Innholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2019 i Mysterious Ways

The day after I was promoted to my new role, I came in to work to find something strange on my desk. A hand-drawn birthday card, created for me by my predecessor, Mysterious Ways Managing Editor Diana Aydin. My birthday had passed months ago. For the first time since I’d placed it on my shelf, the card had fluttered down on-to my keyboard, right side up. It featured a drawing of an everything bagel (my favorite) alongside Diana’s clever message, “Hope your bday is EVERYTHING and more!” Was it a sign of what my new role was meant to be? I’m given to noticing moments like this in my life. Moments that cause me to stop, think and be thankful. That’s what drew me to Mysterious Ways a year and…

I can do this, I told myself for about the hundredth time. I was standing in front of the mirror in my bedroom, preparing for the small backyard wedding ceremony. I reminded myself how much I loved Steve, my fiancé. How we deserved each other. I heard people taking their seats. It was time. I should’ve been excited. Instead, I was frozen. Nagging questions plagued my mind: Would Rick approve? Was I ready for this? Rick and I had been high school sweethearts. We’d been married for 23 years. We had two sons, Danny and Ben. He loved being their dad. Rick worked as a ranger for the National Park Service, and our family had lived in different parks throughout the country. Rick had a passion for life that made…

Do you believe that God intervenes directly in our lives? Some 20 years ago, I would’ve told you absolutely not. That’s when I took a trip to Boise, Idaho, for work. I was an electronics engineer and business consultant and needed to meet with an important client. I was walking around the city center beforehand when a woman approached me. I had a feeling she might be a member of some kind of group, interested in proselytizing and handing out pamphlets. Instead, she struck up a conversation. We exchanged pleasantries, made small talk. Then, unprompted, she launched into a seemingly random story. “Years ago, I was in a terrible accident,” she said. “Hit-and-run. My toddler was in the back seat. I couldn’t get her out. We were trapped with no…

I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and our kids do scary things and our parents get old and don’t always remember to put pants on before they go out.… I don’t know why it’s not more like it is in the movies, why things don’t come out neatly and lessons can’t be learned when you’re in the mood for learning them, why love and grace often come in such motley packaging.Anne Lamott, AUTHOR OF TRAVELING MERCIES: SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH The encounter with a thorn becomes transformative when we choose to view it as guidance, rather than punishment. A poke invites us to take a deeper…

Light swirled around me, a beautiful palette of white and gold. I felt an all-pervasive sense of calm. And there was Lucky, my border collie. Sitting on his haunches, looking up expectantly and a little anxiously, as if waiting for something. But how was I seeing him? He’d died more than a year earlier.… Riiing! The sound of my phone jolted me out of sleep. Was that just a dream? It had felt so real! I picked up the phone. My friend Jan was calling. “It’s Elvis,” she said. Her 12-year-old Australian shepherd had been Lucky’s best friend. The vet said Elvis didn’t have much time. Jan and I had gotten our dogs around the same time. We’d met up at my house every month to catch up. After Jan…

Matt Morgenstern I had one more day to move the rest of my things out of my apartment. I called the moving van rental company to extend my rental, but they told me it wasn’t possible. I needed to return the van I had now—and no other vans were available. I called other locations. No luck. Every moving van for miles around was booked. My whole family joined in on the effort to find one, but it seemed as if there was nothing in the entire state of New Jersey. “I’ll get up early tomorrow and continue the search,” my dad said. I went to bed, hoping against hope for a miracle. At 7 a.m., my dad called my cell phone. “Come downstairs,” he said. I ran down to find…

A 54-year-old woman with encephalitis goes into remission after touching the tombstone of Charlene Richard, known as the Little Cajun Saint, in Louisiana. An 11-year-old in central Texas with an inoperable brain tumor is prayed for by her community, and an MRI soon after shows the impossible: The tumor has disappeared. A 70-year-old blind woman gets spinal surgery after a fall—and wakes up with her vision inexplicably restored. I read stories like that and can’t help but ask myself, Why not me? Where’s my healing? I was born with neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic disease that causes tumors to grow on the nerves throughout my body. Starting when I was age 15, the pain from the tumors became unbearable. It felt as if there were hot coals behind my eyes, on…

In October of 2018, Hurricane Michael tore through Panama City, Florida, leaving a swath of devastation. The storm’s 155 mph winds scattered debris, tore scaffolds from storefronts and ripped roofs from buildings. Rainwater flooded the streets and seeped into houses. It was the worst storm to hit the city in 80 years. By the time the skies cleared, more than half of the homes in the area had been destroyed. Rob Stewart’s home was one of them. The hurricane had sent a huge tree crashing through the roof of his living room. It probably would’ve killed him if he’d been home that day, as he’d intended to be. But he wasn’t. Instead, he was hundreds of miles away—in Ohio. He’d traveled there earlier in the week to be present for…

Elaine Pagels’s life has been an exploration of the inexplicable. The rigorous theological scholar first created a furor 40 years ago with her groundbreaking best seller, The Gnostic Gospels. A professor of religion at Barnard College in New York at the time, Pagels wrote about the secret gospels—as they were called—that had only recently been rediscovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Having studied them during graduate school at Harvard, she shed light on how these little-known texts influenced early Christianity. She went on to publish widely read books on Adam and Eve, the origin of Satan, the gnostic gospels of Judas and Thomas, the book of Revelation. She teaches today at Princeton University. In her most recent book, a memoir entitled Why Religion? she talks about the loss of her…

Sometimes warnings and synchronicities come in the strangest forms. Dreams offering a glimpse of the future. Signs and signals appearing in the right place, at the right time. And…in comic books? On several occasions, these fantastical graphic shorts have revealed mysterious connections and even predicted realworld events. Not all of these cases were positive—but they did point to something more at work than meets the eye…. Stealth Attack? In October 1941, National Comics released its official December issue. If you’d read it by December 6, you might not have been so surprised by Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor the next day. By 1941, the war in Europe had been raging for two years. The U.S. was not yet officially involved, but the conflict was in the minds of the American…

“All souls were created in the beginning and are finding their way back whence they came.”—EDGAR CAYCE Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) was a Christian mystic known for his visions and dream interpretations. Born in Kentucky, Cayce had mystical experiences from a young age. He claimed to speak with his late grandfather and know a book’s contents after sleeping on it. As an adult, Cayce, dubbed the “sleeping prophet,” discovered he could put himself into a trance and connect with a universal consciousness. He often gave health readings and interpreted dreams in this state. He believed dreams were how the human spirit experienced new levels of awareness. On January 1, 1945, he prophesized his burial four days later. He suffered a stroke soon after; his funeral was indeed on January 5. Cayce…

I woke at 5:45 a.m., my mind foggy with sleep. I should let the dog out. Then I remembered: Izabelle was gone. We’d lost our beloved nine-year-old golden retriever to cancer just three days before. A good girl who never wanted to cause any trouble, Izabelle hadn’t let on that she was in any pain. We only discovered she was sick during a routine checkup. We had to put her down. We were all grieving, especially my 22-year-old daughter, Joanie. Five years earlier, Joanie had been diagnosed with epilepsy. She endured seizures, from minor to grand mal, which caused violent convulsions. It was terrifying for us as parents—and for her too. All pet owners say their animals are special. But in Izabelle’s case, it was particularly true. But not for…

I was working on a piece on the wonders of the galaxy for Mysterious Ways—and I was stuck. I’d been staring at the document so long that my eyes were burning. I had zeroed in on the concept and had all the information, but I just couldn’t figure out the best way to structure the piece. Then, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, it hit me. A thought entered my mind, clear and concise. As if someone had placed it there. Make it centered around the image. Of course! That was it. The very image that had inspired wonder and awe in me should be the springboard for the piece. The Hubble Telescope shot of a dark corner of the galaxy, the size of the tip of a pencil, which upon…

As a kid growing up in rural Arkansas, Walt loved to wander the woods. He enjoyed the time alone. He felt closest to God alone among the trees, under the dappled sun. One hot summer day, Walt paused to rest during one of his walks. Suddenly something flashed through his mind. A clear picture formed. There he was in a yard, all grown up. He was twirling a little girl around in his arms. She had dark brown eyes and olive skin; she looked nothing like green-eyed Walt. Yet he knew this was his daughter. And he even knew her name: Chloe. As fast as it came, the vision went. Walt was unsure of what he’d just seen. At 12 years old, he couldn’t imagine himself as anyone’s father. And…