FEATURED: Of the Smaller Miracles

by Karen Swallow Prior

OF THE SMALLER MIRACLES

Of the larger miracles I know naught

Except what I have read—

Of nets overfilled with fish,

Of loaves multiplied by tens,

Of humans skipping across water’s waves as if they (the humans) were dragonflies rather than men.

But of the smaller miracles—

Of the translucence of a leaf backlit by sun,

Of wary ruff bristled high on a dog’s thick neck,

Of a message delivered just in time,

Of a stranger in the street holding a hand ‘til help arrives,

Of an unarticulated prayer answered even before the words can form their inward parts in the womb of my tongue, 

And, last, of a loved lost thing finally found—

These are the kinds of miracles I know—

deep in my flesh and in bone of my bones. 

KAREN SWALLOR PRIOR

Karen Swallow Prior, Ph. D., is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023); On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos 2018); Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014); and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012). She is co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (Zondervan 2019) and has contributed to numerous other books.

She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, and various other places. She hosted the podcast Jane and Jesus.