Hello as Autumn has arrived,
While cooler, foggier mornings, nights without a need for air conditioning, and the turning of leaves into a painter’s pallet provide some experiential insight that something is happening, the calendar shouts out, that fall is upon us. Many people, myself included, often without prompting that this is their favorite time of year. The advertisements for color tours are found in magazines and social media, while people take weekend getaways to be out on highways and byways to see the postcard-like vistas that amaze and comfort us, making the most devout agnostic reconsider their uncertainty about a Creator. Thoughts of pumpkin spice lattes, apple cider, and cinnamon become commonplace, and ghouls and goblins are lucking down every store aisle, gathering up bite-size candy bars to ready themselves for the impending sugar-overload. Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin will once again grace television screens. Autumn is here.
In Bloomsburg, where I have spent the greater part of two decades, the annual Columbia County get-together will begin this weekend. It is neither a county or state fair, but it is larger than any other fair in the state. From every food imaginable to carnival rides, from animals to art exhibits, it has occurred for 170 times before this weekend’s opening. Concerts are also another aspect of the entertainment and a couple of years ago I walked the fair and listened to Chicago. This is the first time in all the time I’ve lived here, I’ve purchased tickets to attend a concert, sitting in the grandstand. I am going to see Kansas, the progressive rock group who started in Topeka, Kansas in the early 70s. I purchased their first album not long after it was released, and they are the band, which I have seen in concert more than any other. There is a period in my life where they were, without a doubt, my favorite group. A song that I have often said is my favorite, comes from their very first album. While I think there are only two original band members remaining, I am still excited to hear them. I am certainly hoping the weather will cooperate, which is always a severe hit or miss at fair time. More about the group and their music will show up in this post – the title of the blog is actually a song title, with an additional word added.
Lately, I have pondered what makes something a miracle? Is our perception or understanding about miracles much like how we perceive or understand angels? While I believe in both, too often I think we believe they have to be large scale in terms of miracles, and we are hoping for the infamous winged- creature who shows up robed and radiant before we believe that either could occur. However, as previously noted, I believe in both, and perhaps more consequently, I believe I have experienced both. Most often, in reality, seldom did I realize that the miracle was occurring or that I was being visited. And yet, as I reflect on the decades of my life, I cannot, even if I would employ the most profound degree of skepticism, doubt that I have not been provided with miracles Knorr been visited by what I will call earthly angels. To begin with, being born, incredibly premature, well before NICU, my life is a miracle. I know this for multiple reasons; so my very existence is miraculous. Without a doubt, my first earthly angel was my grandmother, who, while elegant and heavenly in her own right, looked quite ordinary as she stood at her bakery table in her plaid dress and a smock apron, singing, along to David Gates and the group, Bread, as she decorated yet another cake late in the afternoon. And she had been up since before 5 o’clock in the morning. She remained that angel for me, the first two decades of my life. In a few short days, it will be 49 years ago she passed away. I believe I wept The most uncontrollably I ever have in my life. I am quite sure that neither of my advisors at Dana College would consider themselves angels, as I often note, having a pope and a king for your advisors is not something most could say. And I do believe they were angels in their own right not only from when I learned in their classes, but in the way they treated me both while I was a student and long after I left. in some ways, they were the “miracles out of nowhere” because a little did I know the first time I visited Blair Nebraska as a Lutheran Youth Encounter team member that Dana would be the place I would receive my undergraduate degree. And in fact, I did not start out as a history and humanities major: I began with a dual major in religion and business.
The number of miracles I have received from my life, when I’ve seen the inside of an operating room more times than I have fingers, is perhaps more numerous that I know. I’m two separate occasions. I’ve been told I had less than 72 hours to live, and it is because of the angels in surgical garb, the nurses in scrubs, and the prayers of many who believed in the power of miracles that I still exist on this side of a dirt nap. From Minnesota to Arizona, from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, I’ve covered the entire country, allowing, and needing, both the miracles of location as well as the angels located there to keep me alive. Just this morning I was back in the hospital for an MRI to keep track of some of the newest issues, my premature, and now septuagenarian, body still seems to find. Yes, it seems. I am as dependent on the miracles of our healthcare system, as always. And I am as grateful as ever for the angels that I meet, be they an ophthalmologist, a gastroenterologist, a neurologist, a urologist, a hepatologist, an endocrinologist . . . I think you get the picture; I could start my own medical clinic. And for what it’s worth, including my PCP, everyone in my doctors is a female – and they seem to perform miracles again and again seemingly out of nowhere. To say I’ve been blessed, is a gargantuan understatement.
One of the things that’s so amazing about the band, Kansas, is their profoundly spiritual undertones to both their lyrics and music. If you do any reading about the band, Kerry Livgren, who composed the great majority of the songs and their first half dozen albums or more, is a profoundly faithful person. Additionally, there’s a strong, environmental element, and I believe, to some degree, a strong Native American aspect to their music and lyrics. I am excited to see them in concert once again, not only because of my history with the band, but because one of my surrogate children, Jordan, is going with me. This is another band, from way before his time, that I’ve introduced him to. He is quite developed audiophile in his own, right, and I think he’ll be very pleased. While the concert is a little more than a week away, somehow I believe the miracles, and the angels will continue as they have sometimes seemingly out of nowhere, but there’s a little doubt for me. That’s something larger and more amazing is always at work.
Thank you as always for reading.
Michael
