Millman, a world-class athlete and author of the bestselling Way of the Peaceful Warrior, was first touched by the divine in an unlikely way--a serious collision with a white Cadillac. The accident disrupted his athletic career and during his recovery he began to question his life's purpose, leading him to understand his athletic accomplishments as preparation for another path of "teaching, writing, and service." Doug Childers had an extraordinary experience with the power of love in the face of an attack by two thugs, one armed with a steel pipe. In Divine Interventions: True Stories of Mysteries and Miracles That Change Lives, the authors have collected stories detailing disparate encounters with the divine, from the story of how a camel herder named Muhammad became a prophet, to the birth of mysticism in the writings of Carl Jung and Walt Whitman, to Bill Wilson's journey through alcoholism and the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous. The stories are short and easily readable, and while Millman and Childers are careful to address issues of historical accuracy, they are not out to prove anything, letting the stories speak for themselves. There are a variety of truths in this collection of miracle and mystery, bound together by the power of the divine to change ordinary lives into extraordinary ones. --Jodie Buller From Publishers Weekly Millman, author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior and Everyday Enlightenment, and editor Childers have gathered about 50 eclectic stories of miraculous events that altered the lives of those who experienced them, each story comprising a brief chapter. The volume includes the stories of diverse prophets (Muhammad, the Ba'al Shem Tov and Joseph Smith) as well as of other famous persons, including Joan of Arc, Peace Pilgrim, Carl Jung and Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The authors do not espouse any particular faith and provide examples of miracles from many traditions. Accounts of apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Lourdes and Guadalupe alternate with the enlightenment of a Buddhist emperor in India and a Japanese soldier's development of the martial art aikido. (Some of the details of these public figures' lives seem poorly researched; for example, Joseph Smith's wife is incorrectly identified and the LDS church he founded is listed as having four million instead of ten million members.) Many of the stories are about ordinary, 20th-century individuals, both authors among them. The key to almost all the stories is not necessarily the spectacular nature of the miracle but its life-changing effect: in the authors' view, a miracle's effect is evidence of its validity. After the last story, several blank pages offer readers a place to write about their own "divine interventions," accounts they are encouraged to submit to the authors for another book!

Miracles  --  Anecdotes,  Providence  And  Government  Of  God  --  Anecdotes