Today I'm delighted to have my beautiful-hearted friend, Wendy Paine Miller, visiting my blog. Her novella, THE DISAPPEARING KEY, comes out next month. I've loved Wendy since I first stumbled across her blog several years ago. Wendy asks hard questions, thinks deeply, and always has something amazing to share from her personal journey. Congratulations, Wendy, on the release of your book!
How would you define
the word miracle? What shape would you give it? How would you explain the
meaning of miracle while speaking to someone who knew very little about our
culture?
I’m asking because I
explore the phenomenon of miracles in my debut novella, THE DISAPPEARING KEY.
I wasn’t sure that
was exactly what would come out of this work. Often writing a novel (or novella
in this case) is like opening a well-wrapped Christmas gift. As I peel off
layer upon layer I begin to understand what it is I’m holding.
And at the core of
THE DISAPPEARING KEY I’m beginning to see how there’s an undeniable mining of
the miraculous.
Apparently,
I’m curious about miracles. That’s what my writing does—it points me to those
things that deeply intrigue me.
I broach
numerous miracle-related questions in my novella. Things like can we create our
own miracles? Can something that is once deemed a miracle diminish—lose its
marvel? And how does the way we understand miracles influence whether we’re able
to identify them as such?
One of
the main characters, fourteen-year-old, Oriana Bivane confesses toward the end
of the novella:
“Because isn’t that what makes a miracle a
miracle? The lack of explanation.”
Have you ever experienced a miracle in your life?
Back to my earlier question, how would explain what a miracle is to someone?
Here are a
few more miracle-related quotes that caught my attention:
“Miracles are like
meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where
they come from, or how often they should appear.” ~ Lemony Snicket, The Carnivorous Carnival
“Miracles are a
retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the
whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” ~ C.S. Lewis
“Slowly, very slowly,
he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive, and more aware of his own
living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he
was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone...or at least, he
would be gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat
were completely dry, but so were his eyes.” ~
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows
