Any doctor who has been in this business for very long will tell you that there are instances of apparent cures for which there are no rational medical explanations.

Some call those healings miracles. Others call them mysteries. 

Some attribute them to divine intervention; others believe they are statistical outliers that happen from time to time.

These unexplained cures remain one of the more fascinating things about practicing medicine.

We physicians have been trained in an era in which medical illnesses and recoveries are more or less logical and predictable. We live in the Newtonian era of science where things have a known cause and effect.

Yet when Einstein and his contemporaries outlined what is now called quantum physics, our understanding of the universe and the way it operates changed.

We know now that the flapping of butterfly wings on one side of the planet can affect what happens thousands of miles away.

Medicine has not kept up with these changes. And I believe we are falling behind the curve in our understanding of the way this impacts our health. As a result, we are somewhat clueless about miracles and mysteries.

An unexplained recovery

For example, one patient was a healthy woman in her mid-50s. She contracted what seemed initially to be a simple upper respiratory infection, but within 24 hours she was in crisis and placed on life support.

A few weeks later her heart began to fail and a valve in her heart ruptured. We decided to proceed with heart valve replacement even though her respiratory failure seemed critical.

She survived the surgery but remained on life support for another two months, fighting every possible complication with an iron will. But despite all heroics, she was fading and running out of hope for survival.

On a Monday, her family and pastor gathered at her bedside to share communion, feeling that this could be her last day to live.

Twenty-four hours later, she began to wake up. By the end of the week, she was breathing on her own for the first time in months.

Three months later, she returned home. She now lives a normal life, enjoying her children and grandchildren.

What really happened?

Were we witnesses to a miracle, a healing that took place because of the invisible hand of God? Or were we just a part of a random fortunate occurrence?

It is my feeling that while we cannot expect what are called miracles to occur with any sort of predictability, we must remain open to their possibility.

I believe small miracles happen more frequently than we recognize because we are so concrete in our understanding of the way our bodies and the universe are intimately intertwined.

We are not willing to see through the glass darkly. As a result, we miss the tiny miracles that surround us daily.

I believe we make a major theological mistake when we demand that God grant us miracles at all times and in all circumstances.

For some reason that sort of “miracle on demand” doesn’t seem to be in God’s vocabulary.

Part of our job as physicians and patients is to remain open to happenings that are beyond our understanding. Relinquishing control is so very hard for physicians and patients alike in times of desperation.

But when we are humble enough to admit we don’t have all the answers, it can become the first step toward a breakthrough in our journey into the world of both miracles and mysteries.

 Michael Attas is a local doctor, a medical humanities professor and an Episcopal priest. E-mail him at Michael_Attas@baylor.edu.