An alcoholic once exclaimed: "It's only human nature to drink" to which we reply, "Nature is what we were put in this world to rise above!"
There is something literally miraculous in personal self-transcendence and transformation. And I don't use the word "miraculous" here frivolously or even metaphorically. Indeed, I can't think of a more technically precise or more edifying illustration of what a miracle is than to point out what happens when human beings really change.
I like to see the phenomenon of self-transcendence as a unique opportunity to behold the very essence of spirituality, like a little window into the supernatural.
Let me explain.
Have well-meaning people ever tried to inspire you by saying that the sun rising each morning is a miracle? It's a nice thought. But kind of insipid. The sunrise is marvelous, but once we start calling something like that a miracle, the word loses meaning.
Perhaps what they mean is that the sun rising each morning is so awesome that it certainly would be a miracle if it weren't so tediously predictable. But imagine if one morning the sun were to rise in the west. Now that would be a miracle. What defines a miracle and sets it apart from other phenomena is that it constitutes a break from the natural order. Indeed, that's why one of the words used to describe a miracle is supernatural -- literally, something that circumvents or surpasses nature.
So we have two modalities for reality: that which is natural and that which is supernatural, the only hard and fast distinction between the two being that the supernatural is a break from the norm and the natural is the norm.
So what does this have to do with personal self-transcendence and transformation?
To wax philosophical for a moment: when a tree is a tree and a mountain is a mountain and a stream is a stream, each one of them is fulfilling its God-given purpose. They're being what they're supposed to be. For the tree, the mountain and the stream, natural is good. But we human beings are different. We fulfill our divine purpose not by being natural but by striving for something supernatural; because, unlike the tree, the mountain and the stream, we were given the free choice to decide not to perform our God-given purpose.
Do you wish to glimpse a world beyond our own? To the believers and skeptics alike I ask: Why do we need to see whether the clouds will part and light will beam down and a heavenly voice will be heard? Go behold a man or a woman who has risen above nature's steely grip and now lives life on a higher plane where the laws of human nature no longer hold irrevocable sway. To meet such people is to begin to understand what a miracle really is.