I did not write a word of what is below, but I loved it so much I wanted to share it just to promote it. If I had social media I would post it there, but in the absence of social media I'm sharing it here for others to enjoy. If you aren't yet familiar with Leonard Sweet, now you are, and I hope you will seek out additional writings.
G. K. Chesterton was right: "We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders."
We divide life into two categories: the ordinary and the miraculous. But what if the ordinary is miraculous? What if reality is stacked with wonder—layer upon layer of the supernatural hiding in plain sight?
I see at least three kinds of wonder: The Natural Supernatural, The Relational Supernatural, and The Sign Supernatural
1) The Quiet Wonder: The Natural Supernatural
This is miracle in slow motion—the mystery Wendell Berry calls “greater and still continuing.” Dirt. Rain. Sunlight. Roots. And somehow, grapes.
I can't stop thinking about that. Mud and weather become sweetness. A vine reaches down into darkness and up into light and manufactures fruit. Trees grow tall and thick out of thin air.
We call it “nature” because it happens all the time. But frequency does not make something less miraculous. It only makes us less amazed. Photosynthesis. Breath entering lungs. A seed splitting itself open underground. Wildflowers turning a hillside into a stained-glass window.
No laws of nature are being broken. Creation is simply doing what God taught it to do.
The problem is not that miracles are rare. The problem is that we get used to them.
2) The Connected Wonder: The Relational Supernatural
Then there are moments when coincidence seems too heavy a word. Or as Carl Jung put it, coincidences are another name for connections. A friend texts the exact sentence you needed at 2:00 in the afternoon. A stranger unknowingly answers the prayer you whispered that morning. Someone offers forgiveness precisely where resentment had every reason to win.
No sea parts. No natural law is suspended. But something has happened. Love has broken through. This is providence wearing street clothes. Grace traveling incognito. God’s fingerprints showing up in the spaces between people.
We call it “good timing.” Heaven may have another name for it.
3) The Loud Wonder: The Sign Supernatural
And then come the exclamation points. Cana, where water becomes wine. Jesus skips the seed, the soil, the sunshine, the rain, the roots, the vine, the harvest, the crushing, the fermentation, and the waiting. Cana is an instant vineyard.
But notice: the miracle does not make vineyards obsolete. It makes vineyards astonishing. The fast miracle points us back to the slow miracle.
Jesus is not saying, “Forget how wine usually happens.” He is saying, “Have you forgotten how amazing it is that wine happens at all?”
That is what signs do. They do not replace creation. They reveal it. They pull back the curtain on a world already drenched in divine radiance and extravagance. The art of living is not holding your breath for a lightning-bolt, hocus-pocus miracle. It is learning to see life through the lens of paying attention. The loud wonders awaken us to the quiet wonders. The sign teaches us to see the soil. The miracle at the wedding (which the Bible never calls a “miracle” but a “semeion” or “sign”) sends us back to the vineyard with our eyes wide open.
And somewhere between the vineyard and Cana is the connected wonder—the friend who calls, the stranger who appears, the encouraging note of affirmation , the grace that arrives disguised as coincidence.
Maybe Chesterton had it exactly right. We don't need more wonders. We need more wonder. Because once your eyes are opened, you discover that you don't have to wait for Cana. You are already standing in the vineyard. And the water is always becoming wine.
Lord, open my eyes to the wonder of being alive. Give me eyes to notice the natural supernaturals--the miracle in the everyday, the grace in every encounter, and the wonder of simply being one breath away from eternity. Amen.
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