mirror ball 30: miracles, the uncanny, and/or answered prayers

This month on the mirror ball: 

Can you tell us about a time when something happened that just can't be rationally explained?

Was a prayer of yours answered?

Did something happen that just couldn't have been a coincidence?

Did it seem as if a spirit, or the god of your understanding was at work?

Or did you sense the benevolence (or sense of humor) of the universe?

Was it frightening, thrilling, reassuring?

Valerie: I'm not a smoker; never have been. When Mom (40 year smoker) was in ICU for the longest stint, some months before her death, I craved cigarettes. Strangest feeling. Later she said she had craved smokes so much, even on oxygen, all through that time, painful desire she couldn't ease. So I got it. And smoked two or three cigarettes-- only as much as would make that feeling go away... 

About a month and a half before the end, I was in my apartment five hours away from her (again in the ICU). I suddenly felt this strange and horrible shrinking-- a pain? A pinching? In my mind's eye I saw her under the green hospital sheets, growing smaller and smaller, until she was tiny there, like an embryo. Later, I found out that at the time I was experiencing this vision, she was in atrial fibrillation, eyes rolled back in her head, and they had to use the paddles to bring her back.

There are connections, bonds between people who love deeply. A Greater Being ties us together, choreographing that Dance we follow. My scientist father, witnessing with her the connections between my mother and others throughout her illness, those which could not be explained away, watched amazed and with open mind as mysteries unfolded.

Dan: I can say there was a time I had a dream.

I was in our attic and it was filled with china stacked up high, glass vases everywhere and my grandmother was sleeping on the bed in the corner. I was walking through trying to be very quiet and careful but I brushed a dish and "crash" down came it all - waking up my grandma Helen. I woke up that morning,to find that she had died that night.

I can say that there have been countless times in the city when I have turned just at the right moment to avert being hit by a bus or taxi.

I could tell you of Alma, my mother who with six kids would throw the dried laundry on her bed - go downstairs and come back up and have it be folded.

I could say it was a miracle that I met Steven & John. A miracle that just the right words were spoken to ignite a spark... a spark that continues to burn.

There is a power that is living that as I grow older, is now not a miracle or magic but a way of life.

Every day i practice being present - many times I fail - every day I try - sometimes I am - that is a miracle.

Val L.: I grew up in the Chicago-land area. Suburbia central- very conservative, Dupage county. Yet, my summers as a child were spent in mostly rural communities, as my mother was a teacher and had summers off. I was lucky to be able to have the best of both worlds- the energy and bustle of the city with all its culture and then the calm and smallness of places like Clayhole, Kentucky; Winona Lake, Indiana; Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania. Small town central. My summers were spent in those places. My days were spent, mostly by myself, in some creek or forest or field; trying to catch bugs, or fish, or frogs, or crawdads and tadpoles. It's amazing to me that I was never kidnapped or messed with by some crazy person...

It was one of those times where I experienced something that to this day I cannot explain...it must have been an angel or some wood sprite (maybe it was Bjork...KIDDING!!!). I was about 10 and I was walking through the holler in eastern Kentucky...early summer, so there was still plenty of dead stuff laying around. I remember the sun coming through the canopy in patches. I distinctly remember hearing someone singing...a woman...so I stopped and looked around. Nothing. I continued to walk, and heard it again. I stood still. Nothing, again. I started moving again and just as I was about to take another step I heard a woman's voice say very clearly "Stop." I remember a strong sense of fear and a cold feeling. I couldn't move...and then I heard something coming through the forest...it was a deer.

I had been walking along a path, but it was very small- clearly had been made by animals. I had never walked this way before. As I crouched there, frozen in fear, I watched this animal walk right by me and continue on the path where I would have walked had I not heard the voice. Suddenly, it disappeared-violently-in an instant. It had fallen through the underbrush down into an old coal mine, sink hole, thingy. I couldn't even see it, but I could hear it struggling very far down...nothing I could do.

I remember sitting down and crying and crying. Crying because I couldn't do anything to help it but also because it could have been me.

Benjamin: When I was in highschool and college, I scouted cotton. Basically, I walked around in cotton fields and looked for anything eating the plants and made reports out for the farmer, who decided to spray or not based on my findings. Cotton scouts are paid by the acre, and generally kids do it to make extra money in the summers, but some people, like me, realized that if they scouted enough cotton, they didn’t have to work at all the rest of the year. I got hooked up with a big farmer and scouted about 2700 acres a summer through college.

It was long, hot, boring work. In south Georgia, the fields are not in large, thousand acre plots like they are in the Midwest; they’re broken into 20 to 50 to 200 acre plots, separated by wetlands and woods. To cover ground, I bought a 4 wheeler, and would park in a central area and scout 200 – 300 acres in a chunk.

Occasionally, I’d get stuck a mile or two away from my vehicle and any kind of cover, when a thunderstorm would kick up.  Our thunderstorms are fast and hard; the rain comes down in dime sized drops, and sometimes visibility is literally cut down to a few yards. If you’re stuck out in one, you get soaked to the bone, and the rest of the day is pretty miserable.

So, I’d basically make a mad dash back to my vehicle to try to keep from getting soaked.

One day, I’d gone back to cover a small little patch that was only accessible through a neighboring farmer’s land, which happened to be a fairly large chunk, so I was back about a half mile off the dirt road, and probably about a mile and a half from my vehicle. And it started pouring. 

I jumped on my 4 wheeler and stared hauling ass down this little field road.  I was probably going about 30 miles an hour, which is pretty fast when it’s raining so hard visibility is about 15 feet, and you don’t use a helmet and you’re squinting your eyes against the rain.

So I didn’t notice the big, huge pile of dirt they’d dropped in the middle of the field road while I was back scouting my field. I tried to swerve and miss it, but I wound up clipping the edge, and went air borne.

Since I hit it with only my two left wheels, my 4 wheeler twisted into a barrel roll in the air.  I was thrown off, and my 4 wheeler and I flew along in parallel; it above me and upside down, and me under it, with my back to the ground, head first. I remember looking up at the 4 wheeler, as we were flying along, thinking:  That’s pretty high up, and This is how people die on 4 wheelers.

I was out for at least a few seconds... Next thing I remember, I was on the ground, flat on my face, and spread eagle.  I was thinking: Get up, start walking; don’t lie here; make your body move.  So I stood up, and immediately fell back down. My whole body went pins and needles, like when your foot falls asleep, and it hurt really, really bad. After a few seconds, I started moving my arms and legs, thinking, “Hey, this is good, if I can feel this, then I’m probably not paralyzed, right?” I sat up and started to gather myself. I realized my glasses were gone, and I felt around and found one lens and leg; the other half of my glasses was gone. My 4 wheeler was still running, and landed right side up, about 10 feet away from me. We were about 10- 15 yards from the pile of dirt, and it had stopped raining.

I didn’t think much about it until after I’d gotten home and cleaned up and put in my contacts, etc. My watch band was broken, and as I was looking at it, I realized my watch stopped.

This is one of 3 times in my life I could have wound up dead but didn’t. I was also hit by a car when I was 12; before that, a friend was playing with a gun (PARENTS! LOCK THEM UP!) until he ejected a shell and realized it was loaded. Seriously. 

So what is all this? Luck? God? Good Karma? Who knows, but it’s miraculous, no matter what it is.  If there's a reason I've made it out of all of this, I hope I figure it out.           

Steve: We had recently moved to Chicago. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know the city, and I was unemployed.
 
This isn't something that I was used to trying, but one day I thought: I'm going to leave this day up to God. So I put that very deliberately out to the universe, or my higher power, or however I was thinking of it that day. I got on the train and headed toward what I had heard was the gallery district. 

When the time felt right, I got off the train. Then I looked around this neighborhood I'd never seen before until I saw a gallery with a sign that was appealing. So I went in. There were a couple of women behind the desk, and after taking in the show I started chatting with one of them. "You're from Oregon? I used to live in Oregon," she said. "Corvallis? I used to live in Corvallis," she said. When I said the name of the street I grew up on, we stared at each other, and simultaneously realized that we had been neighbors, schoolmates, and dear friends way back in second grade.
 
Thanks to Ann, I ended up getting a job at the art magazine where she worked; more importantly, I felt more at home in Chicago and was back in touch with a friend who was as delightful and creative as she was back in Harding Elementary.