I've been grateful that
Miracles Every Day has sold as well as it has since its release on 15 June 2010. It has traveled via word of mouth from one enthusiastic reader to another. --Word of mouth, that is, plus the several hundred copies I have bought and given to my own contacts. I will not divulge the exact number in case my husband reads this Blog.
Yesterday, Dr. Mehmet Oz introduced the subject of my book, Issam Nemeh, M.D., to viewers of his nationally syndicated Dr. Oz Show. One way of categorizing the effect upon Miracles Every Day is to say that things got quite a bit mouthier. Another way is to say that it caused an avalanche.
The taped program was originally scheduled to air on 1/11/11. That seemed like a lucky date, and I was pleased. However, the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords caused the show to be bumped. Kathy Nemeh's reaction was characteristically cool. "All in God's time," she said with equanimity. "Everything works out exactly as it is meant to. Besides, great things have always happened to us in the month of February."
She's right. For example, in 2007, Cleveland's WKYC-TV 3 aired a week long special about Dr. Nemeh on "Good Company," a morning talk show hosted by Elyria's own Andrea Vecchio. The special, "Prayers of the Heart", aired during mid-February. A winter storm slammed Northeastern Ohio. Schools, medical offices, and businesses were closed. Those normally at work or school were home and able to turn on their television sets. Many sat spellbound before this in-depth examination of a physician who says there is no separation between science and spirituality. A multitude of healings and miracles occurred to viewers who followed up by attending a healing service or by making an appointment with the doctor.
Interestingly, the same phenomenon happened yesterday.
The brutal winter storm that sacked the mid-West closed schools and sent people scurrying home from work early. In Chicago, the Dr. Oz Show airs at 4:00 in the afternoon. Many, many more people were able to watch the show than is usually the case.
Even an impartial observer has to pause at this point and wonder: just what is going on here? This seems less like a coincidence, more, to quote my dear friends Cartie Lyle Antonelli and her brother, the late Jim Lyle, a God-incidence.
Dr. Oz devoted the first two segments of yesterday's show to "opening the door" into a forum in which a dialogue will be conducted about the role of spirituality in the art and science of medical care. To help him kick off this conversation, Dr. Oz chose Dr. Nemeh as his first guest speaker. My daughter, Juli, humorously, but insightfully, perhaps put it best when she wrote on Facebook, "It's a doctor showdown."
In Cleveland, the Dr. Oz Show airs at 10:00 in the morning. We at the Zagrans Zoo watched with interest, then went about our daily lives. By three o'clock in the afternoon, my editor sent me a note telling me that my book was ranked at #611 on Amazon.com Books. I wrote back, asking, innocently, "Is that good?" He informed me that, the previous day, my book had been ranked at #16,000. That's a respectable position considering that there are millions of other titles strung out behind my hopeful little book.
As the afternoon and evening progressed, Miracles Every Day, like the little blue engine that could, continued to climb the Amazon mountain. When I closed my eyes upon a most astonishing day, it was perched jauntily at #163. I'm told that, as I sit here writing, a certain white-jacketed book is shouldering its way (against all odds) into the Top 100. (I keep thinking, I hope it remembers its manners. In my mind, I see that pretty little jacket cover politely asking, "Excuse me, please, can I get by?" as it passes the other titles. But then, you have to remember that I'm a mother of six. Obviously, I'm a little weird.)
Webster's dictionary highlights four different aspects of the word "miracle". The first, "an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause" is what I wrote about in my book. The second, "such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God" is what I see at every turn of my head. The birds fluttering at the feeders outside my study window are little miracles. Life is a miracle. Love is a miracle. We all are miracles.
But the third definition of miracle--"a wonder, a marvel"--is what I witnessed yesterday.
Thank you, all of you, for trusting that Miracles Every Day is a book that will make a difference in your life.
Those rapidly-changing numbers reflect all of you who were inspired to act upon something you saw yesterday. Maybe you were touched by Dr. Nemeh and the messages conveyed by his gift of faith. Maybe you are a seeker in search of hope, or love, or meaningful connection. Maybe Dr. Oz was right on target to open up a conversation about the proper place for prayer in a world filled with people who are suffering. If that is so, please visit Dr. Oz's Web site and tell him. Reward him for his courage and pledge your support of future efforts in continuing the dialogue.