New York is crazy this time of year. Tourists arrive in droves when the Christmas tree goes up in Rockefeller Center, ice rinks and holiday markets pop up in the city parks, and the windows of department stores become portals to dazzling holiday scenes. Navigating the streets can be a challenge, especially around our offices near the Empire State Building. But I don’t find the crowds annoying. There’s just something in the air, a feeling of joy and togetherness that permeates everything. A crowd is simply a place where the lives of many strangers cross paths.
Strangers crossing paths at a meaningful moment is a common occurrence in Mysterious Ways. Last year, I wrote about how a stranger helped me find a last-minute menorah so my fiancée and I could celebrate Chanukah. This year, that miracle menorah is on its way to Los Angeles, California, where my new brother-in-law lives. So a stranger’s random act of kindness continues to brighten my family’s holiday.
But it is rare that we are able to tell Mysterious Ways stories from the other side—from the perspective of a stranger who had the opportunity to participate in a miracle.
I read one such story today, in a letter sent to the New York Times about the closing of the Stage Delicatessen, a tourist hotspot and local favorite for 75 years.
In 1975, cardiologist Dr. Lawrence Bonchek was in the city for the annual meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. For lunch, he and a colleague stopped at the Stage Deli. While eating pastrami on rye, Dr. Bonchek saw an older man at a nearby table suddenly keel over.
The two heart surgeons sprung into action, giving the man CPR. They kept it up, leaving their sandwiches and riding with the man in the ambulance to the hospital.
“It transpired that he was a tourist from California who arrested in the right place at the right time—in front of two cardiothoracic surgeons,” Dr. Bonchek writes. “We learned later that he recovered completely and lived 11 more years.” The man’s wife sent Dr. Bonchek a thank you card on each anniversary.
That letter got me to thinking: How many times in my life have I been in the “right place, right time” to participate in a miracle?
A week ago, walking home from work, I took a left turn on 12th Street between 3rd and 2nd Avenues, a block I rarely travel. There’s really nothing of interest on that stretch, so I was the only person on the sidewalk. That’s when I saw a woman struggling with her baby stroller, trying to get her child up a steep flight of stairs into their building. I quickly offered to help. Together, we carried the stroller up the steps, inside, and up another flight of steps to the woman’s apartment. She thanked me and I continued on my way.
At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. But looking back, why did I turn down that block, when I could have easily, and more directly, continued walking down 3rd Avenue? I’d become part of someone else’s Mysterious Ways, and didn’t even realize it.
Now I think of it as a gift. Not from me, but from God. He sets our paths at just the right angles, so they intersect in both crowds and lonely places. It’s up to us to take the opportunity to help, to give, to provide whatever’s necessary when we reach that intersection. So that maybe we will become the stranger in someone else’s Mysterious Ways story, the one sent to them in their time of need.
If you’re not finding miracles this season, perhaps it’s your turn to make them for someone else. I can’t think of a better gift to give.
I’d love to hear what happens to you. Share your story with us.
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and have a happy, healthy New Year.
