THE THREE MIRACLES OF 2017
WIKIPEDIA SAYS: WHAT IS A MIRACLE
"A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity)
Informally, the word "miracle" is often used to characterize any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws
of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood, such as a birth. Other such
miracles might be: survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or 'beating the odds'. Some
coincidences may be seen as miracles. A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many rational and
scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible (that is, requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain
of validity) or impossible to confirm by their nature (because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out). Theologians
typically say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through nature yet, as a creator,is free to work without, above, or against
it as well. The possibility and probability of miracles are then equal to the possibility and probability of the existence of God."
"A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity)
Informally, the word "miracle" is often used to characterize any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws
of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood, such as a birth. Other such
miracles might be: survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or 'beating the odds'. Some
coincidences may be seen as miracles. A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many rational and
scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible (that is, requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain
of validity) or impossible to confirm by their nature (because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out). Theologians
typically say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through nature yet, as a creator,is free to work without, above, or against
it as well. The possibility and probability of miracles are then equal to the possibility and probability of the existence of God."
Having been raised strict Roman Catholic in the 40's, miracles were a dime a dozen. We grew up expecting them, reading about
them and experiencing them at home, in church and in dreams. Our miracles were country miracles; miracles of kids cavorting,
playing, maneuvering in the lap of Mother Nature who filled in as caregiver, friend and collaborator/protector.
The fact that we didn't get abducted, terribly abused or run over by cars was a TOTAL MIRACLE because in the 40's in our small
upstate NY village, we kids were "put out" to play at 8am, told to come home for lunch and then sent out again, returning at dusk
or sometimes dark. And it was a silent agreement that we would come home Miraculously Intact never reporting bruises,
pains or sprains.
Granted ours weren't big miracles like St Lucy's whose eyes were gouged out by Diocletian and then mysteriously regrown back.
Nor were they a Padre Pio miracle, especially like the one when he literally having a stoke in his Lazy Boy chair,
in the house after a horrendous hit on his head via a medical mistake at PT that same morning.
Our child-miracles were not like the one's at Lourdes or Medjugorje. Or the ones at Fatima or Guadeloupe.Ours were easy
miracles. For example,it was a miracle that pedophiles were not lurking in the theaters where we went unaccompanied every
Saturday (there were 2 actually that I knew of). It was a miracle we didn't get broken limbs when we sleighed down the hill in back of
the rectory, unaccompanied; it was a miracle we didn't drown when we walked unaccompanied to the kids park via public roads while
still toddlers; it's a miracle that the dozing senior at the kiddie pool was able to keep her 80 year old tired eyes on the
squirming/peeing/squealing/pooping/slithering bodies of 20 manic seven year olds, unaccompanied by Mom or Dad at said public park.
Our child miracles were unadulterated Luck.
WIKIPEDIA SAYS: MIRACLES AND THE LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS
Statistically "impossible" events are often called miracles. For instance, when 3 classmates accidentally meet decades after they left school in a different country,
they may consider this as "miraculous". However, a practically infinite number of events happen every moment on earth, thus infinitely unlikely co-incidences also
happen every moment. Events that are considered "impossible" are thus not impossible at all -- they are just increasingly rare and dependent on the number of individual
events. British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events ("miracles") to happen to them at the rate of
about one per month. By Littlewood's definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.
Statistically "impossible" events are often called miracles. For instance, when 3 classmates accidentally meet decades after they left school in a different country,
they may consider this as "miraculous". However, a practically infinite number of events happen every moment on earth, thus infinitely unlikely co-incidences also
happen every moment. Events that are considered "impossible" are thus not impossible at all -- they are just increasingly rare and dependent on the number of individual
events. British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events ("miracles") to happen to them at the rate of
about one per month. By Littlewood's definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.
Just recently I was witness to three miracles in a row that were not just luck. No, that many all at once smelled more like Divine
Intervention.
Here is miracle number 1:
I was flying from NY to Austin to present and perform DAD ART, a meditative interaction with the audience via the sstory of the life/sickness/death
and funeral of my father. Having asked for prayers from The Way of The Rose group that I joined a few years ago, I felt mantled by their
good wishes; wishes that I witnessed working on other members of our group of Mary Prayer Warriors. I expected the same.So it should not have been a
surprise when I drove 85MPH in a 45MPH zone at 3am to catch a 4am bus to the Port of Authority that I would be forgiven! I was being
prayed for and there were zilch cars on the road and in fact I was the only car on the road because it was 3am.
But here comes the first miracle: little did I know that officers pick up lots of people at that hour because drivers at that time are careening
home from parties/bars/ secret trysts/hospital visits/caregiving jobs and this young officer-man, 50 years my junior, pulled me over on Rte.209,
thinking me one of those listed above and politely asked, " Do you know that you were driving 85MPH through Lake Katrine?" I have been following
you ever since and you are going 80 on Rte 209!"
In neurologically triggered adrenaline mode, I pulled out insurance and license cards and with a real, honest to God tremor in my
right hand, and with all due respect, offered them to him. "Where are you going? he asked. "To the 4am bus, and that's why I was rushing. So sorry." Sorry
comes immediately to my lips when confessing to priests or police. I was trained that way.
And yes, you guessed it, "I'm NOT going to give you a ticket this time," he said and then proceeded to follow me from 209 to Washington
Ave, assuring himself 1. That I was safe? or 2. That I was telling the truth and going to the bus?
Let's all stand and applaud MIRACLE NUMBER 1 and the fact that I didn't have to pay a fee or get a mark on my license or I didn't kill
myself or anyone else going that horrendous speed. Phewwwwwwww.
WIKIPEDIA SAYS: DAVID HUME
And yes, you guessed it, "I'm NOT going to give you a ticket this time," he said and then proceeded to follow me from 209 to Washington
MIRACLE 2: My parents communicated non-verbally and when at their best, musically. Strapped to the life of the 40's-50's, parents/breadwinners
performed those roles with great dignity. But love shone through the cracks of my parent's disbelief that this is what life was supposed to look and be
like, by listening to, singing all together and passing on their love of SOUND! Not the sounds of; " What are your feeling? What happened at school?
Why are you puking down the stairs every morning?" not those words, not those sounds coming from words, but the sounds of Mom playing the
piano after dinner, the sounds of Dad listening to trumpet and big bands on vinyl, the sounds of silence when they went to Church and especially
when Dad would sit in meditative-adoration on Sunday afternoons at the Chapel. Those were my languages. So when I hid my parental DNA-ed
love of singing, something Mom did in Dad's band before they married, I let it leak out shyly in some of my videos and performances. But at 75 ,
the hidden dream coul no longer be covered with fear and it was reborn when I organized an event for Bonnie Cullum's VORTEX THEATER in Austin.
It was a memorial for Dad.
In 2006, at the real memorial at Pauline and Ione's Deep Listening space, I sang seven of his and Mom's favorite songs: Time On My Hands, My
Funny Valentine, songs like that. Never giving myself full dignified presence or credit, I sang them without ownership, without receiving the full
gravitas of what or how I was feeling, delivering or experiencing while singing. Not birthing the songs. That is, I never allowed my voice to cry.
Since then, for years, I would visit musician David Arner once a month and sing all seven of them in preparation for my debut as a SINGER OF MY
PARENT'S LOVE SONGS. Admittedly, I softened when I sang with loving/beauty man David, but I didn't feel ready for the stage/jazz club or spot
on America's Got Talent! SO I continued to prepare, recording a trumpet player's version and guitar player's version of the songs as acts of rehearsal
for the big day and chance to sing like a "friend of Ella/ an Alberta Hunter protégé." "Ladieeees and Gentlemennnn, I would like to introduce
the soul singer, the voice of love, the sound Guru, Miss Linda Mary Montano. Let's give her a big, big hand. Montano is in the house!!!" That's what
I was seeing/wishing!
And that day came in October 2017. Singing lessons with my across the street voice teacher, Barbara Wild, and daily practicing, were the
last preperations. I could do no more, visualize no more, hope no more, wish no more, expect no more. And the prayer group sealed the deal with
Ave Marias to Mary before i took off via JFK airport on the coldest most blustery, windy, freezing day ever.
Always 5 hours early I sat there in that windy airport clutching my silky long pants that had turned icicle cold against my legs. Acute sniffling and
coughing began. And I don't have to continue this Miracle Story because now you know the plot.
Arriving in Austin frigid/cold/slimy with mucous and thankfully a jar of Vicks, Bonnie's emergency Chinese cold herb, my ginger tea and hours in
bed silenced some of it but after years of a desire to sing "seriously", I hoped/prayed/ imagined that I would rise to the occasion and belt out torch
songs with or without snot poring from my red-rubbed nose in a voice that was rasped yet transporting !!
The Miracle; Those two nights of the performance, I sang as if I were coached by Callas and heard my voice, hoarse from consumptive all
day-night coughing. And here is the denouement/clincher: the bad, bad cold had worked a strange magic. I sounded SEXY and guttural.
I was chocolaty and erotic, dreamy and intimate.The audience groaned at times in positive-this-is-fabulous admiration and I leaned into each
song, sick as a dog; liking itself-trusting itself-sitting at the feet of it's own Self-Love. A miracle had begun.
WIKIPEDIA SAYS: EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES
A story from Amsterdam, 1345, claims that a priest was called to administer Viaticum to a dying man. He told the family that if the man threw up,
they were to take the contents and throw it in the fire. The man threw up, and the family did what the priest had advised them to do. The next morning,
one of the women went to rake the fire and noticed the Host sitting on the grate, unscathed and surrounded by a light. It has apparently passed through
both the man's digestive system and the fire unscathed. The story is commemorated with an annual silent procession through central Amsterdam
MIRACLE 3
Is it OCD that compels me to arrive at airports five hours before take off? Or is it my compromised neurological disorder which torques me into
paroxysms of anxiety over little things like; "Where is my credit card? Who stole it? (A habit learned from my aging grandmother, Nan, who blamed
all her woes on Mrs Peters, her neighbor.) I, over time, was becoming more and more like my Nan. Suspicious!
When I have thoughts of dread like this regarding travel they are; "will the car break down on my way to the airport? Will the bus be in an accident?
Will I be i a two hour traffic jam and miss my plane? " These mind altering adrenal-busters never entered bothered me twenty years ago when life
was an exciting, trauma free journey. But wait, that's not true. I was a walking PTSD candidate then, but I don't think I worried about missing
planes, or did I?
It's possible that we are all compromised by cultural doom and gloom, yeah, that's the reason that i needed this last miracle and completion of
the trilogy. So here is why. had I gotten on the 4pm flight to Newark via United's economy -no-change-fare, I would have gotten into Newark's
airport at 9pm and then moved in terror to catch the airporter to the Port of Authority by 11:30 for the bus to Kingston.
Having rehearsed this scenario and all of the permutations of what ifs for days, I heard inner prompts saying,"What if I had to stay in the
airport because I might miss the bus to the Port of Authority? Google said when I asked about sleeping at Newark Airport;" Stay and sleep in
the International Terminal but remember it is extremely cold. They blow air on you all night." That was a report from one who slept there.
Why are preparations and travel plans so demanding and anxiety producing? Getting home was the goal and the strategies to get there
were militaristic in nature.
Calling all Miracles. calling all Miracles.
Sweet Heloise, my friend who shares my birthday but not the year, drove me to Austin Airport and I was embarassed to admit I was five hours
early
