Miracles Are God's Calling Cards
by Rev. Nettie Spiwack
“Hail Mary full of grace. Please find me a parking space.”
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| Mother Mary, painted by Sirlea Lerner |
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| Image by Helena Lopez |
“Parking spot miracles” are a common entry-level experience of miraculous manifestation. To a city-dweller, this miracle experience is so ubiquitous that I even heard Dr. David Hawkins laughingly refer to it in a lecture. With a NY-based psychiatric practice in his early years, an empty parking spot in the place and at the moment it was needed was a miracle with which he was well acquainted.
When you first discover the power of prayer or intention, experiences like these seem to sprinkle God’s fairy dust through your life, bringing with it the heady feeling of living in some magical protected bubble, or of having stumbled upon secret powers.
Hey, we were “creating a parking space” —as we referred to it in the 1980s when I lived in Greenwich Village—long before The Secret and The Law of Attraction was “a thing.”
But after manifesting vision-board dreams—cars, apartments, boyfriends, houses, vacations—people like me moved on to a different kind of miracle-seeking: the world of divine healing.
The search for healing miracles is not new—the Bible and ancient histories are full of healing stories, and they are found throughout cultures and history. Still, in a rational and science-driven modern world, it can feel secret, subversive, and difficult to talk about with people not on the same path. Some seek healing because they need it. And others, like myself, wanted to be in the presence of the miraculous because it brought me into the actual experience of the Presence of God.
There is another order of manifestation that can feel jaw-dropping, and that is witnessing the creation of something out of thin air by means that can only be described as miraculous. No matter how many stories you might read of other people having such experiences, if you are graced to have it happen to you, it forever changes your perception of what is real, and what is possible. Here is one such story.
Sometime in the 1950s or 60s, a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba’s was so overcome with gratitude for having been rescued and reformed from his life as a thief, that he swore to dedicate his life to helping other orphans such as he had been. He started an orphanage in Srirangapatana, in Mysore.
At one point, Sai Baba manifested for the orphanage a tiny enameled pendant with his own picture on it, and from that pendant dripped a continuous stream of amritha...a nectar-like substance with an unearthly floral fragrance. In Hindu practices, you can make an amrit for use in rituals, but this is not that kind of amrit. Amrit means “the nectar of immortality”, and it is fundamental to the creation stories in Indian lore. Amrit is also the name given to the subtle substance exuded by the pineal gland that leads to enlightened states: “my cup runneth over.”
Three times over the years I visited that orphanage, which had long since become a pilgrimage site. On my last trip to India in 2009, I brought with me a sister-in-law who was longing for some experience that would take her out of the ordinary; prove to her that the miraculous was real.
After a long journey, we reached the place. The man who founded and tended the school had grown very old. He brought us into the prayer hall where the pendant was kept on an altar that was decked floor to ceiling with photos of Sai Baba and other deities. Many of the photos were covered thickly in vibhuti (sacred ash) that manifested continuously behind their glass frames; copious quantities of ash covered most of the images and also piled up in front of the frames. The fragrance in the room was overwhelming; a scent I have found nowhere else, intoxicating on its own.
He sat us down near the altar, and went to fetch the plain stainless steel tumbler that held the pendant and an ordinary teaspoon. He gestured to my sister-in-law to hold out her hands. In one palm he placed the pendant...no bigger than 1/2 an inch at most. As she watched, her hand filled with the heavenly-scented, honey-like nectar. He used the teaspoon to scoop it up as it manifested in one palm and deposited it into the second palm so that eventually both palms were full. I watched as her eyes filled with tears. It was impossible not to be moved as she stared at the miraculous in her very hand.
Each of us in turn repeated the experience, then consumed the blessing that filled our upturned hands. Then he filled the small containers we’d brought with the amrit that accumulates in the tumbler where the pendant sits.
Consuming that amrit can send one right into elevated and profound states. In gratitude, I sang a bhajan—a devotional song in Sanskrit. Each time I had visited, the experience was the same: a profound gratitude, a sacred space, and inner silence.
Ten years before, in 1999, it was amrit from that same orphanage that brought me, by inner guidance, to Ron Roth. I had been directed in prayer to give it to him. That was the beginning of my journey with Ron at a Celebrating Life intensive at Starved Rock, IL. The story that I recounted above happened exactly a decade after I had received the first amrit I brought to Ron, and it took place four months after Ron passed. My first and last amrit experiences were bookends to my journey with Ron.
Fast-forward another ten years to the last Saturday of January, 2020. I was invited to a gathering in Milwaukee, where a special guest from the UK had come to lead Laksharchana: chanting a particular mantra Sai Baba had given for 1008 repetitions while performing a ritual interspersed with devotional songs. The woman who had come to conduct it is known for the constant stream of miraculous manifestations that happen around her by Sai Baba’s grace.
The small gathering place was packed to the brim with people—mostly devotees, but also people from some other interfaith organizations.
I had been asked to lead one of the bhajans—sung “call-and-response” style. I chose a Spanish song, and the intensity that filled the room as my friend Jan led the response and the group picked up the melody was phenomenal.
Shortly after, the woman leading the event silently signaled me: “I have something for you”—but I had to wait as we were still an hour from the end.
I had been asked to deliver a gift of thanks to her at the conclusion of the event, but she stopped me before I could make the presentation. “This manifested while you were singing,” she said to the whole crowd. She handed me a small gold statue of Ganesha, inset with stones—about the size of a quarter. A friend who had been seated next to her had seen it fall out of the air, and held onto it through the rest of the ritual.
Ganesha is worshipped as the remover of obstacles. I knew His appearance was for a reason.
Thirty six hours later I had 103 fever and what I now have ample reason to believe was COVID-19. I was sicker than I had been in many years, and the fever did not abate with the usual remedies. I drank water poured over the Ganesha for the duration of my illness and the weeks-long recovery.
Having known many people who had received manifested gifts, often of jewelry, I had never desired such a thing, nor expected to receive it—certainly not nine years after my Guru had left the physical body. Yet there it was, and it has been a reminder of divine protection and grace all through the long dark year that on January 25th, 2020, I did not know lay before us all.
“Miracles are my calling cards” my Guru often said. Jesus knew the same. Miracles give us the evidence we seem to need to increase our faith, and very often, the faith of those around us. Many people in my orbit who are not particularly overtly spiritual have had an opening for God, for faith, for what is possible in their world simply by hearing my stories.
After being given a calling card, the real work is on you— to pick up the phone and place that call to the Giver, and to begin working on the real miracle: the transformation of you from self to Self.
May you all receive the miracles you need and desire.
Om Sri Sai Ram
Awesome story Nettie, You are Blessed!
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