Slow Miracles

An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one... The medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top of a tower; but to see an old gentleman walking through the air, in a leisurely and lounging manner, would still seem to call for some explanation. Yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay or on something dilatory in the processes of things.

- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

I read that Chesterton right after rehearing the story of a violent, controlling man turn his life around. This story is wild — money, affairs, even the MS-13 is thrown into the mix. But through it all, the man’s entire character appeared to have been dismantled and rebuilt. Who was once quick to violence was now a patient listener. Insatiable greed turned into quiet generosity. “Stuff” became less important. The dude was made unrecognizable.

If that change had been instantaneous, he’d be either praised as a miracle or dismissed as a fraud. I know him well enough to be convinced he’s not the latter, and the sheer magnitude of change screams “MIRACLE,” but it wasn’t instantaneous. It unfolded over several slow, hard years.

Slow dramatic change sounds less miraculous. It‘s formulaic — the boring, natural result of hard work and persistence. Still laudable, but less impressive. Maybe the only reason he stuck with it was because he was fed up with the mess of a life he had made. Or maybe he’s determined to hold that change only as long as it takes to get something out of somebody.

I don’t buy how that perspective reduces repentance down to carrots and sticks. It can explain why someone first took a shot at changing, but it doesn’t make sense of why any of it stays around for the long haul, especially when the stick is gone and the carrot eaten. The bruise from the kick in the pants that first got you to move will fade after a while (as does the pain from many other consequences), and an incentive is only effective for however long it takes to be acquired.

That man saw both types of motivation come and go. On one end, the stick: betrayal and deep, painful rifts through his marriage and the relationships with his kids. On the other, a carrot: the microscopic chance that everyone would one day reconcile. Those wounds healed and they did see reconciliation, but his resolve to continue becoming a good man for the sake of being a good man didn’t budge. In fact, he doubled down. He uprooted his career, moved his family. It was like he was stuck in a new gear.

I haven’t seen a satisfying naturalistic reason why anyone would continue to walk a narrow, uphill path when there’s no longer any material reason to do so. It defies any Darwinian understanding of human behavior, no matter how well people do their philosophical gymnastics to argue otherwise.

It’s much easier to think that maybe this man simply isn’t the same person he used to be. A newness has infiltrated him that wants different things — things that apparently have little to do with the suffering that first got him to move or the reward he thought he was doing all this for. Those things were just a supernatural bait & switch, it seems.

Thank God for His schemes! No one just stumbles into transformation. You gotta be cornered into it. I think that’s what happened to this man. The amount of time it took to shove him into position doesn’t detract from the fact that it happened at all. If anything, it seems more astonishing. A long transformation can’t run on mere earthly circumstances. It must be powered from somewhere outside them all.