Miracles

by Eric Metaxas

  They all drove to the Tulsa vet with Isaac and asked him what to do. He told them that there was a woman who lived nearby whose specialty was in caring for orphaned squirrels and they should take Isaac to her. Had they just heard right? The woman’s name was Stephanie, but everyone in the area knew her as “the Squirrel Lady.” Rick and Barbara realized she didn’t mind being called that when they pulled into her driveway and saw her license plate: “SQRLADY.” When they entered her home, they could hardly believe what they saw. There were more than twenty squirrels living there, all in various stages of rehabilitation. Stephanie’s gentle manner was a great comfort to Grace, who was nonetheless still upset they were following this course of action.

  When Stephanie examined Isaac, she quickly realized that Isaac was not a he but a she. Rick, Barbara, and Grace immediately renamed her “Izzy.” Stephanie said to them that she had another squirrel that was about the same age as Izzy. But it was not a gray squirrel; it was a red squirrel. Rick and Barbara also now learned that Stephanie was a Christian, because she told them that she had been praying for a playmate for the red squirrel for some time. It wasn’t thriving, and she knew from experience that it needed another squirrel around its own age to help it along. She had even told all the other squirrel “rehabbers” in the area—yes, there were others—to let her know if they came across a squirrel around this red squirrel’s age. But so far there had been no success. Until the Vlaha family showed up with Izzy.

  After treating Izzy for dehydration, Stephanie placed her in the cage with the young red squirrel. What happened next, right before Grace’s eyes, seemed downright magical. The squirrels immediately faced each other—almost touching, eyeball to eyeball—and then actually curled their tails around each other. It was almost unbelievable. To all watching, they seemed made for each other.

  Grace was so taken with what she saw happening that the idea of leaving with Izzy suddenly seemed wrong. It was clear to her that Izzy was meant to be right here with her new friend, the lonely red squirrel. When they realized Grace felt this way, Rick and Barbara were overwhelmed with gratitude to God.

  But there was more. Although Rick and Barbara had no idea how it happened, the story made it onto the local Tulsa news station. It seemed that perhaps Hurricane Ike had done one tiny positive thing after all, and people wanted to hear about it. Soon news outlets from California to Boston were picking up the story too, and before its media run was over, it was picked up by CNN, which aired it on Anderson Cooper’s AC 360°.

  The whole experience was a message for Rick and Barbara and their children: God doesn’t always make things go the way we would like, and he doesn’t answer every prayer the way we want him to, but in this case he seems to have answered the prayers of a woman dedicated to serving helpless squirrels. And he seems to have answered the prayers of two parents concerned for the tender heart of their ten-year-old girl.

  14

  TOUCHING ETERNITY

  All miracle stories are stories of eternity touching time—of Heaven touching Earth, of the creator touching his creation, of the supernatural touching the natural. But there are times when a miracle is more overtly an example of this than at other times. In the context of this book, the miracles in this chapter fall into that category. They also underscore the mystery of how our world of time and space intersects with the world outside our world, the world beyond time and space. Such intersections are truly beyond our full comprehension, as are our glimpses of eternity itself, but the stories here at least give us some ideas with which to begin thinking about the subjects.

  A SOBBING JUDGE

  Alice von Hildebrand is an astounding woman. Now ninety-one, she has twice been my guest at the Socrates in the City events we put on in Manhattan. She emigrated to the United States from Belgium in 1940, just ahead of Hitler’s armies, and met her future husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand, shortly thereafter. He is today considered one of the most celebrated Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century. His story, beginning with his birth in 1889, is well worth reading, as are all his books. After the death of his first wife, he married Lily, as her friends call her, many years his junior, but to those who know anything of it, the harmony of their union is deeply moving. She was a professor of philosophy at Hunter College in Manhattan for three decades—and has dedicated her years of “retirement” to writing and to the legacy of her late husband, who died in 1977. Lily herself retired from teaching in 1984 so she could accept most of the speaking engagements she had been putting off for so many years. So after 1984, she was on the road nearly constantly.

  This story begins in the summer of 1991, when Lily was invited to speak in Ohio. She wrote those who invited her to accept the invitation and give them details of her flight, but shortly thereafter, she went to New Hampshire, where she still spends some time every summer. Because she left for New Hampshire so soon after accepting the invitation, she never got details on what to do once she arrived in Ohio. Whatever mail was forwarded did not seem to contain them. So she had no idea who would pick her up from the airport and where she was staying in Ohio, nor what was the exact location of the place she was to give her talk. As the date of the engagement approached, Lily found herself thinking about this and feeling stress over it. She then received an invitation to travel to Portugal and give a talk there, not long before the date she was to be in Ohio. That engagement would be in Fatima, where the famous visions of the Virgin Mary took place in 1917. So Lily flew to Lisbon, traveled to Fatima, gave her talk, and returned home. It was now just a few days before she was to fly to Ohio. But on returning to her apartment in New Rochelle there was still no letter of confirmation from the people in Ohio who had invited her. She had a phone number, which she called all day long for several days, with no answer. She began to get frantic. Would someone be at the airport in Columbus to pick her up? Had they never received the letter she sent them in June?

  The end-of-summer travel to and from Europe had fatigued the then sixty-eight-year-old widow. Jet lag was the main culprit. She normally took mass transit from her home to LaGuardia Airport to save money, but this time she thought that given how she was feeling, it would be more prudent to hire a taxi. Lily didn’t own a car, so she sometimes took very short cab rides from her home into downtown New Rochelle. The man who always drove her was Mr. Smith, a Jamaican man. He drove a cab for a local taxi company. He was extremely helpful to her. When he drove her to the airport, Mr. Smith would carry her luggage from her apartment to the taxi. Frail and small as she was, she required this kind of help. So on the morning of her trip to Ohio, she called Mr. Smith about a ride to the airport.

  But Mr. Smith told her he was not working on the day she needed her ride. He knew how much Lily depended on him to do things other drivers would not do, especially carrying her luggage, so Mr. Smith said that although he could not pick her up in a taxi, he would gladly pick her up in his own car and take her to the airport. He always called her “Lady.” “Lady,” he said, “today’s my day off, but I can do you a favor and take you in my own car.” And on the day of her trip, he did.

  But in her anxiety that day, Lily forgot her credit card at home. On the trip to the airport she was terribly worried about what would happen when she landed in Ohio. She didn’t have much cash and now had to pay for the taxi ride. Would she have enough cash when she landed in Ohio? What if no one was at the airport to pick her up?

  When they arrived at LaGuardia, Lily told Mr. Smith that she would of course pay him the same amount she would pay if he were driving his taxicab, but she said that in order to be reimbursed when she arrived in Ohio she would need a receipt, so she asked Mr. Smith to write on a piece of paper the details of the trip, how much she had paid, and so on, which he did. And off she went to catch her plane.

  But when Lily was waiting in line at the airport, a large policeman approached her and rudely demanded to see her taxi receipt. She was of course blindsided by this request, wondering where he ha
d come from and why he would need to see her receipt. She asked him. But he made plain that he was not to be trifled with and again forcefully demanded to see the receipt. Being a law-abiding citizen, Lily reached into her purse and took out the receipt and gave it to him, still wondering what on earth this was all about. Once the policeman was satisfied, he returned the receipt to her and marched off.

  But all the way to Ohio, Lily could not stop thinking of what had happened. She was deeply troubled by it. “What have I done?” she kept asking herself. She was also unsure whether she would be met at the airport when she arrived. This contributed to the trip’s unpleasantness. But when she landed she was met by the people who had invited her. They had gotten her letter after all. So she gave her speech and returned home. But no sooner had she gotten in the door of her apartment than she called Mr. Smith. She still had her coat on from the trip when she dialed. Mr. Smith picked up the phone and was clearly still very upset by what had happened. He told her that the policeman had detained him at the curb for one hour at the airport and had issued a summons for him to appear in court that October. He said that he would be fined $350 for illegally taking money in an unauthorized vehicle as he had done, and he would probably lose his driver’s license for six months. Driving the taxi was his only source of income.

  The blow to Lily on hearing this can hardly be overstated. Though none of this was actually her fault, she reproached herself terribly. This gentle soul’s great kindness to her had led to this sorry pass, which might well ruin him financially. To lose his sole source of income for half a year was a draconian penalty for someone in such humble financial circumstances already. Mr. Smith told her that he must appear in court on October 15, a month hence. It was plain from his voice that he was terrified. Lily asked him to come to her apartment so that they could discuss it in person. Once there, it was obvious that the man was indeed deeply shaken. He showed her the document summoning him to appear in court. The policeman who had demanded her receipt that day in the airport had filled it all out. But Mr. Smith was required to underline “Guilty” or “Not Guilty” and had not done so. The man seemed terrified by the whole thing. Lily took the document and underscored “Not Guilty” very prominently and handed it back to him. She was shocked by the injustice and told Mr. Smith in no uncertain terms that she would accompany him to court on October 15.

  The moment Mr. Smith left her apartment, she leapt into action. For her that meant prayer, first and foremost. There were two groups to which she now wrote letters, asking for their prayers for October 15. One was the group of nuns known as the “Poor Clares”—who corresponded to the Franciscan Order. The other was to the monks at a monastery in Vermont, which had been founded by a Jewish man who had come to the faith through her late husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand. So many had come to the faith directly through her late husband that at the time of his death he had nearly one hundred godchildren. The Jewish man who had come to the faith had not only come to faith but had founded a Carthusian monastery in Vermont. The Carthusians practiced the vow of silence and lived atop Mount Equinox in Arlington, Vermont. Lily wrote letters to the sisters and to the brothers, explaining that prayers were desperately needed for this situation.

  On her own too, Lily prayed constantly. Her propensity for anguish was now in full fan and she lost sleep over the weeks as this date approached. Two days before, on October 13, she received a phone call from Mr. Smith. He said that the court appearance had been postponed. They must now appear on January 2. Lily quickly wrote again to the two monasteries, telling them of the new situation and asking for their renewed prayers. Then in late December, Mr. Smith called again. The date had again been postponed. It was not to be January 2 but March 13. So again Lily wrote two letters, again asking for the prayers not to cease, but to continue for two more months.

  On January 20, Lily received a phone call from a stranger. The man said that he was a great devotee of her late husband’s work and of hers too. He had seen her on TV a number of times and hoped she might accept his invitation to lunch. Shortly thereafter she met him at a restaurant in downtown New Rochelle. After they had greeted one another, Lily was thrilled to learn that this man was the head of police for the entire surrounding area beyond New Rochelle. She immediately poured out her tale of woe, hoping he might be able to help. Instead, the man drew a grim picture of the situation. He said that there had been great problems with these so-called “gypsy cabs” taking people to the airport without licenses, and they must be punished. There was nothing he could do. He said not only would this man be fined $350, but he would very likely lose his license for the six-month period. Whatever hopes of divine intervention through this stranger inviting her to lunch were dashed. By the time she said good-bye, her prospects for March 13 were far gloomier than they had been before she sat down.

  A few days before the dreaded date, Mr. Smith called again. He told Lily that the court had once again postponed the date. The new date was to be May 16. Lily could hardly believe her ears, but again she contacted the two holy orders and let them know they should continue their prayers, informing them of the new date. This was her fourth letter on the subject to both of them. She had all these months continued to lose sleep over this and had herself said innumerable prayers over it. In the week before the sixteenth, however, Lily got sick. Her speaking schedule had been exhausting. She had been scheduled to give a talk at Notre Dame and then would fly straight to Dallas to give another talk. But first she had to fly to California to give a talk there. When she came back to New Rochelle from California, however, she was so exhausted that she fell ill and had to cancel both the Notre Dame and Dallas talks. Her youngest sister had been planning to visit from Europe, but Lily asked her to come earlier, to take care of her, which she did. Right up to the sixteenth, she continued to be ill, and when the morning of the May 16 arrived, Lily’s sister saw that she was simply too sick to go to the courthouse, and told her so. But Lily would not be dissuaded. “Living or dead,” she said to her sister, “I must go! I must defend this man!”

  So she prepared herself for the trip. Just before she left her apartment to go downstairs and meet Mr. Smith, who would drive with her to the court, she did something she’d never done before. She went into her bedroom and spoke sternly and quite loudly to the portrait of her late husband, fourteen years departed from this world. Like all Christians, she believed that those who are accepted into God’s bosom at death never die. Catholics of course believe it is permissible—and advisable—to speak to those who have gone before, especially to those who are deemed saints—and to ask for their help. Lily did this all the time, but she had never addressed the soul of her husband in this way. “You have loved me and helped me and defended me my whole life,” she said “But now—today!—you must prove to me that you are in Heaven. You must help me. But today!” He had been her great protector during his life, so she continued pleading with him, emphatically: “If you are still my husband, I ask you to help me today as you did so many times in your life. But I must see that you do this today—today!”

  Then she turned on her heels and went downstairs to meet Mr. Smith in his old battered car. The ride took over an hour. All the way Lily continued to pray desperately. One of her prayers on this trip was that God would show them favor by sending them to a black judge.

  When they at last got to the courthouse they saw a huge chalkboard listing the five different judges presiding that day, with the numbers of their courtrooms. Lily saw that Mr. Smith was listed under courtroom number three. As they walked there, Lily continued to pray that the judge would be a black man.

  But as soon as they walked in, Lily saw that the judge was white. “This was the first blow,” she said. They took a seat in the back and saw that they were last on the list of about twelve cases that afternoon. Lily observed that the judge’s demeanor was markedly unpleasant. After he had heard each case brought before him, without so much as looking up, as stiff as can be, he gruff
ly pronounced, “Guilty.” “Guilty, guilty, guilty!” Watching him in action was something chilling to behold.

  As the cases proceeded and their time drew near, Lily drilled Mr. Smith again and again on exactly what he must say. She told him that it was a very simple case and all he needed to do was tell the truth. He should explain that he did not ask to be paid, that he was simply doing a favor to this older woman because he knew that she needed help carrying her luggage and another taxi driver wouldn’t do that. He must make clear that he had not expected to be paid, but that she had insisted on it, which was the truth. As she told him these things over and over, Mr. Smith said, “Yes, Lady. Yes, Lady,” indicating that he understood. She reviewed these facts with him for about forty minutes.

  At last their time came. The last case of the day. “Mr. Smith!” They approached the bench and Lily saw that Mr. Smith was literally shaking with fear as he stood there. The injustice of it all outraged her. The idea that a simple, uneducated man like this should have to be subjected to this unspeakably humiliating situation made her blood boil. The policeman who had rudely demanded the receipt from her in the airport nine months earlier was there and he first gave his version of the story. Then the judge asked Mr. Smith to speak. “Mr. Smith,” he said, “what do you have to say in your favor?” But Mr. Smith was trembling and tongue-tied with fear. “Your Honor,” he said, “she is a terribly nice lady . . .”