Christmas Keepers
by Miracle Chasers on 12/15/12Please share your Christmas traditions as Katie has done here...
I have always loved Christmastime. When our children were young, finally tucked into bed, I would turn off all the lights except for the tree, sit on the couch, and enjoy a magical moment, silent and reminiscent of days gone by. Not every night during the season but always on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, there would be the remnants of a fire in the fireplace, the contentment of an evening spent with loved ones and the anticipation of more family and fun the next day. It is a ritual suggested by my Mom-something she had done and somehow it connected me to my younger years, as my children now connect me to the years ahead. I bask in feelings of love and of hope in my little oasis, warm and twinkling, and feel connected to the message of Christmas: Peace on earth, Goodwill toward men. Though it is a loose translation from the gospel of Luke (2:13-14), as “…a great army of heaven’s angels…” sing praise announcing the birth of Jesus, the message is a universal one.
Peace on earth seems so impossible; it would take the miracle of miracles to achieve it. Yet, ninety-eight years ago it happened. On Christmas Eve, in the first year of the Great War, men on either side of the front lines spontaneously declared, at least in their hearts, Peace on earth, Goodwill toward men. This was not a cease fire, nor was the war just warming up. A million men had already died. At first the men were tentative as they mustered their courage and confidence to venture out to no-man’s land, to chat, exchange gifts and souvenirs, even to play soccer. They sang Christmas carols back and forth and enjoyed the candles the Germans lit on their small Christmas trees, gifts from home. Each side was allowed the dignity of retrieval and burial of the dead. “Christmas had made the bitterest foes friends,” wrote one soldier. They understood the enemy reflected in their own hopes and fears. If it can happen once, though spotty and fleeting, maybe there is a sliver of hope, the possibility of a great miracle, Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men.
Henry Van Dyke, professor, poet and theologian wrote a sermon more than a century ago called Keeping Christmas, the idea that the spirit of Christmas reminds us to set our “…own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity.” What if, working together, friend and bitter enemy, we can capture this spirit not just for a day, but always? You wouldn’t have to be much of a cynic to consider this idea laughable or naïve. In our own country, we can’t seem to agree on how to stop the train headed over the fiscal cliff, much less figure out a solution in the Middle East.
As I sit in the dark this Christmas Eve, I will remember that once, the spirit of Christmas moved men to embrace their humanity rather than their differences. I will translate my own feelings of love and hope into a little prayer for a big miracle, Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men. - Katie
Feast or Famine
by Miracle Chasers on 11/22/12
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday – maybe it’s the food, maybe because some years it falls on my birthday, or maybe it’s just because Thanksgiving seems to have less pretense than many other holidays. It’s a time for reflection, a time to express gratitude, which means taking the time to think about all that we are grateful for. Over the past several weeks I have done a lot of traveling for Miracle Chase talks with women at my alma mater, Boston College, and these meetings have become a part of me. Not only have I met some amazing and wonderful people; in the seeds of compassion and understanding that have been sown at these encounters, I know I have had glimpses witnessing the divine. When someone shares a story of loss, others offer support; as someone questions the validity of certain experiences, others provide understanding and intuition; and as some look for resources to help overcome their issues, others step up. Compassion calls us to respond. It is a responsibility and a demanding mistress - there is no end to when enough is enough! How to be compassionate and maintain one’s sanity takes practice as well as courage – and, as I am learning, it also takes faith.
According to Karen Armstrong, former nun and current religious guru, it is compassion that brings us into the presence of the divine. I think this is what faith is - recognizing the face of the divine in each one of us. If Oprah can have things that she knows to be true, so can all of us, and the one thing I know for sure is the human heartedness that Confucius spoke of, the great commandment of Christ, and the notion of Augustine that scripture should be governed by principles of charity are all about compassion for others. One of our favorite quotes in The Miracle Chase is from Willa Cather, “Where there is great love, there are always miracles…” At its core, love begins with compassion, a virtue in big demand today.
As I write, several big things are happening: clean up post-Superstorm Sandy on the east coast where I caught the last plane out of Boston before the storm hit, the elections are finally decided and for people I care about lots of changes will result, some good, some less so, and in the Middle East the stakes have been raised to a new level. Faith is believing in our fellow man that neighborhoods will be rebuilt, lives and livelihoods can be reestablished, our nation can move on to rediscover its greatness and our capacity to do well for one another can thrive while living in peace. While world events challenge us, I have found that, like charity, compassion begins at home. Two months ago when my youngest child walked away from his college choice after only 5 days, I wondered whether it was somehow my fault for not recognizing the signs of discomfort and the winds of change earlier. The reality of his college choice to a remote and pristine town was different than it looked on paper. My faith was tested as I had to face a multitude of new fears: what would happen next, would he be ok, make the right decisions, and be safe? Initially these fears and my disappointment overwhelmed me, but over time my faith in both of us has grown stronger. I am a good parent and he is a good son. The less I have been afraid the more compassionate and understanding I can be, not only for him but for me as well.
As former hotel CEO Chip Conley suggests, “…faith is something beyond ourselves that creates a sense of compassion in the universe.” Compassion binds us together; it makes great things happen by underscoring our humanness and connection. This growing sense of compassion in the universe is a gift I think is certainly worth sharing and celebrating this Thanksgiving. (Joan)
Roman Holiday
by Miracle Chasers on 11/02/12
I had
the good fortune to be able to go on vacation in Italy recently with a dear
friend who has a gift for languages. My friend is a new Catholic and he
especially wanted to go to Mass at Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the major papal
basilicas in Rome. After Mass and after poking around the church together, we
went into the Museum Gift Shop where my friend began an animated conversation
in Italian with the young man behind the counter. The next thing I knew, the
young man found someone to cover for him, grabbed a large ring of keys and we
were off on a private tour deep into the rooms, corridors, and inner sanctums
of the church and surrounding apartments and offices.
Our guide was good looking,
tall and well, Italian - about thirty years old and apparently single. I
secretly wished my daughter, who is almost thirty and single, was there with us
so she could meet this charming young man. He spoke only Italian, but was so
passionate and expressive that even I got the gist of what he was saying most
of the time. He claimed to be part of a special group or brotherhood of men,
the Collegium Liberianum, whose purpose is to support the liturgies,
celebrations and services of the Basilica. He told us that Santa Maria Maggiore
plays an important role in the Catholic Church and as he proudly pointed to a
small enameled pin on the lapel of his Italian-cut blue blazer, he assured us
he was no ordinary museum clerk.
We walked up and down winding
staircases and finally came out onto a balcony overlooking the square. Behind
us, on the back wall of the portico, was a colorful and detailed mosaic
depicting the story of the miracle behind the name, Our Lady of the Snows.
"You understand," the
young man said passionately in Italian, "this is not a legend; this is a
miracle." I told him I had written a book on miracles with two friends and
he looked to my companion for translation. Obviously relieved to learn he was
speaking to the miracle faithful, he told us the story of how Santa Maria
Maggiore came to be first known as Our Lady of the Snows.
One night, Pope Liberius, who
was Pope from 352-366 AD, had a dream. In this dream Mary, the mother of Jesus,
appeared to him, concerned about war and violence in the world and seeking
peace. She asked the Pope to build a church in her honor on a particular site,
which would be identified by snowfall and had, as many of the locations for the
new Roman Catholic churches, once been a Roman temple or palace. A short time
later, a childless Roman patrician and his wife came to see the Pope. The man,
John, had been thinking about what to do with his wealth when he and his wife
died, and he also had a dream in which Mary asked him to do all he could to see
that a church was built in her honor. When the Pope and the Roman couple
learned that their dreams were very similar and that they occurred on the same
night, they went in procession to the site together. There, on the fifth of
August, at the height of the Roman summer, just in that one location - the
summit of the Esquiline Hill - it started to snow. The snow was said to have
outlined the area of the future foundation of the church. To this day, on the
fifth of August, the miracle is celebrated when thousands of white rose petals
are dropped from the basilica's dome during Mass and float down to cover the
floor of the church below.
How do we know what is truly a
miracle? The Catholic Church eliminated the feast of Our Lady of the Snows from
the official Roman liturgical calendar and in 1969, while not directly stating
there was no miracle, the Church seemed to step around the issue by renaming
the August 5th date in honor of the dedication of the basilica of St. Mary.
For me, the passion and love
the young man has for his church and his job, the pride he clearly takes in
sharing what he knows about the church's history and its miracle, inspires me
to think that the story he tells is more than a legend. Who can say what dreams
are the machinations of a troubled mind or what dreams are messages from
heaven? As I looked into the beauty of the mosaic of Our Lady of the Snows, the
only mosaic this particular artist ever signed in his lifetime, and into the
eyes of my deeply committed and faithful guide, I had to believe that there was
Grace touching us there at Santa Maria Maggiore. So on the fifth of August next
year, I plan to toss white rose petals into the air, to celebrate Our Lady of
the Snows, and to remember this special opportunity to learn more about my
faith and the faith of others who make up my Church. - Meb
Miracle Moments from Katie
by Miracle Chasers on 09/21/12
“It’s a miracle!” we sometimes say without thinking - when a friend calls at just the right time, when you can feel shivers on your skin in the presence of a majestic sky at twilight, or maybe, when something more mysterious like the “miracle on the Hudson” occurs. I believe these “little” miracles are the glue that connects us to each other and to whatever is beyond us. Circumstances that intrigue, a bit of mystery in an ordinary day, keep us guessing and make every day an adventure. The only way I can believe in miracles is to believe they occur on a continuum from miniscule to magnificent, encompassing the universe with its untold energy, and that we exist fully in connection with this continuum. I didn’t always feel this way. There was a tightness I could feel in my soul, a judgment I imposed to every story I heard, and a lack of conviction to my faith as a result. I realized I had chased myself into a wall and part of my own miracle chase was to scale that wall to get a much broader view, a view captured by Elizabeth Barrett Browning who wrote,
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God
Interpreting life this way is good because you can always hope that a miracle, however teensy, is just around the corner, even when the corner is a literal one.
It is the middle of August and my daughter Laura and I are returning from a short mother-daughter hiatus up the seaboard, returning by way of Mystic, Connecticut. NYC is a couple of hours and change from Mystic but not on this day. The main freeway -95- is closed due to an accident. We traipse toward the coast with our fellow travelers to Route 1 - initially noticing the coastal scenery, opening the windows to the summer breeze, imagining ourselves in the quaint cottages dotting the inlets and harbors - and then remember our predicament as we continue to crawl along with the masses. When we are sure we are south of the problem, we go back to 95 only to hit another snag. We have traveled 20 miles in 2 hours, remind ourselves we are lucky we aren’t involved in the accidents, and say a silent prayer for the people that are. Still, frustration mounts as we continually alter our route only to be met by more traffic slog. Minor sniping with each other is involved:
Why can’t you just figure out iPhones, Mom? Laura says from the driver’s seat in a forced, even voice.
Why can’t you just trust ‘Jill’ (the GPS voice)? I reply, knowing full well that I am a device klutz and that swiping the screen of her iPhone with my clumsy hands is resulting in screens that will definitely not get us out of Podunk Connecticut.
We eventually give up on 95 and Route 1 and decide to make our way west over to 15, a bit out of our way and our trickiest navigational maneuver. Minor sniping turns to exasperation.
Mom, just look at the iPhone! It’s not that hard!! Laura is no longer pretending to be patient with me.
Laura, please, just give me a minute…Okay, never mind! Pull over. I’ll drive, you navigate…
Our 2 hour delay means we have hit NYC at dead on commute traffic height. We crawl some more. The sign flashes “Take alternate route, Yankee game traffic.” We both feel like we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole at this point, going on 5 hours. We’re hungry, we’re thirsty, we can’t agree on music. We are sick of each other’s generational righteousness.
By the time we get to the heart of the city, I am feeling pretty desperate for a parking place, because the thought of dropping off our things and then slogging down to our garage more than 30 blocks away is just beyond my tired soul at this moment. This calls for drastic measures - like calling upon my parking angel. I’m not sure if this is a prayer - I mean I really don’t believe God plays sports, which means she is definitely not going to be bothered with my traffic and parking issues. Then again, I don’t want to get technical, I just want a parking place.
As we keep our eyes peeled coming down Park Avenue where I have gotten lucky before, there is nothing, and I finally turn down our block resigned to my fate only to find a spot right in front of our building! A spot that is never available even on a good parking day.
Our sojourn had started as a final trip to move Laura and her new husband to Cambridge where she will attend business school. As I walked along the sidewalks of New York the next morning carrying something she had left in the car, I thought about the recent years we had been able to share in NYC. I will miss our spontaneous get-togethers, random meetings in the Park, and knowing she’s “around the corner.” I tried not to take it for granted. I knew, after all, what it was like having her 3000 miles away before we moved east. I thought about the sunset we shared in Newport, where we had stopped at a B and B for the night, our walk along Cliff Walk and reminiscing about her childhood over dinner.
“I think it’s about the integrity of your dreams, Mom, and sticking to them…” she had said.
I thought about how lucky I am to have her, how happy I am that she is able to follow her dreams. Love, the kind that aches, and a parking angel that comes through again…chasing, and finding miracles, twinkling in the morning light.
Over the Rainbow
by Miracle Chasers on 08/21/12
I don't know why, but whenever I am at a wedding I start reminiscing about the past....
In addition to multiplication and writing in cursive, the most important things my third grade very Irish teacher taught me were Gaelic and all about leprechauns. I was fascinated by the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I had to know what was inside, for even as literal as I can be, I knew it wasn't money alone. I became a rainbow groupie, driving miles out of my way, tracking down the end of a rainbow to see where it would lead. In Hawaii, double rainbows cascade into the sea, in California's central valley, they abound regularly on my frequent drives between San Francisco and Pebble Beach, and Katie loves to remind me of Greg's white rainbow of possibility that I describe in prologue to The Miracle Chase when thinking outside the box is required.
Recently I attended a beautiful wedding in the heart of wine country under clear skies, warm sunshine and in a spectacular surrounding where the ceremony had been personally scripted and choreographed to perfection by the happy couple. I was pleasantly surprised as they joined arms to exit down the wood-chipped aisle when the harpist accompanied them with the theme from the Wizard of Oz, Over the Rainbow. At first I thought it was an unusual selection, but then I realized how appropriate is for so many aspects of our rapidly changing lives.
As the landscape of my own life has changed over the years, like Dorothy, I knew, I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Whether shaken by literal or figurative tornadoes, our world gets turned topsy-turvy and we need to adapt. As we chased miracles, we recognized it was the Ripple Effect - the what you make of these life-altering events, the what happens next - that is important. A recent email to our website from one of our readers was a timely reminder of this sentiment, quoting the concluding words of the 2004 movie Saint Ralph, "If we're not chasing miracles, what's the point?" I had to laugh. In addition to the fact that my father was named Ralph and possessed an uncanny ability to call me out when I was skirting around important issues, I have finally been able to admit that I spent the first several years of my personal chasing miracle journey apologetic that my miracle wasn't big enough or powerful enough when compared to some others'. Having witnessed the visceral reaction people have to our miracle stories, I now know that comparison is, and, never was, the point. Like the Wizard of Oz, the point always has been in the searching, in following where the road takes us, and in the knowledge we discover along the way that makes it all worthwhile.
We are often asked to describe the best miracle we have heard. To make comparisons is part of our human nature, but miracles are personal. How can anyone say what is the most convincing, the most incredible, the most moving? It doesn't work that way. Even Teddy Roosevelt recognized that "comparison is the thief of joy." And no, my miracle is not bigger, better, or anything else, when compared to another's. Feel free to break apart the sum of the whole into miracle bits and make your own determination. In fact, you don't have to believe in my miracle to believe in your own - you just have to think and not turn away. If nothing else, a miracle must bring us peace - an understanding of tragedy, but also a view of the reverse side of the tapestry. The gift is that in that moment, that thought, transformation awaits and we begin to see into a part of ourselves that was always there - just hidden behind the curtain.
People have told us we are brave to share the view into the part of our soul that is carried in our stories of the miraculous. It's ironic, since I am not typically brave at all. In fact, I am a life-long chicken; just ask my brothers who terrorized me as a child with wild animal sounds during hikes in forest, my mother who for years had to bring me screaming into the pediatrician's office, or even now, my husband, as we cross some terrifying mountain pass without guardrails to save us. The intensity of the stories that have unfolded before us continues to push me forward in my journey. Whether it was Katie's bus ride conversation with Rose Mapendo, the incredible survivor of the ethnic war in the Congo, a thoughtful young woman at wits end contemplating suicide, or most recently, a lovely woman who has endured more sadness than one thinks would be humanly possible with the horrific murder of her parents and siblings, somehow they all say thank you to us, for sharing and for allowing them the opportunity to tell their story. For me, it is beyond powerful, beyond humbling. Instead of the cowardly lion's pin-on medal of courage, it feels like the hand of God.
And yet, for all my chasing miracles, and rainbows as well, I never anticipated the recent experience I had on a return trip to Boston. Amidst a series of huge storms, thunder, lightening, hail, and tornadoes, it was a nerve-racking drive back to the city. I was trying to stay safely in my lane, all the while avoiding the ever-present puddles from Massachusetts' infamous potholes and dodging the huge surges of water bombarding my windshield from the oncoming traffic. With the sun on my right (fortunately, instead of in my eyes), suddenly I realized that there was the most spectacular rainbow on my left. From habit, I turned to see where the rainbow began and tenuously followed the brilliant colors to the apex and then down again. Incredibly, I became conscious that the far end of the rainbow was on the hood of MY car. Over the next few minutes still traveling down the highway I was enveloped by a continuing burst of color emanating from the front of my daughter's trusty Volvo, I had an epiphany.
We ARE the pot of gold! Like miracles (and marriages), it's the what we make of the changes in our lives that sustain and enrich us. In the same way that a rainbow is a reflection of water droplets, we are a reflection of all that has brought us to this point, this place. It was crucial to my spiritual journey to come out of the "miracle closet," to admit my experience was a miracle. In facing and overcoming my own fear of inadequacy, it has been possible to encourage others to voice their own experiences and begin to trust that no matter how difficult the past, dreams really can come true.
