Dammitall

A couple of years ago a close family friend's fiance was undergoing treatment for an aggressive brain tumor. At the time his prognosis wasn't good at all. My parents contacted a monastery in Lithuania founded by a great great uncle of mine, a bishop who has been beautified and is, I think, a few steps short of being canonized as a saint. My parents had contacted the monastery to request that the nuns there pray for an intercession on our friend's fiance's behalf. Last I heard, he has been successfully treated and is recovering well, with no further complications.

That's not to say I believe the intercession worked, but it is a notable coincidence, if nothing else.

I was praying for her miraculous recovery near the end of my cousin's illness. By that time, the cancer had already spread to her other organs and she was running out of options. I didn't have any realistic expectations that she would be cured by my prayers, or anyone else's. But I still loved her and it's something I wanted to do for her, believing that whatever I was praying for on her behalf would help her somehow, even if it was in ways I couldn't understand.

I believe in miracles as unexplained (and unexplainable) phenomena. I do not believe we have the power to summon them for our own needs or purposes, whether we are suffering or not. Bottom line, I prefer these things be kept unknown as I don't think we are meant to really understand them or be able to explain them.

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If one million people replaced a two mile car trip once a week with a bike ride, carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by 50,000 tons per year. If one out of ten car commuters switched to a bike, carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by 25.4 million tons per year. [2milechallenge.com]