There are two ways to live life: either as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle. I believe in the latter, said astrophysicist Albert Einstein. While some see in that thought a proof of his religiosity, probably because they themselves believe in God, others, those to whom faith is foreign, consider that the man who penetrated the secrets of the universe, who admired its perfection, life had to he perceives it as a miracle. Einstein himself, asked in 1929 in America by a rabbi about his faith in God, answered that he believed in the God of the philosopher Spinoza, who manifests himself in the regularity of the existing. This statement of the great scientist unites the two interpretations of his thought about how one should live. Of course, even in the wisdom of Solomon in the Holy Scriptures it is said that the mark of the hand of God is recognized in the beauty and in the perfection of creation.

"Beauty speaks, but we have forgotten how to listen to it," Father Alexander Schmemann, one of the greatest Orthodox theologians of the 1974th century, wrote in his diaries in 20. Modern people have lost the ability to simply "live", that is, to experience life constantly as a "gift" and as a miracle, he says. Indeed, in today's world things easily lose their mystery and uniqueness, at the same moment when we are all constantly in search of attractions, novelties and entertainment. Although there are still many people who experience life as a miracle, that feeling is still most strongly present in children. I was that kind of kid. That is why Einstein's thought did not surprise me, but moved me and made me think about the different perspectives when life is revealed to us as a miracle.

The twinkle in the eyes of the old

I remember as a child I was convinced that only the old knew the same admiration for life that was characteristic of children. At least for children like me, who constantly "fantasized" about something. I knew that the ancients looked upon life as a miracle, for I read it in their eyes full of joy, when they long rejoiced at the play of the swallows in the sky. They could stare for hours at a point on the horizon, at the blue mountain veil in the distance, and not have an empty gaze. That look was full of gratitude to God for the life lived. Such was the view of my great-grandmother Sofka, who had collected the wisdom of almost a century of life. Every thought of hers was a wise proverb, because it was the fruit not only of rich life experience, but also of her deep piety. Obviously, life is most powerfully experienced as a miracle when we see it as a gift, as the old feel. The eyes of old people in my childhood, like those of my great-grandmother, shone like mirrors when they saw us children playing in the yard.

The fact that only children and old people are capable of the ordinary fact of life, of the change of day and night, of the rhythm of the seasons, of joy and kindness, of health and love, of the breadth of a human embrace and the gentleness of children's eyes, to discover that everything is a miracle, testifies that that view of life opens either when we have no sense of the passage of time, or when we know that time is the most precious thing in life. Children have no sense of time, and the elderly feel that they have less and less time. Those in the middle, the "adults" from the position of children, have their heads so immersed in profane and pragmatic things that they easily forget the gaze freed from all desire for possession, which shows us things in life and in nature as radiant miracle. Children do not yet know the pragmatic side of life. They have no material interests, no desire for prestige, power and wealth. And the old have no more desire for prestige, power and wealth, because in their long life experience they have also come to know the wickedness of all life's goals and aspirations.

For children, everything is a secret

While the physicist Einstein's admiration for life as a miracle stems from his unraveling the mystery of existence, children's admiration for nature is born from the fact that they do not need to unravel the mystery of existence in order to experience life as a miracle. Because everything is a secret for children. And that is enough for them! That's why everything is a miracle for them. From the little pebble they found in the grass, to the stars in the sky. Only those who have not forgotten that knowledge from childhood will recognize it as adults in every August night, like this one, the one from their own childhood, like mine in Skopje, when the sky was full of stars, and I couldn't sleep since that night. heavenly glow, from the realization that they are a miracle. These days every night before midnight I've been staring at the starry sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Perseids, because according to the meteorologists there has been a real Perseid shower for the past three nights. The brightest, neber were moving stars, were the lights of planes that were landing or taking off. But they are also a miracle, if we remember that a few centuries ago only dreamers like Leonardo da Vinci believed that one day man would fly.

Children experience everything that exists as a miracle and because they live truly in the moment. In that "now" that seems like eternity. Because they can neither determine its beginning nor its end. For children, everything is a letter that speaks to them in the language of fantasy. Artists like Paul Klee knew this different view of children, so he often took children's drawings as a template for his compositions.

Genius artists like Klee or Picasso often testify that they never outgrew the world view of the child within them. That's why they can discover the extraordinary beauty even in the smallest things. Of course, the life of "adults" is constantly filled with activity and responsibilities. However, in the summer or, at least, during the summer vacations, the rhythm of work is interrupted for a short time. And life appears for everyone in all its enchanting beauty and tranquility, in all its sumptuous wealth of colors, shapes and smells. In order to experience life as a miracle at least for a moment, every summer we should try to awaken in us a child's view of life as happiness in the moment, as presence in it with our whole being. We should call to mind every summer our childhood sense of August as an endless sea of ​​grain. Only those who, even as adults, have not forgotten what they felt when they were "floating" through the wheat field as children, can draw strength by living every day as a miracle. They can see in an instant that sea of ​​August grain, beginning to whiten and ripen, while the summer wind waves the ears in a gentle rhythm, as if they were touched by a human hand. And they already feel how, as they run through it, the ear of corn lies under their feet on the ground and makes a way for them.

When we were children, the best thing was to make a little "chamber" in the middle of the endless grain field, by first running in a circle to lay down the grain. And then we would sit on the ground, to hide from the world. And to listen only to the sound of silence. Or the reapers song. Then it was clear to us that everything is a miracle!

Code for the miracle of life

Life as a miracle is also revealed to us by literature. It is not necessarily directly inspired by religious themes. Sometimes that literature, which masterfully brings us "life situations", which are identical in every human story, makes it much stronger. It is interesting that for the refined aesthetic taste of the already mentioned Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, who, by the way, loved Proust very much, the miracle of life, the uniqueness of every human story is more authentically approached by the short stories of the atheist Chekhov than the novels of the religious Dostoevsky. Because Chekhov, according to Schmemann, wrote about the lives of ordinary people. He depicted the uniqueness of each person so strikingly that it becomes a code for the miracle of life, for the beauty of small, ordinary things.

The illuminated window in the night was for me, even as a child, the code for the secret of life, which I did not understand at the time, but, nevertheless, captivated me. In Schmemann I found the interpretation of my childhood admiration, because he also shared it. "Every house with lighted windows, behind which people live, gives me infinite joy. I would so like to enter each of them, to feel its uniqueness, the quality of its warmth," he writes. Every house with illuminated windows becomes a symbol of life as a miracle. Refugees know this best, because only those who lost their homes in war know that every door, every window in someone's home is written with the life stories of those who have lived under that roof for generations. Of course, it reminds us that in order to experience life as a miracle, one should possess modesty and gratitude for the smallest, if only the greatest.

The author is a writer.