Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week--a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards.

You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sins, you know, and cry tears while doing it that are genuine as any.

Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature.

Of all facial expressions, which is the worst to have aimed at you? Wouldn't you agree it's disgust?

Love is a strange fact - it hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. It makes no sense at all.

My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed--though ignoring them will change you also. Swede said another thing, too, and it rang in me like a bell: No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will.

It is one thing to say you're at war with this whole world and stick your chest out believing it, but when the world shows up with it's crushing numbers and its predatory knowledge, it is another thing completely.