I actually have 4 pictures that hang behind my desk in my office—my personal Mount Rushmore. All of the people pictured died long before I used to be born, but each of them has had a profound impact on my life. The first picture is Albert Einstein along with his puppy-dog eyes, unkempt hair, and wrinkled brow. Remember the 878-page biography on Einstein? Five words on page 755 modified the trajectory of my life: “Never lose a holy curiosity.” There was something concerning the juxtaposition of those two words—holy and curiosity—that captured my imagination. It’s almost like holy curiosity was conceived in my soul right then. My prayer is that this book would conceive that very same holy curiosity in you! Curiosity about what? About the whole lot! About everyone! About the million little miracles which can be throughout us on a regular basis!
The second picture is the person, the parable, the legend—George Washington Carver. Few people embodied holy curiosity like Carver. Born a slave, Carver would turn into considered one of the best chemists and agronomists the world has ever known. His curriculum vitae includes 300 uses for the peanut. His life verse was Job 12:8: “Speak to the earth, and it’ll teach you.” That’s precisely what Carver did during his each day prayer walks through the woods at 4 o’clock within the morning.
The third picture is Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose through a river. Who does that? The same guy who navigated uncharted portions of the Amazon, scaled the Matterhorn within the Alps, and flew in a Wright Brothers’ airplane. Part of my affinity for Roosevelt is the proven fact that he overcame a crippling case of asthma, as did I. Roosevelt’s love of books was legendary. He in some way managed to read five hundred books a 12 months as a sitting president. I do know that seems unbelievable, but remember, he wasn’t distracted by television screens, computer screens, and smartphone screens. Few people on the planet have possessed a holy curiosity on par with our twenty-sixth president.
The fourth and final picture is of John Muir standing atop Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, the park that he and Roosevelt helped protect for posterity. Muir believed in baptism by water and baptism by fire, but he also believed in baptism by nature. His mission was “saving the American soul from total give up to materialism.” Muir once charged a bear to check its running gait, which is sort of as crazy as chasing a lion right into a pit on a snowy day! Not only did he study sixty-five glaciers within the Alaska territory; he even sledded down several of them. But one moment stands above the remainder in his résumé and serves as each a metaphor and a manifesto.
CLIMB THE TREE
In December 1874, John Muir was staying at a cabin nestled within the Sierra Nevada when a storm whipped through the valley. Instead of looking for shelter, Muir sought adventure. He situated the tallest cluster of Douglas fir trees he could find, climbed considered one of those trees to the very top, and held on for dear life. “On such occasions, nature all the time has something rare to point out us,” he said. “The danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof.”
Can you picture John Muir hugging a hundred-foot-tall tree because it swayed? It may seem to be Muir was tempting death, but that’s how he got here to life. He feasted his senses on the sights, sounds, and smells of earth, wind, and snow. Eugene Peterson referenced that moment as an icon of Christian spirituality. He called it “a standing rebuke against becoming a mere spectator to life, preferring creature comforts to Creator confrontations.”
Are you a mere spectator to life?
Do you like creature comforts to Creator confrontations? Are you settling for creation or looking for the Creator Himself?
This book is an exhortation to brave the storm and climb the tree. That’s where the miracles are hiding! Like most individuals, I appreciate the roof over my head. I appreciate air-conditioning, running water, indoor plumbing, high-speed web, and a whole bunch of other luxuries that technology affords us. I prefer glamping to camping. I once hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, but I brought along an inflatable mat- tress. Did I feel less manly than the opposite guys in our group? Yes, I did. Did I regret it? Not for a single second of sleep!
I’m grateful for the comfort and convenience of recent life, but there’s a hidden tax. When we lose touch with nature, we lose touch with nature’s God. Edison’s lightbulb is a present to early birds and night owls, but it surely fundamentally altered the built-in rhythms of sunrise and sunset. Refrigeration allows us to enjoy exotic foods from faraway places, but farm-to-table is lost in the combination. If we aren’t careful, we’ll fall victim to the numbing effect that Robert Michael Pyle called the “extinction of experience.” We’ll stop climbing trees. We’ll turn into mere spectators to life. We’ll accept creature comforts.
Leonardo da Vinci, “essentially the most curious man who ever lived,” was a self-proclaimed discepolo della esperienza—“disciple of experience.” I don’t know if he ever climbed a tree like Muir, but his lust for all times is evidenced by twenty-eight thousand pages of journal notes. It was who once observed that the typical human “looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting . . . inhales without awareness of odour.”
Looking without seeing is the symptom of a deeper problem that psychologists call inattentional blindness. It’s missing the forest for the trees. It’s failing to see what’s hidden in plain sight. We are as blind to beauty as Bartimaeus. We are as unaware of the presence of God as Jacob before Bethel. We are as oblivious to mysteries and miracles as Moses before the burning bush.
“The less we see, and listen to and smell,” said Michelle Derusha, “the less we’re capable of see, and listen to and smell.” We turn a blind eye to the on a regular basis miracles that surround us. It’s not intentional, but that doesn’t make it any less harmful. The miracle of life is lost on us. So is the God of miracles.
This book is supposed to be a wake-up call. The excellent news? You don’t should go far to search out one million little miracles. All it takes is a two-foot field trip. All you may have to do is go outside, look up, and count the celebs.Excerpted from A Million Little Miracles by Mark Batterson. Copyright © 2024 by Mark Batterson. Published by Multnomah, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. Used by permission.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/jacoblund
