D.H Lawrence asks the question 'Will mankind always demand miracle, mystery and authority?'
Is that true? Even in today's society? Do we really still have a need for these things or is that just a past thought that is no longer true for us today in a world of science and logic?
A quick search on the UK's Amazon website reveals that there are 39,367 books listed with the word 'miracle' in the title...something tells me we are still searching for a miracle, that we are still innately attracted to the idea that miracles exist.
A miracle is defined in the good old Oxford Dictionary as:
'An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and therefore attributed to a divine agency'
or
'A remarkable event or development that brings very welcome consequences'
or
'An exceptional product or achievement, or an outstanding example of something'
It is perhaps no surprise then that the most watched TV shows ever in the world are the Superbowl championships in America, that the most watched TV broadcast EVER in the UK was the 1966 England World Cup win or that the most popular shows on TV now include all the reality shows that look for singing talent (you know the ones I mean I'm sure!) - we are constantly still drawn, like moths to a flame to any 'remarkable event or development that brings very welcome consequences'...they are miracles that give us hope and we can inhale that hope into our own lives as we watch the miracle unfold, as we wait with baited breath to see how things will turn out, as we cross our fingers, wiggle around on the edge of our seats in anticipation and feel more and more alive as that miracle feeds every soul who is watching/reading or experiencing in some way the amazing events that we see. It gives us hope that good things can happen, it gives us proof that good exists.
We LOVE to hope. Perhaps that is the meaning behind our need for miracles - we demand hope and miracles are proof that hope is worthwhile. It is worth holding out for more, for better, for the outside chance...because miracles do happen. If we believe in miracles, that belief can be the driving force that keeps us trying again and again to achieve something we want, to get well even if we are really poorly, to get up and dust ourselves down even when the going gets tough because we have hope, we have a belief in the fact that a miracle may just happen to us.
I'm sure it is no coincidence that the most popular self help book of all time is 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' a collection of stories that bring hope and explore the best examples of humanity - a collection of mini miracles for us to draw from, learn from and feel good about.
We need hope, we need miracles...it is our Chicken Soup for the Soul.
However, these are 'everyday' miracles, the David and Goliath moments that bring us together and bring us to life...what of the miracles that are described in the initial description in the dictionary?
Are we just as comfortable with the idea that a miracle is:
'An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and therefore attributed to a divine agency'
The number of books sold on the subjects which explore this idea would suggest that whilst we may look to understand the mystery through science, logic, common sense and our own experiences we are still hugely enthralled by there being a 'higher power'. I recently read Jon Ronson's book 'The Men who Stare at Goats' and it seems that even within the realms of the CIA we are still looking for a power beyond ourselves to show that we can harness the power of miracles and hope that they may really exist - or that that higher power exists.
Is that then why religion still exists? Is that where our need for Authority comes in? Is our ultimate goal to discover that over and above any human authority figure we may look to, that there is a higher authority than that? A divine authority even?
Before we get into that...lets look at whether we demand mystery...
If mystery is defined by the fact that we need the unknown, that we need something to ponder on, something unsolved to put our minds to exploring and coming up with answers for then I would say that we can almost definitely answer that yes, we demand mystery. We LOVE a good mystery!
Do ghosts exist? Why are we here? How did life begin and why? Does he love me? Why do we die? What happens after we die? What is love?
Every time we ask a question related to something we don't understand we are attempting to solve a mystery...even if it is only a mystery to ourselves...what is MY purpose, why do I keep procrastinating? Why is this rash on my face? Etc.
So there is mystery for as long as there are still questions...but do we need it?
To answer that we need to look at what would happen if there was no mystery. Imagine you wake up one morning and everything you ever wanted to know had been answered for you...imagine you could go to your computer and have a programme where you typed in any question you could possibly ever have and get an answer....
hmmm...sound like something we already have? Yup...we have this already, we have the answers to every question at our fingertips, it's called Google...so why do we feel like we haven't? Is it because we don't have one definitive answer to our questions? Is it because we have in fact got MANY answers? If we have a myriad of possibilities in terms of what answer we might find is it true therefore we have no real answers, only partial answers, only options for answers? Even the most seemingly definite of answers can be subjective if we want them to be - think of the person who has been told that they have incurable cancer only to find that actually it was curable because they no longer have it. Think of the person who was born a boy only to find that actually they were a girl in a boy's body...is there anything definitive at all in life and do we like it that way?
The moment we think we have the answers, more questions pop up. We thought we had it all sorted with the Big Bang theory....nope, that is still evolving as an answer too!
Perhaps the reason we will always have mystery (and want it) and will never have all the answers is because our truth is subjective and that's what we love about it - it means things can always change, it means there is always room for a miracle!
My truth on what is right and wrong is not the same truth for another. Mystery is there because we do not all experience life in the same way or through the same eyes or the same experiences.
I think a bit of mystery makes us feel more alive, it gives us a game to play, a childlike excitement that the answers are out there if we go looking for them, like a giant treasure hunt.
It's a bit like a relationship that has gone stale because there is no more mystery...life gets stale and boring when there is nothing new to bring to it...mystery is newness...we love something brand new or at least the possibility of it.
Do we demand Authority?
As humans we strive to create answers to the miracles of life and expose the truths behind its mystery and we need someone in authority to deliver those answers before we will believe them.
There are so many aspects to Authority and the psychology connected to it that I cannot explore them all here...so for the purposes of keeping this as short as possible I have presented just one idea - that of Authority being our way of diminishing responsibility.
We demand that there is someone or something higher up the chain that we can blame if things go wrong:
'he told me to do it', 'life didn't give me any other option', 'God told me it was the right path'.
I think generally we demand authority because we don't want to feel responsible.
We even assign God this way out...'humanity is the way it is because I told them not to eat the apple and they did...NOT MY FAULT', really? Even God gets to blame someone else? What kind of an example is that to set?
We want someone to tell us what to do, what the boundaries are, where is safe to explore - partly because if it goes wrong it is not our fault but also because we want to minimize other risks (not just the risk of having to be responsible), the risk of taking the wrong career path, the wrong turning on our way to somewhere new, marrying the wrong person etc.
Authority is in demand because it takes the pressure off us to make choices and also ensures that those choices, should they turn out not to be as great as we thought they would be, are not our fault.
Why does life demand Miracles, Mystery and Authority?
Because life without miracles is life without hope, life without mystery is life without new experiences, life without authority is life without boundaries or a safety net.
Whilst this is by no means the fullest exploration of this subject - so many other things came up when I was writing it, like our need for control and how this contrasts with our need for mystery, our need for solid explanation and how this contrasts with our need for inexplicable miracles, it is however a starting point for further discussion...
What are your thoughts? Do you demand these things in your life? Why? What is the deeper need behind it for you? If you don't demand them why not?
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