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Chapter Thirty-Seven: Miracles
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Taberah had been thinking throughout the day, although not about computers. When Aed got home from work, Taberah said, "This land is very different from any of the other ones I've known. Are even the miracles different? What are miracles like here?"
Aed said, "Beg pardon?"
"What miracles have you seen? What miracles have you been given?"
"Taberah, I've prayed for many miracles in my day, and I have had some prayer requests answered, but I have never been given a miracle -- or seen one."
"Why not? Do you not know God?"
"Taberah, I speak to God, and he is with me. But I have never seen a miracle. I'm one of few people who believes they happen at all. Most people believe that miracles don't happen -- some Christians believe that miracles stopped after the age of the Apostles."
"What? Why? Do they believe God does not love his children?"
"Of course Christians believe God loves his children."
"Then why do they not believe in miracles?"
Aed was beginning to see another difference between Taberah's culture -- might as well call it 'medieval', not having any better words to describe it -- between medieval culture and his culture. One side of Aed's realization was that Taberah's culture breathed the supernatural, might (for all Aed knew) find nothing unbelievable about a mountain being uprooted and thrown into the sea -- and the other side was that Aed's culture had fought tooth and nail to exclude any consideration of the supernatural, had struggled to make it alien. There were hints of it in ten thousand places -- in words like 'superstitious', which did not simply denote a particular kind of belief (a supernatural equivalent to practical observations such as "A pin will more easily slide into a pole if it is greased"), but a propagandistic condemnation of that kind of belief and supernatural belief in general. 'Rational' was taken to mean 'materialistic', and -- the manifestations were legion, too many for Aed to concentrate on one. He recalled with a chill the words of the Gospel, where some manuscripts said that Jesus did not, and others that he could not do many miracles in one town, and was amazed at their lack of faith. Aed had a queer feeling that --
"Taberah, I would like to take you someplace tomorrow, and show you something. It is my loss that I have not seen any miracles, that they do not happen when I pray. But I would like for you to see the forces that shape my culture, and are why I have never seen a miracle."
Taberah slept lightly that night; he felt both puzzlement and expectation, wondering what manner of strange sight Aed would show him.
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Chapter Thirty-Seven: Miracles
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