Three Miracles on Wilshire Boulevard

^{Photo: © Juvy Martin}

The story I’m about to tell you, I’ve shared in a number of different ways in recent years. I’ve received all manner of ridicule and disbelief from self-proclaimed skeptics, but that doesn’t matter. When you need to share something this pure and divine, a bruised ego doesn’t matter any more. What matters is that the right people hear it and gain hope from its message.

I grew up in a deeply spiritual family. My late mother was the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister. My late father was a searcher of wisdom. He might read from the Bible one day, but from Eastern mysticism the next. As a child, I hungered to hear him read stories out loud to my mother about reincarnation, Tibetan or Hindu monks performing miracles, or novitiates overcoming their own timid skepticism.

As a young adult, I had already spent years studying spiritual philosophy, contemplating the nature of miracles and even experimenting with them, with startling results.

But existence can be distracting, at times, taking our attention away from the truly important things in life. So, in 1977, several weeks after seeing my new favorite movie, Star Wars, I was mired in more earthly concerns about work, making a living and overcoming the daily frustrations of life.

At the time, I was a graphic artist and typographer in Los Angeles. Normally, I liked getting off work mid-afternoon so I would miss the brunt of rush-hour traffic when I went to pick up my wife from work. That day, however, a customer called with an urgent request to finish their job that afternoon. I let them know that I would stay late to finish it, and then called my wife to let her know I’d be late picking her up.

As I hung up the phone, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, picturing the thick, bumper-to-bumper traffic that awaited me. A little over two hours later, the customer had picked up their job with effusive thanks for saving their life. And soon I was heading south toward Wilshire Boulevard for the long, slow trip to Century City.

^{Skyscrapers in Century City, Los Angeles, California. Photo: Basil D Soufi (CC BY-SA 3.0)}

Turning our car onto Wilshire, I was immediately assaulted by glaring sunlight, flashing through the windshield. I pulled the visor down as far as I could, covering up the glass in front of me, down nearly to the dashboard. For those few minutes before sunset, the view ahead was dangerously unclear. And for once, I was moderately thankful that traffic was so slow. When the opportunity arose, I moved into the center of the three westbound lanes to make my trip less of a hassle.

Again, my frustration built concerning the Wilshire parking lot and the fact that getting to my destination seemed to be taking forever.

More than a dozen minutes later, as I entered the stretch of Wilshire Boulevard known as the Miracle Mile, a car from the right lane swerved sharply toward mine, cutting me off. Only their left bumper stood between me and the car in front of us both, but it was enough of a barrier that I couldn’t move forward without hitting them. Slowly, traffic inched forward, and eventually, they completed their turn into the center lane ahead of my car.

There had been no signal, and then no thanks and no acknowledgement of my existence. My frustration ratcheted up a notch over their callous selfishness. But here they were: not moving any faster and stuck right in front of me.

A few moments later, a car from the left lane swerved sharply, cutting me off.

Incredible! Twice in so many seconds. I waited while traffic gradually moved far enough ahead to allow them to complete their turn into the lane ahead of me.

I was feeling no love for the two drivers ahead of me. So, when traffic started to open up and reached about 10 miles per hour, I was in no hurry to catch the bumper of the car directly ahead of me. A gap opened up and I started to accelerate.

Suddenly, a car from the left swerved into the space I had allowed and immediately threw on their brakes. I panicked. Traffic ahead of them had stopped and I had been accelerating. Now, with every ounce of strength, I pushed down on my brake pedal, leaning into the back of my seat with all the force I could muster. Even at only 10 miles per hour, my tires squealed and the air filled with the white stink of burning rubber. Closer and closer I came. But no bump. When finally my car had stopped, I could see their trunk painfully clear. Our bumpers must have been scant millimeters apart.

My own frustration was now boiling into rage. My face felt hot with emotion. I pictured in my mind the twisted satisfaction of smashing my car into theirs, grinding everything they owned to dust. Then, I felt fear. I pictured handcuffs, jail, shame. Swallowing down my pride, I attempted to calm my emotions.

Moments later, a car on the right swerved toward mine, cutting me off. A fourth time? I couldn’t believe it.

Not long after this fourth intruder had finished cutting me off, a fifth car swerved toward mine. I sat there, dumbfounded that this was happening again.

Seconds later, a sixth car swerved toward mine, cutting me off, again.

Six times, people had cut me off, all in the span of two minutes. The center lane had not been going any faster than the outside two lanes. My mind felt stuffed full of emotion. Pictures flashed through my mind. My disbelief had become gargantuan, towering above me like some sluggard troll. I imagined more cars piling in front of mine, faster and faster, so that I would have to be going backwards to accommodate them all.

Something popped. Suddenly, every lesson I had ever learned—every wisdom—fell upon my mind, shining a light brighter than that hot, yellow, setting sun. In that moment, I knew that I was responsible for every emotion I was feeling, including the frustration. Not only that, I was also responsible for everything in my environment toward which I had been aiming that frustration. I had been creating those opportunities for frustration. Here and now, I had a choice—accept that responsibility, or descend back into the darkness of blame. I chose responsibility.

In a matter of two or three seconds, I had gone from burning rage and disbelief, to calm bliss. That was my first miracle—precision control over my life and its emotions.

I had chosen to take responsibility for the actions of others against me. By doing so, I ceased to be a victim—for the first time in my life. It was now impossible to be a victim, because I was responsible for doing those things against me. This was Christ’s lesson from the cross. Look at the sheer power of that viewpoint. This is the stuff from which civilizations are built. This is the viewpoint of solutions.

In that moment of bliss, I considered those other drivers and their needs. I felt only love for them and compassion. I no longer viewed my needs as important. And what is “importance” but an attitude of selfishness? I felt no selfishness or ego. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t matter if I ever made it to my destination. I completely forgave those other drivers and now put their needs ahead of mine. In fact, if they had wanted to squash my car and to take my life, I would have gladly given it to them. My body, my car—none of these things were important any more.

My utter forgiveness of those six other drivers was my second miracle. Their actions against me were as important as a distant dust mote reflecting the light of that setting sun.

I felt huge and invulnerable. No longer did I feel any self-concern. Lightly, I remembered past lessons and my earlier experiments with miracles. With sublime curiosity, I pictured “wide open spaces and smooth sailing all the way to my destination.”

I took that picture, and in my mind’s eye, lifted it up and gave it to the maker of all things, feeling full of the confidence of spirit that is called “faith.” With the certainty that it is done, I turned my conscious awareness toward the beautiful architecture along Wilshire, all the while feeling the picture in my subconscious. The moment my conscious awareness fully left the mental picture, the car directly in front of me moved into the lane to the right.

Traffic was still bumper-to-bumper in all three lanes, but suddenly all of the cars of the center lane evacuated that space, leaving it wide open. Within five seconds, there were no cars directly ahead of me for as far as I could see—up to the next bend in Wilshire.

Later, I measured this on a map and found it to be close to two miles—roughly 700 cars. And for the next four minutes, I ran that gauntlet. Not once did a car turn into that long, empty space. Left and right, Wilshire continued to snarl with doubly-choked, bumper-to-bumper traffic. For those four minutes, roughly 2,000 cars and their drivers participated in my third miracle on Wilshire Boulevard.

Today, it only mildly surprises me that it took 34 years for me to realize that the first six cars to evacuate the lane in front of me were the same six cars that had cut me off moments before on that day. My forgiveness of their drivers had been that complete. There was no cheap satisfaction at them being swept aside. I only feel gratitude for their participation in that divine gift.

There were many lessons I gained from those three miracles. I discuss them in depth in my books, The Art of Forgiveness and The Science of Miracles. Perhaps the most interesting lessons involved the nature of God. When we are more like Him, miracles become easier.

Perhaps it’s obvious to those who have thought about the nature of God, that He is a non-physical, spiritual and immortal source of creation. As His children, that would also be our nature—or at least our potential. These physical bodies are merely instruments to help us achieve the necessary continuity of consciousness needed to study such things. Without these bodies, our spiritual minds remain chaotic. Our objective is to be able to see and to think without the temporary, physical cloak that we wear.

But knowing the non-physical nature of God doesn’t help us that much. His other qualities are what give us a better sense of direction, spiritually.

God is not self-concerned. Why should He be? He has no ego—no sense of “importance” and no barriers to overcome. He has no need to be selfish. For him, there is no scarcity. He remains utterly humble. This is why skeptics have such a hard time understanding God. If they had such power to use selfishly, they would fill their ego with self-importance and show off their power to make others bow in awe. God has no such needs. He is utterly generous, for He is the embodiment of the truism that it is more blessed to give than to receive. He has an infinite capacity to give and no need to receive.

God is perfectly confident. He has zero doubts. Everything He calls into existence comes effortlessly. Effort is equivalent to doubt. Such perfect confidence is an act of creation; doubt and effort are at effect, instead of at cause. Humble confidence is the essence of His actions; confidence without humility is arrogance—the seat of self-concern, ego. God is none of those things.

God is perfectly responsible—for everything. Thus, God can never be a victim.

God is unconditionally loving. He needs nothing in return. He never keeps score. He is constantly offering to give to us, but we will never receive those gifts if we remain far from Him. In order to get closer, we need to be more like Him. When we love others as He loves us, then we will be at-one with God. That will be when miracles become second-nature to us.