Miracles

In 1962 a bearded dark-eyed sixty-six-year-old man came to San Francisco after traveling from the Ukraine to Shanghai, the Philippines, Paris and Belgium. Although in life he had done many remarkable things, after his death in 1966, so many circumstances described as miracles were associated with his influence that he became known as the Wonder Worker.

Nicodemos and I heard about a tour of this man’s various places in San Francisco and decided to take the tour. We saw the man’s work spaces, his office and his books in 15 languages, his paintings, the orphanage where he oversaw the upbringing of some 2000 children.

We sat in the chair where he always slept—only an hour or so a night, the tour guide told us, and never in a comfortable bed. The chair was yellow vinyl, missing several springs. Along with the 24 or 25 others on the tour, we were wrapped in his clerical robe and given a blessing. Singly, in pairs and in small groups, we knelt down and had the robe folded over us like a tent. It had a sweet, clean old grandfatherly smell.

The sensation was not unlike getting a hug, but many of the group were weeping as they returned to their places.

There were two infants and three young children in the group, all well-behaved, cheerful, and not at all intimidated by all this churchy activity. When one family group went up to be covered by the robe, we could see five pairs of shoes in all different sizes peeking out from the faded old vestment.

The man called Wonder Worker, now called Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco, was born Mikhail Maximovitch. Our friend Nathalie had known Saint John in China and in the Philippines, and she told of how he would leave his residence fully clothed and return without shoes or coat, having given them to someone who needed them more than he.

Throughout the tour, the guide and others spoke of miracles which they had experienced or heard about. Driving home, I was thinking about miracles. I thought that they involved not so much extraordinary circumstances but rather something like a suspension of disbelief.

The tour guide showed us what he called self-healing ikons, paintings of saints which all by themselves grew cleaner and brighter. Clearly the tour guide was not only wonder-struck by what he described to us, but he was willing to suspend disbelief, whereas, I, harumph, was thinking about chemical reactions of egg tempera under glass. But would a chemical reaction have made a self-healing ikon any less miraculous? Chemistry is a miracle unto itself.

And what about saints, then? John Maximovich is a saint to Orthodox Christians; many others have never heard of him. Grace (Episcopal) Cathedral in San Francisco includes Albert Einstein (Jewish) and J.S. Bach (Lutheran) in its roster of saints. I saw church frescoes in Greece which included Plato and Socrates among the saints.

I once asked a wise old priest about saints. “Well, there are general saints, and then there are local saints,” he said, smiling, without explaining. I would consider this wise old priest a saint not because any miracles have been attributed to him, but because in his seventy years he so inspired so much love in so many people. He was a local saint.

Another saint I knew had no association with religion. He taught at a boys’ school and his aim in life seemed to be to make people happy. He was a walking party. He would bring all the students to your house to wake you up with a serenade for your birthday. He organized parties and receptions, song and dance. He once snatched a bouquet from my hands to give it to an unexpected guest. On his own birthday, he gave presents to other people. He was a saint of light-heartedness.

Nobody would argue about the saintliness of Mother Teresa, even though her writings showed that she had human doubts. She was a saint of service.

What do all these saints have in common? Not necessarily holiness or goodness. I think what they all have is a kind of devotion, to a cause, an art, a science, even a religion, which transcends ego. They spend most of their time in service to this devotion, whatever it may be. At times they are vectors or mirrors for us; they help us to see better and to grow bigger. And often what seems to be a miracle associated with these people arises at least partly from our improved perception.