Vito's Blog

Category: Liminal

  • What’s the Real Miracle?

    The very word, miracle, is a dangerous one. It’s loaded with connotation of people’s hopes, projected on a blind belief towards a magical wishing god.

    There are points where we all want miraculous things to happen, but consider that even Jesus didn’t do miracles for the sake of healing people. Each one came with a lesson, all of which culminated when the world didn’t end when he was gone.

    It was up to us at that point. 

    I think the most telling remark on this subject came during a panel I once introduced on the relevance of Religion to the world today. One of the panelists was the head of the school of medicine at Queen’s University, who was hired by the Vatican to investigate claims about medical miracles (she was an atheist). One summer she got to explore the Vatican archives and read up on all the claimed miracles in history.

    Her findings was being able to explain 97% of all claimed miracles through medical means. What about the last 3%? Isn’t that evidence that miracles can happen?

    In her words:

    “That just tells me that there’s a 3% chance that a miracle can happen in nature.”

    I have no doubt that as we continue medical research, that percentage will go down, but it does say something about our collective desire for placing our faith in something other than each other. Why do so many people make pilgrimages to Lourdes to be healed in the waters, carried by many others, but so few are willing to support each other in society?

    I think often about Peter Singer’s argument that we would instantly run in and save a child in a pond, ruining a $300 pair of shoes in the process, but hesitate to spend that $300 to save a child overseas. 

    It’s telling that when we watch people treat each other individually, they carry the traits of what we want to see everywhere. Yet, when it comes to their attitude towards a larger group, that suddenly breaks down. It feels as though the reason people seek these miracles in the first place is because we’ve abandoned them to think this is their only recourse. 

    A 3% chance for divine medical intervention.

    The real miracle we seek should be a collective will to build heaven on earth. It’s not magical—it’s work. 

    But in that work, we’ll actually see real miracles happen.

  • How to Survive the Apocalypse

    He said, “Watch out for the doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I’m the One,’ or, ‘The end is near.’ Don’t fall for any of that. When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don’t panic.

    This is routine history and no sign of the end.”
    He went on, “Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Huge earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. You’ll think at times that the very sky is falling…
    Staying with it—that’s what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved.

    Luke 19:5-11, 19 The Message

    Here is a list of all the end of the world predictions.

    As you can see, claiming this time around as the end is a favourite pastime of humanity. Those dates come and go with another doomsday clock on the horizon.

    Jesus’ advice is probably the best thing we can do.

    It doesn’t excuse us from ignoring the issues at hand, or for not taking them seriously. What’s needed is figuring out what can be done and then going ahead and taking action… making sure to keep your head on your shoulders as you do so.

    Rough patches in human history are not easy, but we should be prepared for them more than ever before.

    After all, and unfortunately, this is routine.

  • Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

    None of us want to be blind to the world around us and we certainly don’t want to be deaf to it either. 

    Yet, isn’t it remarkable how little we actually sense?

    It’s everything from how two people witnessing one event will be attuned to very different details about what occurred, to why a “fresh set of eyes” will always catch what you’ve been staring at all day. In my case, it’s my wife finding something I ‘lost’ that was in front of my face the entire time.

    As an evolutionary mechanism, we had to filter out most of the world or we’d just be dealing with sensory overload on a constant basis. The hunter attunes an ear towards rustling noises while paying close attention to the tracks left behind of its prey. The gatherer pays close attention to the colour of the berries and upon which branches they hang.

    They may never know each other’s worlds, but they are immersed in their own, knowing it intimately. As they both perceive the world in different ways, they can guide each other accordingly, while teaching others to see the world as they do.

    If we want to see the bigger things of this world, or the intimate details, we have to attune our senses accordingly. This doesn’t happen overnight and we should be wary of those who have never been on the trail to tell us how it works.

    Our eyes and ears are already blind and deaf to most of the world. The challenge is finding out in which ways that is…

    then accepting it, or changing it.

  • Hanging Out With Jesus

    Setting aside the rhetoric of having a “personal relationship with Jesus,” which is nothing more than an inner spiritual meditation framed around a particular idea, I would like to know what it would really be like to hang out with him. 

    What conversations would happen as we walked endlessly?

    How would he react to my nonsensical ramblings around the dinner table?

    Could he cure me of my endless gas that is apparently powerful enough to fumigate a household (according to my kids)?

    It’s easy to get lost in nonsensical religious battles over benign details that were enough to split societies, forgetting that he was also a thirty-something year old man who grew up in this world. If he were around today, I’m certain we’d be speaking about him with the same candour and heartfelt awe as Keanu Reeves. 

    Yes, I made the comparison and should some ecclesial authority wish to excommunicate me on the matter, also note I once asked an exam question to explain their similarities. 

    I guess the real consideration is what expectations I would have of him. Aside from his miracles and acts of healing, he didn’t smite the Roman Empire and bring peace to the world. He was executed. 

    The onus was on his followers to continue his work. Not in some cataclysmic event, but in the every day interactions with the people they came across. Which leads me back to wonder what it would have been like to hang out with him. 

    I’m not sure, but I’ve taken my best guess, attempted to act the same towards others and hoped it would be enough to plant a seed of peace and joy in their lives. No megaphones on street corners necessary. 

  • My Failure as a Magician

    I consider my run as a magician largely as a failure. Don’t get me wrong, I had a tremendous amount of fun, learned numerous transferable skills, paid bills and got to live a childhood dream. 

    So why the clickbait headline?

    It was a failure to be a true artist with it. 

    Art should pull something out of us. It should transport people to a new space where they have an encounter with something beyond the medium itself. Music is wonderful for this, as is film. 

    I get that sometimes art is done to make a statement, call for people to reflect, or simply try to push the boundaries of what art can be (with most attempts falling really short, in my low-brow opinion). But art is something so unique to humans that it calls us to be.

    Magic was fun, and while I obsessed over the art of it, I never pushed it to that level. I was an amateur masquerading as a pro, dreaming of being that artist I wanted to see. Perhaps I demanded too much of myself, but that is what I wanted to achieve at the outset. As obssessed as I was, or felt myself to be, it wasn’t enough.

    And I’m okay with it because the failure was not a setback of any life metric, but a tremendous learning experience.

    Besides, there are other ways to call people to be.