Miracles: Wonder and Meaning in World Religions

Front matter

Miracles Miracles Wonder and Meaning in World Religions David L. Weddle a NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRE SS New York and London NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org© 2010 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weddle, David L. (David Leroy), 1942– Miracles : wonder and meaning in world religions / David L. Weddle. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978–0–8147–9415–9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0–8147–9415–7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978–0–8147–9416–6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0–8147–9416–5 (pbk. : alk. paper) [etc.] 1. Miracles. 2. Religions. I. Title. BL487.W45   2010 202’.117—dc22    2009053830 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Dedicated to the memory of Daniel Mark Weddle (1965–2005) per aspera ad astra | vii Note about the Cover Since every book begins before it begins, I invite you to close this one and review the cover. We enter this account of miracles in world religions through a painting by René Magritte (1898–1967), the Belgian artist who created startling images by placing familiar objects in strange juxtaposition , as if in a dream. Magritte called this work Le Pays des Miracles (The Land of Miracles, 1964). The painting is surreal in that it depicts an excess of reality by collapsing two worlds: the ordinary world imposed on—or is it disrupted by?—a land of moonlit wonders. At first glance the vase appears to contain a light blue flowering bouquet. Near the base is a nest with three eggs in orderly arrangement. Immediately, we must rule out the possibility that the nest fell, by accident, from the bushy plant. It has been placed, as if by design, as all things appear to be in the world of ordinary experience. Upon closer investigation, it appears that the jagged outline we thought to be flowers could be a tree with the vase forming its trunk and leaves or buds spilling over the edge of the container. But where is the rest of the plant? Is it covered by the dream scene of trees and clouds wanly illumined by a sliver of moon? Wait, that scene is not in front; we are seeing the country(side) of miracles through the plant. But, if so, is the bouquet transparent or has it been destroyed? Was our peephole to the world beyond, with its delicate lacy rim, ripped out of the brown background that is really the foreground? The placid image with its soothing blue is surcharged with traces of violence . How could it be otherwise? Can miracles break into our world in any other way, except as transgressions, violations (as we often say) of the laws of nature? So it has seemed to those who are accustomed to viewing the world as the orderly creation of God or the regulated unfolding of evolutionary process . But for others, the world in which miracles occur is the greater reality that supports their lives and provides them hope and faith to aspire to flight beyond the routine cycles of the nest—even if they know of miracles only by distant report or fleeting glimpse, as if in a dream. The country of miracles viii | Note about the Cover does not lie brightly before us, clearly illuminated by full sunlight, but rather in the haze of the waning crescent of the moon. Magritte’s painted image stops time just at the moment when the scene of the other world is fading from view, perhaps on awaking from a dream or in the hour before dawn. As viewers, we are invited to consider our arrangements on the flat tabletop of domestic life as fragile and artificial, vulnerable to shattering incursions of possibilities imagined, dreamed, and believed, from the country of miracles. ...