Excerpt from House-Mates
We are puzzled by miracles because we watch them from the outside. From that point of view we get an effect of amazing change. Ten minutes ago this slightly damp but apparently complete chicken was seen as a rather dirty egg, that might have been regarded suspiciously from a breakfast standpoint, but was with the one exception of colour precisely like any other egg to be broken on the side of a basin and yield the familiar vision of an apricot wobbling in a mess of thin but sticky jelly. Not that it matters in this connexion just what part expectation plays in our attitude to the miracle. The metamorphosis of a smooth still egg that might be made of papier-mache into a differentiated entity full of passionate activities and desires is not less a miracle because it happens every time, or because we have become accustomed confidently to expect chickens from eggs. For just so long as we watch the transfiguration from the outside, the thing remains a miracle even though the failure of an egg to hatch is become the surprise and disappointment.
I want to get this right because certain acquaintances of mine once persisted in regarding me as an egg that had wonderfully and unforgiveably turned into a chicken.
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