When I read yesterday about young Keith Kennedy, the autistic man missing for more than a week from a camp in Wisconsin, I thought I knew how the story was going to turn out. It seemed like the media was thinking the same thing--the story started turning up more frequently on the various news pages I was visiting, and the sobering news that the search would be scaled back considerably was featured prominently. In all likelihood all that was left to report would be the eventual discovery of Keith's remains, along with speculation from investigators as to just what happened, and a piecing together of the young man's final days and hours.
And nine times out of ten, sadly, that would probably have turned out to be just how things went.
But not the tenth time--not this time. Down to the wire, hours away from an official shift from a rescue operation to a "recovery," (though many searchers were already treating it that way) two firefighters from St. Paul found Keith Kennedy--alive:
Ruiz said it was nearing 8 p.m. Sunday and his group, part of about 75 firefighters from throughout the Twin Cities area, was about to call it quits. Because so much time had passed since Kennedy's disappearance, they had been treating the operation as a recovery effort rather than a search-and-rescue undertaking, he said."We were yelling for the other guys because [the woods were] so thick," he said. "Suddenly we came to a clearing and Jim said, 'He's right here.' I said, 'Who?' and Jim said, 'No, he's right here, the one we're looking for. He's right here.'"
The two looked down to see Kennedy, naked and lying curled in the fetal position. A week's worth of thick stubble darkened his face. Then he moaned. He was alive.
Keith's mom says that she believes in miracles now. Granted, in the strictest sense of the word this isn't a miraculous situation--no laws of nature were temporarily suspended (or, perhaps more accurately, transcended) so that Keith could go home to his family like this. Not that we know of, anyway, or are ever likely to know.
But in a looser sense of the word, this certainly is a miracle, because the son the Kennedy family thought was dead is alive; he who was lost has been found--and what could so, so easily have ended in anguished tears has ended in heartfelt joy.
Christians see God's handiwork in more than just the miraculous events recorded in the Bible; we recognize it, too, in the everyday miracles in which we are privileged to participate. When we help to feed the hungry and assuage the thirst of those without water, or clothe the naked, or visit the sick or imprisoned, or shelter the homeless, or even to join those who mourn as they bid an earthly farewell to those whom they have loved, God is there.
And when by the perseverance of strangers searching for a lost young man a mother's deep sorrow becomes true rejoicing, He is also there.
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"The human rescuers had nothing to do with the sustainment of life until they arrived. That is what God's providence is thanked for."
Oh, I see. God is in the life-sustainment business, but not the finding-lost-people business. Thanks for clearing that up.
It's a complete non sequitur to make any connection between this lucky man's survival and the existence, much less the intervention, of god.
As Erin pointed out, these types of stories usually don't end well. Mr. Kennedy beat the odds. But had those volunteers found him dead, we wouldn't have heard a peep about this story on Beliefnet.
And, I wasn't sure the gerund I actually wanted to use would be allowed through the filters.
With this, I'm out of here.
Nice afterlife, ya collections of particles!
I'm trying to think what verb that would be, but can't come up with one. The rage and violence behind your statement is disturbing, though, as is your crowing at the notion that if there is a paradisiacal afterlife, that I'll be denied it.
Richest, though, is your arrogating to yourself the last word -- it's the perfect capstone to your "arguments."
Scot
It isn't a miracle--it's called providence.
I know, traditionally, there's a difference between good things happening that could happen by chance, and good things that, according to the laws of physics, couldn't happen, with only the latter being a miracle.
But according the quantum mechanics, almost any conceivable set of events can occur, because everything is simply a 'probability'. So I think the old concept is somewhat outdated, as is the concept that God has to work 'outside physics'. If you know enough, and can manipulate the results of 'random' quantum events enough, nothing is 'outside physics'.
Hydrogen and oxygen atoms can, indeed, spontaneously decay, hit other hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and recombine into carbon, and they can all recombine into CH3CH2OH, and, hey, water into wine. (Well, water into pure alcohol, you'd need more molecules for wine, but, luckily, they're all made of C, H, and O.) It's also worth pointing out that water was so impure in those days it probably had plenty of carbon in it in the form of bacteria and soil.
It's so astonishingly unlikely to happen that it is about as close to 'never' as you can get...but so is a bound set of flattened wood pulp containing stained patches arranged in a meaningful pattern that multiple people interpret in the same way...and those happen all the time, we call them 'books'. They aren't 'unlikely', because they aren't happening by chance...someone's deliberately doing that.
And this is suddenly reminding me of an discussion I had earlier about the differences between fantasy and sci-fi and how the border is fuzzy because, honestly, we have no idea what the border of 'possible' is.
QM makes the border of providence and miracle very fuzzy for the same reason, and I think it was an artificial distinction in the first place. It implied that God had created a set of rules that He Himself could not figure out how to get certain results within, so was forced to 'cheat'. Which is not impossible, as all computer game programmers know, and could have been done deliberately by Him, but we don't actually have any evidence of it.
It's actually a sort of recent distinction in the first place, originating to the 'clockwork universe' concepts of Newtonian physics. Before that, people already assumed have the universe was a 'miracle' and didn't make a distinction either. Now that we know that, despite Einstein's outrage over the idea, that God does play dice with the universe, we need to reevaluate that distinction and realize we have no idea if and when the dice are loaded, or if he does any 'meddling' at all outside of that.
I have an autistic child.
Unless you too have such a child, you cannot possibly imagine what that means.
Is this a miracle which results in deep rejoicing?
You who are in such a situation figure this out. The rest of you, I don't want to hear from you.
Susan,
My son has Asperger's, so he is much more manageable than a child with classic autism; nevertheless, his particular penchant is for getting lost. Two days ago, I made the mistake of taking him to a children's museum in a different city. When it was time to go, I started rounding up him and his siblings. I told him it was time to go and eat lunch. As usual, he resisted...but then he suddenly bolted.
I grabbed his sisters and went after him, but couldn't find him. Finally, I asked the lady at the entrance whether she saw a boy matching my son's description go running out of the museum. Sure enough, she said he had headed up the escalator. (The museum was in the basement of a larger building.) We ran up the escalator and still couldn't find him.
Here, the saving grace was that I know my son...he has photographic memory of where we parked the car, and never thinks twice about simply heading for the car...without us. I guessed that he was doing that now.
I was right. A glance out into the parking lot revealed a 4 year old in a blue and yellow shirt running across the lot. By the time I reached him, a parking lot attendant was chasing him as well. Thankfully, he was unhurt, but it took me a good 20 minutes until I could stop shaking enough to drive.
Suffice it to say that I will think very long and hard before sending him to any camps...
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