When we were children, we were told lots of stories. There were trolls who dwelt under bridges waiting for their victims, princesses in high towers waiting for a prince, and brave knights with light sabres which fought the forces of evil. Alongside all the stories, we were told lots of facts: the Earth goes round the Sun, worms live in the soil, and Mum and Dad have to go to work to earn their money. This myriad of information made us what we are. Such learning forms a backdrop of information that we have in common with others, it is what is called our mythos. Into this bewildering amount of information was placed our religious learning. From very young children we were taught stories from the scriptures of whichever religion we just happened to have been born into. And our young minds tried to grapple with the stuff which the adults gave to us, and fit it into its right place. But it didn't always fit together well. How did Father Christmas get down the chimney? How did Jonah breathe when he got stuck inside a whale? How did Jesus turn water into wine?

When we were given all these facts and fables, our minds were still developing. And as they were not yet fully formed, there were gaps in our understanding. As youngsters, we had no choice but to trust our elders, and so we often took what we were told as unquestionable truth. Indeed, the very concept that people might not tell the truth was something we were yet to discover, so we didn't then have the ability to question some of the things we were told. We were told about miracles, and in those early years we didn't know how to assimilate the stories.

But we grew up, and looked with older, wiser eyes at the stories, and many of us chose to reject the tales of miracles as superstitions. A lot of us became sceptics. In fact, some of us thought the fantastic tales from religion to be so unbelievable that they provided proof that religion is wrong. Ironically, the religious stories of fantastic miracles drove some people to become atheists. Some people threw the baby out with the bath-water.

What we are left with as adults is confusion. How are we to know what to believe? Some say to believe requires "faith". Part of us feels we should believe unquestioningly in the old tales of wondrous miracles. But our minds are designed to search for truth, and somewhere inside our subconscious, a bell is ringing that tells us something is not quite right.

Fortunately, the Truth Is Out There. The truth is that miracles are not paranormal phenomena, as we were led to believe, but they are very real. In fact, reality is an on-going miracle.

We can understand miracles in the same way that we can understand any aspect of life, or spirituality. We can find the courage to put aside the scriptures for a moment and look directly at what is in front of us. Those who follow scriptures should have nothing to fear: if the scriptures are right then they will agree with what we can observe. In fact, when we look directly at the truth before us, we are effectively looking at God. Not a paranormal God: a normal God. If we have faith in what we observe, we are forced to confess we have never seen a man emerge from a whale, or water turn to wine, or anything paranormal. When we understand that miracles are a reality, we discover what it really means to have faith - that is faith in reality. True faith is trusting reality. To have faith that a paranormal deity will intervene to help us out is no faith at all. Praying for the paranormal requires a lack of faith. This is the paradox.

By seeing the miracle of reality, we are not losing anything: seeing the true nature of miracles shows us something even more astonishing than anything paranormal. It is a part of the spirituality of reality.

Just for fun, and in no particular order here are a few real miracles...

The Universe; stars; planet Earth; life; evolution; butterfly wings; the scent of roses; Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag; sex; humour; children; air travel; the rings of Saturn; dinosaur fossils; mobile phones; the Internet; fractals; Elvis Presley; making fire by rubbing sticks; cables that cross oceans; amethysts; the Grand Canyon; DNA; cream teas in a Cotswold tea shop; skiing; helicopters; the Amazon Rainforest; a male peacock in display; Salvador Dali; Monet; Shakespeare; glass (it lets light through but not matter); Indian head massage; people who are willing to work as doctors, caterers, furniture builders, farmers, street sweepers, musicians, teachers, accountants, carpenters, therapists, deep sea divers, police officers, pilots, potters, scientists or news presenters (we couldn't function without such diversity of vocation); sunsets; snow; rain (transports pure water from the oceans to the land, and it's transparent - how useful is that?!); communication satellites; chocolate mousse; maths; chocolate; psychiatry; blue whales; word processors; cats that purr; gravity; electricity; growing courgettes; agriculture; Stonehenge; the aurora borealis; solar panels; sail boats; pizza; Wallace and Gromit; microwave ovens; The Simpsons; the duck billed platypus; volcanoes; silicon chips that can store millions of sides of A4 text; rainbows; smoke that goes up chimneys, and not down; television; heart transplants; fruit; dogs that fetch sticks; dancing; drums; the beauty of the human body; the eradication of smallpox.

These are all miraculous, and none of them is paranormal. While we have been attempting to rationalise miraculous myths, we have sometimes missed out on the reality of the miracles in the here and now. The Universe is miraculous, and on top of that, we can create our own miracles. It is us who can put a stop to war. But we have to build our spirituality on reality, and each individual has to take responsibility.

More of Alex Caldon's writing can be found in the book The Quest For Truth: On Finding The Grail, available from www.thequestfortruth.co.uk. Some people are leigible for a FREE copy, helping to make the Grail available to all, as legends state. Happy Questing!