I can't account for why a parent bursts into tears the first time her or his child takes a first step. I can't account for why the child can even walk. I don't know why Carole Caress and Doris Johnson are more joyful about life lived in a wheelchair than most of us are about a life of full and complete mobility. I don't know why Northaven was chosen as the site for a continuing miracle of stereotype crushing. I don't know how I ever deserved the wife I have, and both of us are clueless about why Kate turned out as differentiated as she is growing up around us.
Life is one big miracle.
But in the age of luxury boxes, we just can't get enough. Because I can choose from 30 brands of bottled water at the grocery, and can drive back home in a car that has a 'power plane instead of a motor, I get to thinking that I ought to be able to choose whether undesirables ought to be able to get near my house, so I build a wall, and a fence, and a gate. And all of a sudden, life isn't a miracle any more. It's one impediment after another to my getting what I deserve. It's one paycheck too few.