I've Been Blessed With a Miracle!

So I was sitting at my dining room table at 8:42 pm on Wednesday, August 31, 2011 when I looked up at a photograph I have had hanging there for about 5 years. And LO! Jesus appeared before me in all his Heavenly Glory! I took a picture to share this Blessing with you:

Can you see Him? It's much more obvious in person than it is in this humble picture. I was struck by His holy presence and stopped to pray to him in all his Glory. Ok, actually I didn't actually pray. But I sort of chuckled at the pareidolia.

Since He's being coy in this image, I have slightly enhanced the natural image just for the sake of helping you see this Divine Miracle:

Now, can you see him?! I thought so! What an amazing blessing! I mean, here I am, a blasphemous godless heathen, and I see Jesus in a picture that I've looked at for 5 years. By the way my husband's cousin gave us this photograph which is his original work. It's a picture of pond scum on a creek. How apropos!

Ok, I was just playing with the second image, but I did see him in the photograph. I've talked about pareidolia on HDC in the past, so you should be familiar with the phenomena, which is extremely common: it is the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist.

What I found very interesting was that when I first looked up the other day and saw the face, I immediately thought it looked like Jesus. But that made me think, how the hell does anyone today think they know what Jesus looked like? Why do we all see him as looking like a surfer dude out of the Renaissance, with sandy blond, long hair, a full beard, etc?

Wouldn't Jesus actually look Arabic, with dark features and black hair? And why do we always see the same basic vague head and shoulders shape as Mary? How many countless millions or billions of Middle Eastern women, or nuns, have worn the same type of cloak? Only every woman in a burka. And every nun in a habit. But for some reason we all have this idealized idea of what this woman looked like and that affects how we perceive patterns in random noise.

But, now that I've seen him, I can't unsee him. The recognition of a human face in the random pattern of pond scum in the picture is stuck in my head as the classically accepted face of Jesus Christ, Son of God.

And this brings up the most important issue. That of miracles. We all know when images of Jesus or Mary appear, the Miracles start to happen around them. So I figure I had better keep an eye out for them. I think that they start once the image is recognized by one special person (who has their patternicity turned up). That makes sense, right? I mean, maybe the image of Jesus wasn't even in the picture all these years, and now that he has imbued the pond scum with his presence, I think I can expect some good changes in my life.

Do I get three wishes? Do I have to create a shrine? I really don't have the space for a shrine and I hate incense. I will be sure to let you know when the miracles start.

I suppose the first one would be that I should turn into a True Believer. But I'd prefer cash, if I get to put in for my three wishes.