NEAR MERIDA, VENEZUELANow, I've been accused of bringing increasingly ... spiritual ... elements into my blog. Perhaps we need to recognize the miracles all around us.
Like here, in Venezuela -- where its ironic that a Virgin (Mary) seems to have been so helpful bringing (and keeping) children in the world.
I hear a story of woe from a gruff, certainly unsentimental co-worker. This man and husband (who regularly boasts of his girlfriend) recalls being overcome with disappointment, try as they might, his wife simply could not conceive. So they visit the Virgin on the island of Margarita (sort of the Bahamas of Venezuela... VERY spiritual). He and his wife place their prayers before the Virgin's altar and, as a token of their desire, THEY LEAVE HER THEIR WEDDING RINGS. (I know, I know.) Later that year, behold! She gives birth to twin boys. And they've never worn wedding rings since. (Helps with the girlfriends... and, I don't know, maybe the boyfriends too?)
But the miracle that made me pause is set high in a small Andean village. There a father, consumed with grief for his 3-year old daughter diagnosed with leukemia, prayed all night to the Virgin (strangely on my birthday, Dec 8). He lit 3,000 candles, one thousand for each year of his daughter's young life. She lived. And so, each Dec 8 the village celebrates this girl's life -- last year they covered the village in 27,000 candles.
As archaic as superstitions and rituals may be in my ultra-modern existence... some gestures just strike me as beautiful. Perhaps miraculous themselves. Hail Mary.
CORRECTION: As of today, Sept 16, I discovered that Dec 8th is not the Virgin's birthday ... its the day of her death... that changes that special feeling, doesn't it?
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