismatic or popular person, and I was scared that the kids wouldn't get it. I used to pray like a madperson that it would work. Every week I was terrified and begged God to help.
And it just so happened that it worked like nobody's business. The kids' blossoming faith was absolutely beautiful, they wrote the most amazing prayers and nearly all wanted to be altar servers for the forseable future.
The following year I had gained some confidence and I was much less desperate. The catechism classes were also a lot less good. I didn't quite find them boring, I was still very much looking forward to them but it didn't work as well.
And so years later, I began to understand that attitude was everything, and that humility and dependence on God were eminently desirable while superficial confidence was not. I enjoyed being "carried" by God and fell into the other extreme of completely giving up on my own intelligence and willpower and waiting to see if God would carry me. It did not happen a lot.
So in conclusion I deducted that I needed to re-harness my brainwaves and willpower to do what I thought was best, but without losing the humility and prayerfulness of this first year as a catechist.
Sometimes it meant acting off my own bat to the best of my ability with no cognitive awareness of the presence of God (and it's not for want of asking!). At other times it meant being supernaturally lifted right out of a funk when I'd started to completely despair and wasn't even being that prayerful anymore.
What it feels like? Mighty strange. I'd go from months of being hugely uninspired, living by the standards of the world, wanting to be selfish, to not do my works of mercy but instead go shopping and read books under my duvet for all eternity... To the other minute having my synapse connections completely reworked for me with no effort on my part and leaving me in tears because I'd yearned for God for so long and had been once again in the process of giving up.
I've got a few other examples, but not a lot of time to spell them out today. So I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes ever by Paul Ricoeur: "
Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again".
