Keep an Open Mind

In the small town of Cordova, in northern California, a Roman Catholic Church one day became the center of some excitement: a glowing outline appeared on the front wall of the sanctuary. Some were certain it depicted Mary holding the Baby Jesus.

Soon folks were coming from miles away to view the apparition. Skeptics quickly pointed out that the miracle took place only on sunny days — not when there was cloud cover. Others scoffed, on the principle that talk of such phenomena is sheer nonsense. I personally think the image was caused by the sun reflecting on something in the sanctuary.

It seems wonderful to me, though, that there are plenty of people who are open to the possibility that the image could have been a spiritual phenomenon—a godly UFO. Such folks are living in an open-ended creation.

For them, life is not confined to the logical, the explainable, the predictable. Reality is richer when we make ample room for the miraculous — the surprising.

Unfortunately this child­like readiness to see the divine breaking into everyday events goes hand in hand with gullibility, superstition, and vulnerability to those who promise, threaten, and manipulate in the name of God.

Surprises do happen. Most people to whom unusual things occur tell nobody. They fear being laughed at. They keep these things to themselves, pondering them secretly. They regard these events as too precious to expose even to friends, lest someone dispose of them with rational explanations, snickers, or indifference.

It seems important for Christians to be cautiously open to unusual possibilities breaking through here and there and now and then. A special kind of naive openness to surprises may help us follow that instruction earnestly.

The alternative is a closed worldview which asserts that all events depend on the canniness of humanity, ordinary processes, or the logic and luck of fate or nature. Such an outlook holds that life is totally knowable and predictable. It believes that we will eventually be able to explain the unusual as natural phenomena.

Occasional surprises breaking through remind us of possibilities that may exist. And maybe that's why they happen. Let us not rush to negative judgments.