Fowler commentary: When is a miracle?
Today, I’m writing about miracles, a subject I know nothing about. This is not an essay on faith. Mike Haynes and Gene Shelburne handle that subject much better than I. This is an attempt to explore the question: When is a miracle?
We think of a miracle as being some event that occurs beyond human possibility; therefore, it is cloaked in mystery. How possibly could an enormous crowd be fed with one fish and one loaf of bread? How possibly could water be changed to wine? How possibly could a lame man be made whole and be able to walk normally? And, most mysterious of all, how can a dead man be raised from the dead and given life once more? Our answer is to pronounce: “They are miracles produced by Jesus.”
The questions I have posed are earth-shaking events, but must a miracle necessarily be earth shaking? I will give a couple of personal examples.
First example: A few years ago I leaned an unstained trellis against my backyard workshop, a shop in which I worked mainly with wood. I didn’t want the stain I used to conflict with the stain of my shop; so I put a worn-out sheet behind the trellis and sprayed the trellis with a different stain. After I finished, I didn’t know what to do with the stain-soaked sheet. Inside the shop I had a large plastic laundry basket filled with wood cutoffs; so I laid the sheet on top of the basket. Setting aside my stupidity for doing so, when I opened the door to my shop the next morning, I was greeted with a perfectly round (at least as round as the laundry basket) pile of ashes. Why did not the shop catch fire and burn from the internal combustion of the sheet, not only the shop but the attached garage with a vehicle parked inside? A miracle? A guardian angel? Or just dumb luck? I choose to believe the incident to be one of the first two. I call it a miracle, because I have no answer to those questions. This “miracle” is not earth shattering for anyone but me and my family. Still, it was a miracle.
Second example: Many years ago I worked for a glass company as a glazier. I was sent to Friona, Texas, to install fourteen three by six foot plate glass windows in a new house. The glass wasn’t cut to fit, so I had to place the glass in the opening and “cut it in” at the top. Near five o’clock I was almost finished, but I was nearing fatigue as well. I made a mistake in cutting in the last window and cut it too short. I didn’t want to drive to Amarillo and back to get another glass for the window, so I decided to call a small glass shop in Bovina. I found a pay phone; however, I had no change. I dialed the number in Bovina anyway, and the operator came on to tell me that the call would be fifty-eight cents. On impulse, I stuck my finger in the return change slot and came out with, you guessed it, fifty-eight cents exactly. Yes, I did! I traded the slightly shortened glass for another larger one with some extra compensation to make up the difference. A quick drive to Bovina and back to Friona, I finished my job. I know some readers will scoff at my account, but that doesn’t matter. For me, it was a minor miracle. Besides, was it a minor miracle as well that the small Bovina glass shop had the glass I needed?
How often do unexplainable incidents happen in our lives, but yet we ignore them? Are these occurrences miracles? If not, then what are they? Is there another word that we can use to answer that question? As you can see, I have many more questions than I have answers.
Coincidences? Accidents? I don’t know. How large must an unexplainable incident be to be a miracle?
I was born on a farm in 1931 near Farwell, Texas. It was a cold, November day with snow on the ground. The doctor on his way from Clovis, New Mexico, slid his car into a ditch. By the time he reached the farmhouse, I was in this world. My mother and I almost died that day. Many years later, my mother told me that as we lay near death, she saw at the foot of the bed a figure of Jesus as she knew Him. The figure said, “You will be all right.” We both began to improve from that moment on.
I don’t know how you might interpret this phenomenon, but I interpret it as a miracle. Yes, I am a miracle — but aren’t we all?
Carl Fowler is a retired professor of English at Amarillo College and lives in Amarillo.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Fowler commentary: When is a miracle?
