While
I was walking along the bank of a narrow canal in Venice, I saw a young boy
pointing frantically to a football bobbing in midstream to his mother and
asking her to retrieve it. He must have accidentally kicked it into the canal. His
mother could do nothing, but just watch helplessly as the ball floated and eddied
gently down the canal.
I
stopped and watched, too. I could not help to get the ball for the boy, either.
However, being the only Chinese around, I pretended as if I had qi qong powers and was able to bring the ball to the side of the canal. I
stretched my arms out and then pointed both my open palms at the ball like I
was directing some energy onto the ball and began the motion of pulling it in.
Initially
nothing happened. It just drifted in midstream. However, it soon began to
slowly inch nearer and nearer towards the bank as it floated down the canal. I
continued the moving motions – outwards and inwards, away and towards me - of my
palms and followed the ball.
After
bobbing for about a distance of 10 meters down the canal, moving nearer to the
bank as it floated by, the ball eventually came within reach of my outstretched
arms and I quickly put my right hand under it and brought it out from the
water. Immediately there was loud applause from the opposite bank of the canal.
A few tourists had been watching me and were applauding my success in
retrieving the ball.
Looking
back over the incident, I wonder whether I really had been gifted with supernatural
powers after all. I am going to find out by throwing a ball into a lake or
stream and try to retrieve it. Chances would be that I would definitely not
succeed. But I would never know if I didn’t do so. What do you think?
ltbs
There
are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The
other is as though everything is a miracle.
Albert
Einstein
