Only a very costly surgery could save him now and it was looking like there was no-one to loan them the money. She heard Daddy say to her tearful Mother with whispered desperation, "Only a Miracle can save him now." Tess went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jelly jar from its hiding place in the closet. She poured all the change out on the floor and counted it carefully. Three times, even. The total had to be exactly perfect.

No chance here for mistakes. Carefully placing the coins back in the jar and twisting on the cap, she slipped out the back door and made her way 6 blocks to Rexall's Drug Store with the big red Indian Chief sign above the door.

She waited patiently for the pharmacist to give her some attention but he was too busy at this moment. Tess twisted her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. No good.

Finally she took a quarter from her jar and banged it on the glass counter.

That did it! "And what do you want?" the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. I'm talking to my brother from Chicago whom I haven't seen in ages," he said, without waiting for a reply to his question.

"Well, I want to talk to you about my brother," Tess answered back in the
same annoyed tone. "He's really, really sick...and I want to buy a miracle." "I beg your pardon?" said the pharmacist.

"His names Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says only a miracle can save him now. So how much does a miracle cost?"

"We don't sell miracles here, little girl. I'm sorry but I can't help you," the
pharmacist said, softening a little.

"Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn't enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much it costs."

The pharmacist's brother was a well dressed man. He stooped down and asked the little girl, "What kind of a miracle does you brother need?" "I don't know," Tess replied with her eyes welling up.

"I just know he's really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my Daddy can't pay for it, so I want to use my money".

"How much do you have?" asked the man from Chicago. "One dollar and eleven cents," Tess answered barely audibly. "And it's all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to.

"Well, what a coincidence," smiled the man. "A dollar and eleven cents-the exact price of a miracle for little brothers." He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her mitten and said "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the kind of miracle you need."

That well dressed man was Dr. Carlton Armstrong, a surgeon, specializing in neuro-surgery.

The operation was completed without charge and it wasn't long until Andrew was home again and doing well.

Mom and Dad were happily talking about the chain of events that had led them to this place. "That surgery, "her Mom whispered. "was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost?" Tess smiled.

She knew exactly how much a miracle cost... one dollar and eleven cents ...... plus the faith of a little child.

A miracle is not the suspension of natural law, but the operation of a higher law...... (A TRUE STORY) know you'll keep the ball moving! Here it goes.

Throw it back to someone else who means something to you!

The Friendship Ball

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Chain letters are the pencil and paper ancestors of the computer virus. They cannot propagate unless the "operating system" of the person receiving the letter has an unprotected weak spot and/or has a personal reason for wanting the letter to continue. Fortunately, the disruptive power of most chain letters is usually less than that of a computer virus.

As a side note, one could argue that the Christian Bible and the letters to Corinthians are a form of convoluted chain letter. Likewise, the Qu'ran could be considered a self-perpetuating chain. Lest the non-believers get too cocky, science itself is a form of chain letter.

Underneath it all, most chain letters are made of one or more "memes" or core concepts, and a hook to get people to send the letter on. The classic chain is the pyramid scheme, send a dollar to each of these five people, then send this letter to ten more people so you can get hundreds of dollars... The meme in this is "get rich without work" which also acts as the hook.

The bad luck chain letters are the mean-sirited ones. They end up with something like "So and so broke the chain and he got damaged prints from Technicolor and died."

The meme in this one that Bob posted is that innocence, luck, and the mysterious ways of God or the universe conspire to make miracles happen.

What I find interesting is the comparison of the actors in the meme of this chain letter to the reality of how things work.

In a country with socialized medicine like Canada, Andrew (anyone know any little boys named Andrew in Canada?) would be cured without direct charge anyway after sitting in a waiting room for a month, and people would pay slighty higher taxes to fund his operation.

In a country with a capitalistic medical system and safeguards, like the U.S., Andrew's parents would have to jump through hoops to get a county run hospital to provide care or the operation, but it probably would happen, and then the parents would be forever hounded by bill collectors, especially since the restrictions on filing personal bankruptcy have recently been tightened.

As for the reality of a doctor providing his services for free, and paying the expenses of the hospital and staff so that there would be no charge to the patient, and continuing to pay his malpractice insurance, it ain't likely in today's climate. Therein lies the appeal of this letter. Even though there are alternatives that do operate within natural law, and there are valid life lessons to be learned by having to deal with those alternatives, the "easy" route is held out as a possibility to those of faith. To those people that think this always happens, I suggest they re-read Job. The meaning of life isn't found in one dollar and eleven cents (111 - a representation of the trinity) or the faith of children who believe with equal fervor that a man in red invades their home every year, not to steal, but to give.

The miracle of the story is that a young boy studied for years to be able to perform operations on the brain, when only a hundred years ago such an intervention would have been impossible. The miracle is that the superstitious doctors who dismissed Pastuer as a crackpot were forced to change their minds after a frontal assault on their entrenched belief system. The miracle is that the "cure" wasn't bloodletting and leaches.