RABBI SIMEON KOLKO Embracing miracles that are 'daily upon us'

I was attending synagogue recently with my wife and son. I found myself coming to terms with a variety of images and themes with a common subtext of miracles, and the role they play in shaping and forming our lives.
The one image was somewhat abstract, intellectual and theological; the other could not have been more visceral, personal and immediate.
I had found myself absorbed by the ritual and ceremony surrounding the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Along with countless others, I have long admired the radical negation of self and devotion to a higher calling which characterize the richness of the spiritual life of this remarkable person. In an age that elevates self-actualization above all else, her location of the source of meaning in tending to the needs of others stands out as a clarion call to the rest of us. Surely it is this aspect of the life of Mother Teresa that others resonate with and find so compelling as well.
Miracle as criterion
In the midst of following the coverage of the beatification of Mother Teresa, I was reminded of the criteria established by the Roman Catholic Church to determine if an individual is an appropriate candidate for this honor.
As I understand it, beatification may be granted by the church to a person who is seen as having been of overwhelming virtue, whose goodness is sustained after death and who is deemed to have interceded from beyond the grave in a miracle -- usually a medical cure for which there is said to be no scientific explanation. The miracle cited for Mother Teresa centers on the claim of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, that a beam of light emitted from a picture of Mother Teresa in her home had cured a cancerous tumor.
A miracle nearby
Juxtaposed with my abstract reflection on these developments thousand of miles away was the reality of the miracles that brought into my life the two people sitting next to me in the synagogue: my wife, Sherri, and son, Zachary.
The story of how Sherri and I met and subsequently married is a meditation on how the insight and vision of others can create the miracle of love and companionship that is God's greatest gift. The story of how these same people can overcome the struggles and anguish associated with infertility through the miracle of another person's courage, and realization that others were best equipped to raise the child to whom she had given birth, is as profound a miracle as I can possibly think of.
And so, last weekend, I found myself in thought about the possibility of miracles occurring in our lives, and the human role in this process. As my skepticism began to overwhelm my yearning to believe, I glanced beside me at the loving wife and adoring child whose presence in my life is nothing short of being a miracle.
The Jewish liturgy contains a prayer of thanksgiving to God in which we offer thanks "for the miracles which are daily upon us." I now understand the meaning of this prayer in a different way than before.
XRabbi Simeon Kolko is the rabbi at Beth Israel Temple Center in Warren.