Hey! How did YOU get here?

“So far so good. Give me a little more

life and I’ll write the report…”

- Anonymous

It’s a miracle I am alive, I thought. 

How did this happen? I wondered

Hmmm…I am not exactly sure!  Maybe I don’t need to know all the details, but there are a few things I understand.

Pondering a little…

We often use the expression ‘miracle of life’ when attempting to describe the unspeakably amazing phenomenon of birth, beginning with the inherent impulse we share for the spreading of our species.

An amazing number of coordinated/complicated things must exactly align for conception to take place, so the biochemical and physiological processes of growth can occur in the womb.

During the ‘successful event,’ for example, millions of sperm compete for a single egg waiting to be fertilized…each one carrying minutely different combinations of genetic material.

Under normal circumstances one, and only one gets through and conception takes place.  It is so astonishing, that had a different sperm fertilized that egg, you and I might look different than we do.  Now there’s a cosmic ‘…what if!...’

That’s just the beginning.

While gestating in the isolation of our mother’s womb, the biochemical building blocks of life, following the DNA/RNA recipe, build a physical body cell by cell.  No easy task considering each of us is custom made according to the specifications of a blueprint, discarded and never again used in the creation of a human body.

If we survive the process, escaping the warmth of our mother’s belly – and it is quite obvious we did - we emerge into an alien, hostile and chaotic world providing the oxygen needed for our ‘first breath.’

Just getting here far exceeds the possibilities of winning any lottery of any size!

It is a miracle I am alive, I thought

An aside to the unknown – the really unknown…

Somewhere along the line, ‘consciousness’ is injected into our little developing brains, but that is a topic exceeding the grasp of the best and most thoughtful minds…a topic that continues to elude science and remains in the category of “…that is simply just the way it is…”  Thomas Aquinas would say, the things we don’t understand, we put under the category of ‘…God’s workings….’

Back it up just a little…

Consider for a moment the number of wars in the history of the world – okay, maybe you don’t know the number, but trust me, it is a BIG number…a number that has led to millions and millions dying as cannon fodder for forgotten disagreements that ended their lives.

Consider the number of premature accidental or purposeful deaths for whatever reason…famine, disease, anger, jealousy…each one eliminating the possibilities of future offspring…each one stopping the genetic chain of events that would bring forth an inherited strain of anything!

It IS a miracle I am alive, I thought.

Consider, the obstacles for:

- surviving childbirth,

- escaping childhood,

- passing through the stupidity of adolescence,

- the laissez-faire young adulthood, and/or

- the minefields of the mature years.

If you are a bit older like me, think of the traffic accidents, falls, head bangings, possible near drownings, and other potential ‘life enders’ you have dodged…sometimes by the skin of your teeth! 

Since you are reading this, each of you has survived the gauntlet of events, historical and/or personal, looking for ways to keep you from surviving! 

It’s a miracle WE ARE alive, I thought.

Getting to old age is a very tricky business.  Crossing the finish line, of ‘…from dust thou are to dust thou shalt return,’ relatively intact…if one might be so bold to say, is a notable feat in spite of the fact our ‘suit’ has become a little wrinkled in the process.

I’m just saying…

While there are millions and millions of reasons why you and I should never have been born, nor taken a single breath, nor reached any level of consciousness, here we are – me writing and you reading this piece…alive, breathing…carbon based creatures given the gift to express a complexity of experience through the sensations of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste…each one providing us opportunity for reflection, creating a whole new world of possibility with each breath.

Yeah, it is a miracle WE are alive, and in the context of so many reasons why we shouldn’t be…I’m pretty grateful we are!

- ted