Speaking of Spirit

Momma and butterflies have always gone together for me. Mainly, because, when she was a little girl, her mother would embroider a small yellow butterfly somewhere on the dresses that she made for her. So, when I see a yellow butterfly, I always think of Momma. Butterflies are symbolic of  metamorphosis , which isn't surprising since they begin as catepillars and grow to be beautiful winged creatures. For Momma, they meant that things would be OK, that whatever the situation, it would change for the better. The most dramatic example of this was what she called her "hospital butterfly miracle." Momma suffered from myasthenia gravis, a neuro-muscular disease that robbed her of the function of the right side of her body. When her disease was bad, everything on the right side became paralyzed. She couldn't walk, hold things, open her eye or breathe.  In the early stages of her disease, she would be rushed to the hospital with doctors diagnosing her condition as e...

The Miracle of Spring - Legend of St Francis By Giotto [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons  As a child growing up, I thought miracles were confined to the pages of holy books.  They were events from a long ago time that happened to saints and sinners who later became saints.  Miracles were cool to read about, but I didn't see them happening in the present. One day, after reading another Lives of the Saints story, I mused aloud that it was too bad that miracles still didn't happen.  My mother stopped what she was doing and asked me to come to her.  She pointed at my baby brother. "What is that?" she asked. "My brother," I answered puzzled. "Yes, but he is also a miracle!  And, for that matter, so are you!" She then launched into a long discussion about how miracles happen every second of every day if we just open our eyes to see them. Over the many years that followed this lesson, I have seen miracles of all sizes and shapes, ...