Imagine that the world was gold.  The land was rich, deep gold, and the streams ran gold, and aspen leaves of gold shimmered and fluttered in the wind.

And imagine that all the houses and other works of men were jewels.

In that golden land was a museum made of turquoise where rarities were on display.  There was a piece of cut glass on display, and a chunk of coal, and a rock.  People marveled at them, some were moved to tears, and many said that these things were so rare and precious that in fact they must not exist, they must be illusions.

We are the people in this story.

Every waking moment, every dreaming moment, we experience a dazzling miracle.  It is the miracle of the soul.  It is the miracle of having a will that can change creation.  It is the miracle of being able to experience sensation and the world and love and feeling.  It is like gold all around us.

Another precious miracle is also all around us.  It is the miracle of the divine.  Through the light of Christ, or the Holy Ghost, we experience the touch of divinity in our souls like the fiery flash of a diamond or the deep inward fire of a ruby.  These experiences are precious jewels.

In contrast, what we normally call miracles are cheap and unimpressive things.  Healings, synchronicities, interruptions of the laws of nature, compared to the two great miracles they are next to nothing.  Men who stand on gold and surrounded by diamonds are arguing that nothing so beautiful as gravel can possibly exist.