Drenched in the (possibly) miraculous

What’s a miracle? How can we (frail human creatures that we are!) separate contingency—what’s possible but unpredictable, an event that seems unlikely or unintended—from miracle?

I think of the generous heart of my friend Charles Kelly, longtime member of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in West Harlem, who died from cancer in 2012. 

Charles grew up in Queens, studied briefly in Florida, and later worked for New York City’s Board of Education as a drug counselor. But things fell apart. His family broke up. He lost his job. There were drugs—perhaps self-medication. I don’t know which came first. I only know that by the mid-’80s Charles wound up homeless.