I was thinking about miracles today -- not the big mamma-jamma miracles of the world, but the little ones. I spent some time appreciating the sweet surprises of meaning, the shock of good news, the offer of help when none is expected, the sympathy or kindness of a stranger. These are all the ordinary miracles of a day, moments when the soul is warmed, when the eyes of the heart open wide.

I got an email today from a friend I had not heard from for a long time. Oh, yes, a miracle! So I decided to wander about and see what everyone was saying about life miracles.

You Mommy-bloggers are great in mentioning miracles -- the births of your children, or their recoveries from illness. The phrase "miracle baby" occurred more than once.

But then I read N and M's blog. N and M talk about what they refer to as the "bittersweet miracle" of adoption. Miracles for one can be something else for another.

There are always two sides to every story. Adoption is no different.
As blessed as we have been to get the honor to raise S, we also recognize that is another side of adoption. The choice. The heartache. The consequences.
The loss. ...

These folks are pretty remarkable in that they appreciate the loss that it was for their particular birth-mother. Miracles can be dense events, with layers of meaning, not all of them lovely for everyone.

Life has taught me to live expecting miracles to happen -- but generally not the miracle I ask for, and generally arriving in strange clothing and at odd times.

In the words of Sarah McLAchlan's tune, "Ordinary Miracle"

When you wake up every day
Please don't throw your dreams away
Hold them close to your heart
'Cause we're all a part of the ordinary miracle

There is a thread in life that connects us. Sarah's right about us all being part of the Ordinary Miracle. When I sit here looking art my computer and realizing that I am connecting with you in a fashion here -- it stuns me. The miracle of wired relating -- a new thing in this world as things go. And yet, what riches of friends it has brought me. A miracle.

When I get observant and quiet enough I start seeing miracles everywhere.

I have a rescue dog. The day I got her, and for the first two or three days after, I was convinced I had made a mistake. She was small, skittish, shy. I was used to big old sloppy bowzer boy dogs. Yet she is now such a joy, and truly a part of my heart. She filled a small pooch shaped hole in my life that I didn't know I had. Zoe is a miracle of the first order.

I should be dead, by all statistics. I never should have discovered my cancer over 25 years ago. My doctor said the pap test was just a slight abnormality and that we should check back in six months. If I had waited, and not changed doctors, I would be dead. The surgeon said that the cancer should not have even shown up on the test the first doctor did. Yet here I am. A bigger miracle, but there it is. I, who resist seeing doctors, pushed on. That's the small personal miracle, that I pushed on. Big miracles are random, in my opinion anyway.

It's the little ones that we can foster and nurture -- by living openly. By living with open arms and an open heart. By inviting possibility, not avoiding it. I loved this story by Kristin about her friend, Jodi. Kristin writes brilliantly about being in downtown Toronto with her friend. They see a woman in the middle of the street dressed in shabby clothing, waving a stick in the air and cursing. Kristin is scared. Jodi walks up to the woman and finds out that she is poor, blind, and has been dropped off by a person who had been on her bus in the middle of the street. The woman is terrified and lost. Jodi helps her to her destination -- a local church across the street.

Jodi left the woman on the curb of All Saints, still blind, still poor, still grumbling about that disappearing bus rider. But at least she had her bearings. She was no longer alone in her panic. It only took a moment of stopping, of noticing, and of reaching out, to restore a human to dignity and to bring a taste of God’s kingdom to a sketchy downtown street corner. Which of course begs the question of how many other moments could be cracks through which that kingdom could shine if only I’d take the time to notice.

It is like a version of the child's game "How many miracles can you see in this story?" The woman gets help. Jodi's friend gets a surprise teaching. Jodi gets to help someone. And on and on.

Acts of kindness ripple outwards. Can it be that ordinary miracles are contagious? Can it be that as we experience something as a miracle that the energy can flow outwards? Can our gratitude fuel the exchange?

Dawn and Louise share a moment of miracle. Louise talks about the miracle contained in the first sermon given by her friend, Dawn (and the miracle that she got up and went to church an hour away to hear it!) She quotes the sermon in which Dawn talks about the miracle of acceptance:

To stand among people who did not ask me to hide my orientation or my politics was amazing. To converse with people who did not judge me because I had ideas that were different from theirs was enormous. To be welcomed and introduced to other, out queer people in a church was all a bit much ...I had no idea church could be like this.

Imagine that. Someone greeting dawn and accepting her for who she is, felt like a miracle. The persons greeting her, welcoming her, probably had no idea that she would be so moved. And that her friend, Louise would weep when she heard the story. But it all happened just like that. Miracle upon miracle. One begets another.

Sometimes we go out in search of a miracle. Rosemary did, with happy results. Rosemary found some old pictures and letters of a man who had been friends with her mother many years ago around WWII. She wrote a letter to six people she found with that last name around the country and found his family! He died several years ago. The pictures and letters are being sent to his delighted family. She finds this wonderful discovery to be nothing short of miraculous.

Or, sometimes, we are just walking around, minding our business, when a miracle quietly presents itself in an act of sharing. Anaby speaks of the "everyday miracle" of running into some strangers, two older ladies, on a walking path, and sharing a moment with them of quiet peace and giving.

I have no idea what had happened in her life and or if maybe she had been sad or lonely, or hurt for some reason, but I felt that this little gesture made offered something to her. Some kind of release. I was thankful to be able to be a 'tool' to give a little hope to that elderly lady on that day.
Having that feeling to take the bread with me on that day and meeting those ladies on that day and talking to them was a miracle for me that day. And it granted a wish I had had - to be able to give.

Little or large, ordinary or surprising, what miracles have happened for you lately? What surprises of grace, or goodness or kindness have found their way into your path?

May you all have a life full of miracles, miracles that you share and acknowledge. In closing, please enjoy this snippet of Walt Whitman's from his poem, "Miracles"

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that
concerns
them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

Mata H, CE for Religion & Spirituality can be found amidst miracles and/or at her blog, Time's Fool