Miracles in Real Life

My life has been filled with miracles. The most recent is the story of my granddaughter (see Notes from the Land of Splat!), considered by Stanford University Hospital to be its miracle baby of the year -- the university even made a special web page for her case for doctors worldwide to learn about it and perhaps to contribute to it. If you have read my postings on this situation, you know that she was born essentially unassembled and doctors had to put her lower half (or halves) back together and in the right places. She came home on Friday. She is missing some parts but can live without those. Later, the doctors may be able to bionicize some for her.

This unusual situation should not surprise those who have read Blest Atheist. I related there a series of miracles (or at least, highly implausible and unexplainable coincidences) in the lives of Shura of Siberia and Katya of Tula. In Shura's story, I told about meeting Maury, at the time the supervisor of the INS, in a very unusual way. We had requested a moleibin (Russian Orthodox prayer service) for Shura prior to his first surgery in the USA, a double amputation. Maury showed up at the moleibin, something that was quite unexpected by the congregation because he had moved to Baltimore a year earlier and no longer attended the church in Washington, DC. Although the moleibin itself had not been announced, that Tuesday when the moleibin took place was a holy day of obligation and since he had worked late at his Washington office, he decided to stop in at his old church after work enroute home. His appearance at the moleibin was the first and last time he ever came to that church after moving to Baltimore. At the church dinner that followed the moleibin, Maury asked us about our experience in obtaining a visa and upon hearing of the numerous difficulties we had encountered, he gave me his home phone number and told me to call him if we ever encountered any difficulties in the future with the INS. We did encounter them, and we did call him, and he did help immensely. That very fortunate collision of events -- one might call it a miracle -- I included in the book.

One would have thought that event and all its ramifications unique enough. However, yesterday I received an excited call from a reader of Blest Atheist. She had just read a recently published book about an icon that weeps myrrh. Many years ago, the icon was brought to the Russian Orthodox Church in Washington where Jewish parents brought their son, Christopher, to pray with the priest before the icon. Christopher had ocular tumors that had caused him to be blind. After their prayer, the icon began to drip with myrrh that splashed onto the floor in large puddles and took several days to dry up. The priest annointed the boy's eyes with the myrrh as it poured forth from the icon, and he was able to see. The parents converted to Orthodoxy on the spot. This story sounds implausible even to me, even though I know that miracles occur because they have occurred so ferquently in my life. I changed my mind about the plausibility, however, when the caller read me the name of the father of Christopher. It was Maury, our Maury, the one who showed up as if by divine inspiration and helped Shura.

As someone once said, perhaps coincidence happens at those times when God wishes to remain anonymous!

Katya of Tula

Is anyone following -- or interested in -- the story of Katya from Tula, the blind orphan I have been trying to pry out of Russia, which is similar to the story of Shura, the spina bifida boy from Siberia whose story is chronicled throughout Part I of Best Atheist. I began the story of Katya in Part II of Blest Atheist, but the book came out before Katya's story was finished. We left Katya in the process of getting a visa from the US Embassy in Russia, no easy task but one that had seemed to be facilitated by my trip to Russia last August.

Today I learned two very heartwarming facts. First, the lady who adopted Katya's younger brothers has completed all the paperwork for sponsoring Katya to live with her in the United States. Second, all the medical records have been assembled and reviewed. We had hoped that once Katya got to the USA she could receive excellent palliative care, her care being hit and miss at the moment in Russia although she has a wonderful nurse/caretaker there who really cares about her. Then, looking at old records, the doctors at Tufts, who would be the ones to care for Katya, thought that perhaps the terminal diagnosis, particularly the 5-year timeframe, was not the inevitable outcome. Today, with all the medical records updated and available, it was determined that all of Katya's tumors are benign.

Bottom line: Katya will be coming to the USA to live, not to die!

- e mahlou

About "The Book"

I suppose I should have started this blog with information about "the book" that began it all, Blest Atheist. I suppose that was so much commonsense that I simply did not think about it. Since most things are better late than never, I am including information on the book now for those who have not read it (although I imagine the majority of followers of this blog are those who found the URL on the back cover of the book). I will update it with reviews (for now, in the comments below) and other information, such as booksignings (in the updates on the right) and an occasional excerpt (at Mahlou Musings), in the days and weeks ahead. If you have read the book, I invite you to include your comments.

Here, for starters, is the publisher's description of the book:

As a young child, outraged by the hypocrisy she finds in a church that does nothing to alleviate the physical and sexual abuse she experiences on a regular basis, Beth delivers an accusatory youth sermon and gets her family expelled from the church. Having locked the door on God, Beth goes on to raise a family of seven children, learn 17 languages, and enjoy a career that takes her to NASA, Washington, and 24 countries. All the time, however, God keeps knocking at the door, protecting and blessing her—which she realizes only decades later. Ultimately, Beth finds God in a very simple yet most unusual way. A very human story, Blest Atheist encompasses the greatest literary themes of all time – alienation, redemption, and even the miraculous. The author’s life experiences, both tragic and tremendous, result in a spiritual journey containing significant ups and downs that ultimately yield great joy and humility.

- e mahlou

Conversion Journey

For many years, my youngest son, who is severely retarded but full of faith, hoped and prayed that his parents would give up their atheism and adopt his belief in a personal God. When God reached out to me about three years ago, that happened. I was shocked by the contact, but I could not deny what all my senses were telling me -- and not only me but also a friend who was with me. (The full story is in the book, Blest Atheist, and is the purpose and message of the book.)

The book ends with the start of the journey. Conversion is not a one-time happening, but, as I have since discovered, a long journey with some interesting twists and turns. I love reading Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary website (www.conversiondiary.com). She began the journey about two years before I did, and her experiences frequently parallel and occasionally foreshadow mine. I wonder how she is managing this experience with her family, and I look forward to the book she is writing about herself.

With my family, I worked hard to raise atheists. I sent my children to a parochial school because the education was better but insisted that they not be required to go to the chapel and that they be exempted from catechism of any sort. (How ironic! I am now a catechist!) Nonetheless, two of my children--the retarded youngest son and the daughter with spina bifida--both became strong believers. They were apparently experiencing the presence of God all those years that I was trying to dissuade them from believing what they were experiencing. My son, who is pretty much incapable of deception, given an IQ of 52, has all his life talked about talking to God and, more important, listening to God.

It should not have been surprising then that he was so concerned that his parents meet this very special entity in his life. I was quite amused (his father less so), when he said grace one morning after I had had my conversion experience: "Thank you, God, for bringing Mommy to church, but You forgot about Daddy!" Out of the mouths of babes!

I think God has not forgotten about his father, however, for his atheism has slowly turned to agnosticism and from agnosticism to curiosity. Perhaps the next step will come sooner rather than later.

I would be very interested in hearing from believers who are married to non-believers. How are you handling your relationship, given this significant difference?

What Children Know (Think) about Fairness

My grandson recently reminded me that even children realize that we are all individuals and that treating everyone alike is the same as being fairer to some than to others because we all have differing needs and emotions. (In other words, treating people all the same way, i.e. alike, is not treating them equally because equal means meeting individual needs at the same level, not in the same way. I'm not sure I am making myself clear, but I hope I am. Perhaps thinking about the US constitution would help clarify. It is written there that all people are created equal; it is not written that all people are created the same.)

Anyway, back to my grandson. It seems that his first-grade teacher required the entire class to put their heads down because the class was being too noisy. My grandson acquiesced to the teacher's demand, but at the end of the school day, he approached her and said, "We have to talk."

What he wanted to talk about was the unfairness of treating everyone the same. "You made us all put our heads down for being noisy but I was not noisy," he told her, "and that was unfair. I would like an explanation." (He is an only child and therefore has been raised with adult language that is sometimes a little off-putting.)

The teacher was nonplussed and apparently did not give a reasonable explanation in my grandson's view. "I guess she didn't have a good reason and was afraid to tell me that," he related to his parents.

His father had no right to complain about his son's behavior for he had done something quite similar when he was in the fifth grade. His teacher had become frustrated with some mischievousness among the students in the row in which he was sitting and told the whole row that they had to stay in at recess. My son objected. "You are a group," she told him, "and I expect you to be responsible for each other."

"You chose the grouping, not I," he continued to object, but she would not hear it and insisted that they all stay in at recess.

My son went outside. That frustrated the teacher, who then told him he would have to stay after school for detention.

"Okay," he readily agreed. "That's fair because I disobeyed you."

His teacher was both amused and confused when she related to me what had happened. "How else could I have handled this?" she asked.

I did not have a good answer for her because children do perceive fairness in much more black-and-white terms than do we adults; at least my kids did. It is often difficult to understand that treating everyone the same is not the same as treating them all equally and fairly.

What do y'all think? Same or equal? What can kids teach us in this respect? Any stories from your children, students, grandkids?

And what about this contemporary concept of teaching the group, making the group responsible for the group, even giving one grade for the whole group? That was not part of my experience growing up -- which may explain why I am such an individualist and why I raised an individualist, who is, in turn, raising an individualist. I would love to hear from those who grew up with the group approach to learning -- did it work for you? Why or why not?

Notes from the Land of Splat!

The Land of Splat!, as I describe it in Blest Atheist, is that place where we all find ourselves at times that seems to have no permeable border. Every time we try to cross out of the land of troubles into the land of normalcy, we are sprung back into our troubles (old or new) with a splat!. And so it goes with my life and the life of my children and my friends. We seem to be well settled in the Land of Splat!. Had I had any idea to the contrary, I would have been brought back to the reality of Splat! by the recent birth of my granddaughter. A bit preemie (but not much, five pounds being a good birth weight), she managed to surprise doctors considerably. They had discovered through sonograms that she would be born with hydronephrosis (a kidney condition that could be corrected by surgery--our grandson had the same) and her intestines outside her body rather than inside. She also had a cyst on her spine that they were hoping would not be spina bifida like her aunt (our daughter) has. Those hopes were in vain. She does have spina bifida, but that and the hydronephrosis and external intestines are a small matter compared to what the doctors were presented with at her birth: all her lower organs in pieces (at least, two pieces), some of them (e.g., the colon and rectum) missing, and her body fully open and split in two from the waist down (no belly button would be the result of her birth). The doctors recovered quickly fronm their surprise and immediately went into surgery, rebuilding a little human being. More surgeries and many months of hospitalization are in the offing, but she is fighting to stay alive, looking cute as a button, and garnering a little fan club of doctors and relatives/friends. We look forward to the day that she comes off life support so that we can hold more than her little hand; she curls her fingers around ours so quickly that we know she would love to be held. Nothing is insurmountable even in the Land of Splat!, but one certainly gets to experience unusual and trying moments.
If anyone out there reading this blog has had experiences similar to any of the various problems my brave little granddaughter is experiencing, I would love to hear the outcomes, share strategies, and learn about your coping mechanisms.

Abuse, Abused, Abusers

I have met with some interesting reactions to my chapter on "Ma and Dad." I assume that they come from three groups: (1) those who have never been abused and are not abusers, (2) those who have been abused, and (3) those who are abusers.

The first group seems completely mystified by how, after a long childhood of extensive abuse, I can in clear conscience say that my parents were not monsters. Not having been abused themselves, they have likely not had to do the soul-searching and deep analysis that is implicit in forgiving anyone who harms you. With abuse, the harm is severe and multifaceted and affects not only one's physical well-being, but, as well, one's mental state, sense of self-efficacy, security, willingness to take risks, self-confidence, compassion, and even reason and ability to love. Let alone, of course, the ability to forgive. Certainly, my optimism and self-confidence did not come from my parents but evolved from the positive input of others and a sense of well-being and protection that was internal and irrational. Whence came this "salvation?" In retrospect, I can come to only one conclusion: God's protection of the Almighty's least mighty children. If, speaking in terms of reason alone, I conclude that God was the source of my protection, then I am required, at least in my understanding of morality (and fairness/honesty), to accept God's requirement to honor one's parents and to forgive those who offend us ("seventy times seven"). When one forgives, a healing process begins, again at least in my experience, and once that healing process has reached a level where one can confidently move beyond the childhood pain, one can begin to analyze why these sorts of bad things happened. In fact, one feels compel to ask "why" and to try to answer that question. That is what I did, and in the analysis, I finally understood that my parents were not evil creatures who wanted to do bad, but stressed-out, impoverished, "human" (and therefore fallible) individuals who wanted to do right but through their fallibility and status in life were pushed by external forces (the "need" to look good before the community, hormones out of control, a sense of helplessness to improve their comfort level) to lash out in anger and frustration -- all it took was very simple, normal, innocuous-but-undesired behaviors on the part of their children to unleash the emotions that their sense of morality (yes, they had a sense of morality) held at bay all too unsuccessfully. Seeing my parents as victims as much as they were abusers has helped me to understand that they were not monsters although their behavior was monstrous. I am not alone in this experience. Dave Pelzer (A Boy Called It) was treated as abusively by his mother, perhaps even more abusively, and ultimately he found himself able to forgive her. In that forgiveness lay much healing. That is likely why God requires us to forgive.

Those who have been abused (second group) do understand and do empathize. If their abuse was lesser, they realize that any amount of abuse is frightening, and the amount that my siblings and I received is even more frightening in that there was nothing special about them or me or my parents -- such abuse potentially could happen at any time to anyone. The fact that it does not happen more often is perhaps as a miracle, too.

The third group puzzles me. They are the abusers. I assume that the physical abusers, like my parents, have some kind of unmet need, deep-set insecurity, or hormonal/drug-induced chemical imbalance that leads them to do things that in a rational moment they themselves would conclude is wrong. To some extent, I do understand them, but I do not accept their behavior. No one should, and no, I do not condone those neighbors, teachers, and religious leaders who looked the other way in my childhood. I have been reviled by some book reviewers for taking these groups to task, but I stand by my conviction that those who look on and do nothing deserve to be taken to task.

I would hope that readers would realize that we never would have survived if everyone in our lives had been unconcerned, incompetent, and/or abusive. I do point out some who gave us succor in difficult moment. We had some brilliant doctors. Without them, my children would not have lived. Among those brilliant doctors were amazingly compassionate ones, with whom we developed life-long friendships. Likewise, there were a few teachers and educational administrators who did make a difference in our handicapped and gifted children's access to learning (but it would have been nice had these been the majority not the distinct minority). The rote application of learned treatment to all situations regardless of need (typically over the objection of knowledgeable parents) I truly have never understood -- not from the educators and doctors out of whose grasp I have wrestled my children for the sake of their mental development in some cases and lives in other cases.

I would love to hear from those of you who have survived any kind of abusive situation, whether at the hands of relatives, doctors, or teachers, either yourselves or as advocates for your children. What have been your experiences?