July 8, 2009 31 Comments

Miracle Witnessed

Miracle in Front of MeReligion and I have a weird relationship. I won’t get into that here. But I will say that people like Jon Swanson and Rob Hatch help me better understand how to use religion in their lives.

Today, in front of me, I saw a small miracle. Rob was looking for his keys. He’d looked a bunch of times. A moment into it, he says, “Oh, why didn’t I do this first?” He closed his eyes a moment, opened them, and found the keys within a few moments.

I said, “Um, what’d you just do?”

He said, “Prayed to St. Anthony.”

I said, “You prayed?”

Yep.

And here’s the prayer:

Saint Anthony!
Saint Anthony!
Please come around
Something’s been lost
That cannot be found

I realize this is a focusing exercise. I realize the prayer did or didn’t contribute. I don’t care.

To me? A miracle happened, a small one, and I’m impressed by how things like this work.

Related posts:

  1. Discipline
  2. When Twitter Goes Down

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  • http://www.thoughtsfrommeggiepoo.com/ Meghan

    I often pray to St. Anthony. Nice post!

  • http://briantw.com/ Brian Tristam Williams

    Yeah, so that and the scientology ad that came with your post. Thanks for saving me time – that's one fewer RSS feed I have to read.

  • http://lynettecornell.com/ bestieverdid

    Too many times I have gotten myself into a dangerous situation only to come out unscathed for there not to be a god, imo. Of the three times I forgot to bring a lunch to work this spring, every time someone outside the South Station T stop was passing out free food samples. But never once when I remembered my lunch. Coincidence? Well, all I know is that it saved me from going hungry!

    Besides, to me, it's not a religion; it's a relationship.

  • mark

    yes, it is a good post….

  • cain

    i also think so.

  • http://twitter.com/Daethian Daethian

    I have a similar feeling when I haven't seen, spoke to or thought about someone in a long time and they pop into my head out of the blue…. then usually within 2 days I hear from them.

    Or when I hear of something for the first time and I see or hear a reference to it soon there after. Last Monday I found out that we are flying to Kalispell Montana. Never knew it existed. Friday I was walking in downtown St Louis and passed a U-haul and the location featured on the side?? Kalispell Montana.

    That shit amuses me to no end!

    Totally unrelated but I love it when someone says 'It's always in the last place you look.” Well duh…why would you keep looking once you found whatever was missing?

  • http://www.kaplancopy.com/blog Jodi Kaplan

    Well, I don't pretend to be a saint, but in my family we have “Jodi's Rule”, which states, “You find things when you stop looking for them.”

    For example, several years ago, my brother was looking high and low for one of the accessories for his video camera. After many minutes of futile searching, he stopped and said, “I declare Jodi's Rule”. He then looked down and found the missing piece.

  • http://twitter.com/ginaruiz Gina Ruiz

    This made my smile because my grandmother taught me something similar:” Tony, Tony look around, something's lost and must be found.” It always worked and then we'd take flowers to the St. Anthony statue at the church.

  • silverlunace

    Chris,

    I use a similar prayer to St. Anthony for stuff like this -

    Tony, Tony
    Turn around
    What was once was lost
    Can now be found.

    Works every time!

    ~Annie

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    Instead of me, try http://www.conversationagent.com. Valeria is great and deserves more attention.

    Fare the well.

    Oh, and read on search engine land about how the scientologists are spending TONS on adsense buys right now.

  • http://www.precieswatjezoekt.nl/ Radomir

    And to boot it, i get a scientology ad served in my feedreader. Miracles do happen ;)

  • http://twitter.com/richardgauthier Richard

    Nevermind the etiquettes and the mafias, curiously, asking for Saint-Anthony to come to the rescue of our poor RAM works!

  • http://www.sametz.com/roundthesquare/ Tamsen McMahon (@Sametz)

    She's not well known, but my husband's Great Auntie Vin (better known to the saints as Sister Marie Lucita, a nun) had a Mother Superior who offered to be the source of good parking spots after she had passed.

    So while there isn't a nifty mnemonic rhyme, try asking “Great Auntie Vin's Mother Superior” for help finding parking. She usually comes through.

  • http://www.vivacindy.com/ cindy espinoza

    this makes me smile. im not sure what i think of it either, but a similar thing happend when we were selling our house. only with the st. joeseph….not sure why but he has been known to help people sell their houses? i wrote the story on my blog if you are interested. coinsidence or not, i like how this works. http://cindyjespinoza.blogspot.com/2007/11/than…

  • http://twitter.com/TheMogulMom Heather Allard

    Chris,
    My brother Sean's middle name is Anthony and when he was little he used to get so mad at my mom when she'd suggest praying to St. Anthony to help him find things–he'd say, “I don't need his help!” but of course, he WOULD pray to St. A. ;)

    I witnessed a minor miracle (as my great Aunt Peggy used to say) today too. After spending literally DAYS helping someone with her blog and not being able to figure out a problem with it, I took a break. I jumped in the shower and prayed to God that I would find the solution to the problem. When I hopped back into her admin panel–voila, there in front of me was a simple check box that I merely had to *uncheck*. Problem solved, prayer answered.

    Whether you're religious or not (I am not religious, but I AM spiritual), it never hurts to give prayer a try.

    Over and out.
    Heather

  • http://cliplcleany.com/ Erika Berry

    A prayer to St. Anthony is way better than a swearing tirade…think of the children! Very sweet post.

  • http://donaldlafferty.com/about Don Lafferty

    Works every time. Or is that just remnants of my Catholic guilt hanging on?

  • http://bladeronner.com/ Ron Dawson

    Just this week I was frustrated at the fact that I couldn't find the plunger (It was needed badly). I was lamenting how I didn't have time for all this, frustrated that my busy schedule was interrupted. My wife asked if I had prayed about finding it. I said, “God doesn't really care if I find a plunger sweetheart.” She said, “God cares about anything you care about. And if this is frustrating you, He cares.” I said fine. I prayed I'd find it within two minutes. About two minutes later I found it. As another friend of mine would say, “Was it odd, or God?”

  • http://twitter.com/christammiller christammiller

    In August 2002 I lost my engagement ring. It was a custom job, very unique. You can imagine how we both felt! I looked for it off and on over the years until finally, in Dec. 2007, I read a note from someone online who had prayed to St. Anthony about something. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I prayed to him too.

    A few hours later I was cleaning. Decided to turn our recliner over to get underneath there. An amazing amount of crap fell out through the sides as soon as I did that — toy cars, Lincoln logs, coins, etc. — and a very familiar-looking piece of metal. I literally held my breath as I reached to get it. Sure enough, more than 5 years later, I found my ring.

    I too struggle with organized religion, largely because it seems to forget that God is a force that cannot be boxed in. Even assuming “big” miracles rather than looking for the small ones is a way of boxing. It's unfortunate.

  • http://twitter.com/zenaweist Zena Weist

    Thanks for the reminder on the pray – I just prayed to St. Anthony this morning to help find a long lost pair of shoes.

  • Adriana

    Chiris, I have to say, that I my grandmother prays to St. Anthony when she loses something as well. And just like you I have witnessed little miracles from it. I often wondered if it's real or just ambitious thinking. Either way, I like to think its a small miracle as well. After all, knowing there is always someone with me gives me some comfort ; )

  • ResaMichelle

    So that's how I can find my keys…
    My family always jokes that my epitaph will read “Not again… Where are my keys?”

    Interesting thought, though. I agree with many of the others who have commented – I don't subscribe to an organized religion… I was raised Mormon, and though I have great respect for it's followers and principles, it's not for me. However, like many, I have experienced too many near-misses and I've been blessed with many strange coincidences too perfect to be coincidental. There has to be some kind of higher power.

    I really like the idea that divinity is internal, though, and our idea of god is something we hold in ourselves. I think that in the context of a focus excercise, Rob demonstrated exactly that.

    But it's still miraculous that even if we don't think that we've done it ourselves, that we manifest our own hopes and requests where we once couldn't.

  • http://burburandfriendsblog.com/ Kakie Fitzsimmons

    Hi Chris. I'm tellin ya, the whole St. Anthony thing works everytime. Thanks for this post. It came on a day I needed it. Blessings

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  • http://www.youthedesigner.com/contest/ UPrinting

    This reminds me so much of a prayer my cousin does.
    Well, she's very afraid of dogs and whenever she's walking by a street full of barking dogs, she always says a prayer to St. Roch (San Roque). Because, according to her, he is the patron saint of dogs and it will help her stay away from the rabid dogs.
    I don't know if that's true and according to her, the prayer is very effective.
    Haven't tried it. :D

  • http://www.youthedesigner.com/contest/ UPrinting

    This reminds me so much of a prayer my cousin does.
    Well, she's very afraid of dogs and whenever she's walking by a street full of barking dogs, she always says a prayer to St. Roch (San Roque). Because, according to her, he is the patron saint of dogs and it will help her stay away from the rabid dogs.
    I don't know if that's true and according to her, the prayer is very effective.
    Haven't tried it. :D

  • lovethebeatles

    This is a nice story, I attend a free bible study course and often have interesting discussions about miracles that have happened to people when they pray to god and many of them are really convincing and literally miraculous.

  • loverevolver4

    This is a nice story, I attend a free bible study course and often have interesting discussions about miracles that have happened to people when they pray to god and many of them are really convincing and literally miraculous.

  • http://www.salespeople.co.za/ Sales People

    Nice little mantra, I'll remember it for next time ;-)

    What we can not deny is that form follows thought, and energy flows unrestricted if we just focus. Visualisation also helps. Just take a quiet moment to visualise the bunch of keys and they tend to magically reappear….

    We are so much more than just flesh, and acknowledging this and trying to positively work with it is very important to being an effective human being.

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