Divine Interventions: True Stories of Mystery and Miracles That Change Lives

Millman, author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior and Everyday Enlightenment, and editor Childers have gathered about 50 eclectic stories of miraculous events that altered the lives of those who experienced them, each story comprising a brief chapter. The volume includes the stories of diverse prophets (Muhammad, the Ba'al Shem Tov and Joseph Smith) as well as of other famous persons, including Joan of Arc, Peace Pilgrim, Carl Jung and Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The authors do not espouse any particular faith and provide examples of miracles from many traditions. Accounts of apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Lourdes and Guadalupe alternate with the enlightenment of a Buddhist emperor in India and a Japanese soldier's development of the martial art aikido. (Some of the details of these public figures' lives seem poorly researched; for example, Joseph Smith's wife is incorrectly identified and the LDS church he founded is listed as having four million instead of ten million members.) Many of the stories are about ordinary, 20th-century individuals, both authors among them. The key to almost all the stories is not necessarily the spectacular nature of the miracle but its life-changing effect: in the authors' view, a miracle's effect is evidence of its validity. After the last story, several blank pages offer readers a place to write about their own ""divine interventions,"" accounts they are encouraged to submit to the authors for another book. (Oct.)