Tuesday after second Lent: Healing escape some notice.

Tuesday after second Lent: Healing escape some notice.

John 4:43-54

I am struck that both in this miracle of healing and in the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus just speaks and trust follows.

We are only told he instructed one of the servant to take the new wine from water to the chief steward of the feast. No one seems to notice where it came from, or even this servant that it was yet changed. Trust.

The official at this second miracle comes with a request. "Come down before my child dies."

Jesus: "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe."..."Go your son will live." He goes.

What strikes me is he goes home as if it is done.

What did he think on the way home. Did he believe. Was believing more like hoping desperately hard so the heart races or was it belief that fears to trust ...but must. I know both these. Many of us do.

The servant greets the Officially: It happened "yesterday at the seventh hour." Thus we learn he has walked into the night with this fragile or firm hope.

So I wonder, what miracle have I failed to ask for, to hope after, or hold long enough?  Or what one have I not noticed because I forgot the gift of hope?  Who around me lives in Miracle and I do not notice?

Are miracles simple?

Perhaps.

Good Friday, 1993: Heading East by Robert Atwan

                                          (pg.134 of Divine Inspiration)

                                                            Unless you see signs and

                                                           wonders you will not believe.

Low on gas I pulled into Grady's Gulf.

Barney's at the pump, wire-rimmed glasses

taped together, reciting the opening lines

of "The Pardoner's Tale," still preparing

for the exams he missed because of Nam.

It's unsettling to hear.

My stomach is growling. Grady's inside cursing

one of the candy machines. He still wears the coveralls,
though there is no repair business left.
Customers come only to fill up on gas and oil,
smokes & cokes. "It's a full time job," he says,
"keeping this damn vending crap from breaking down,"
He points to a small bag of peanuts dangling
at the end of the coil.

"Half the time they won't goddamn drop."

He kicks the machine, slams it with the heel of his hand.

I hope the nuts will fall -- but they hang there,
stuck in their coil. Barney comes in with advice,
says he learned it from and old drill sergeant,
and leans his head against the machine gently,
the way a school girl at the movies might rest
her head on her boyfriend's shoulder. I can't hear
what Barney whispers but the spell work:
the nuts tumble softly from the coiled wire.

He hands me the bag. "Must've loosened them,"

Grady says taking the credit card.

I savor the nuts as I drive home,

my busted radio miraculously

filling the air.