On A Miracle

How can a simple public profession of one's faith in the context of describing an averted tragedy become offensive? When does it become destructive? Let's outline a situation: a warm Christmas-time story in a local newspaper about an energetic and engaging young woman who contracts a life-threatening condition, but who subsequently recovers through intercession, through the fervent prayers of family, friends and strangers. A close-knit family, more secure in their faith than ever, understands that this is nothing less than a miracle and that God has a purpose for the young woman. What kind of cold-hearted reprobate would begrudge these folks their joy, their celebration of this moment of grace? What kind indeed?

Well, let's fill in the outline just a bit. A previously healthy young woman suddenly and unexpectedly suffers a seizure. An MRI reveals she has a brain tumor. Across the country, a neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic removes the malignant tumor, though the surgery and its aftermath pose life-threatening complications of blood clots and infection. And, finally, her recovery is faster and more complete than any of her medical caregivers anticipate.

The miracle, has in fact been mediated by, among other things, the diagnostics of MRI and radiologists and by access, the many different layers of access, to one of the world's foremost medical facilities, to an extraordinarily accomplished neurosurgeon, and cutting edge pharmaceuticals.

To me, attributing the recovery of this woman to miraculous intervention by a loving God is, frankly, offensive. At its root it insults the long, difficult, rational and deliberate path that led to understanding the principles and developing MRI technology, it overlooks all those who spent long years educating and training those crack medical personnel, it avoids considering the dedication and effort those medical personnel have invested in their careers, it sidesteps the understanding that an experienced neurosurgeon must necessarily have gained from inevitable mistakes and the suffering of others, it elides examination of the economic conditions that make access to medical "miracles" accessible to some but not others, it implies, however mildly, that there is no purpose for those whose outcomes are less fortunate, and on and on.

In short, the claim of a miracle in a case like this, seems to me to be one symptom of a society that has so little understanding of the sacrifice, the investment, the infrastructure, the regulation, the very social contract that has made their lives livable; a society that has so interwoven these "miracles" into the fabric of people's lives that to many of them, the "miracles" and their origins have become transparent; a society that, because of that transparency, is in fact busy betraying their "miracles". "Miracles" like this, then can even be seen as destructive because rather than fully recognizing the investment necessary to make them possible it enhances their transparency. For this reason, and between you and me and the fencepost, I prefer my miracles to be weeping faces of Mary in a pan of bacon drippings than this kind.