miracles

So she called, my daughter (the miracle of cell phones), from her car, right off Main Street in our little town of Tucker, Georgia, and shouted: "A camel! There's a camel!"

I was baking cookies, directing operations like I was Patton and the ingredients were Third Army. "What?"

"There's a live nativity right here in downtown Tucker! Right now! And they've got a live camel!"
"Really?" I pulled a tray of jam thumbprints out of the oven. "Are you sure?"

"I drove by twice! It's a camel, and there's a donkey and sheep and goats! Across from the post office!" Her tone of voice said what are you doing still sitting there?

"I don't think I can leave my cookies," I said. My feet hurt. I was tired. There was still the clean up to do.

She hung up, excited. And I, for some reason, thought about my Aunt Beth telling me the story of the medicine show coming to town when she was a little girl living in a tiny town in Mississippi much like my tiny Georgia town.
It was miraculous, she said. Entire families gathered in the Oak Grove to be entertained in those Depression years. The side of the medicine man's wagon dropped down to make a stage. A magician, a singer, maybe an accordian player and a dancer entertained the eager, excited crowd. In the spaces between acts, the barker sold his miracle elixir, guaranteed to cure whatever ailed you. The Prices always bought two bottles. They were healthy and very happy.

Today we have cell phones and zippy little cars and thousands of sophisticated cookie recipes to make. A camel coming to town just isn't all that exciting.... or is it?

I wiped my hands on my dish towel. "Jim! Want to go see a camel? There's a camel in downtown Tucker right now!"
We take our miracles where we can find them. I'm awfully glad for mine this night.