Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle By Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver HarperCollins / 370 pages / $26.95 Midway through reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the new Barbara Kingsolver book, I pushed up from the couch, set the book aside and took the three-mile drive to the local farmer's market - a popular Saturday morning ritual in my area of suburban Philadelphia. There I joined my neighbors in the predictably happy frenzy: procuring homegrown flowers and freshly baked bread, organic eggs and the lush, bright produce that is seeded, tended, crated and sold by the region's Amish farmers.

John has never studied Greek, but he knows the Chesapeake. -- from "River Schooling," by Gilbert ByronYOU CAN study nature your whole life, then see something entirely new in a place you've been a hundred times. That's how it was when I happened on the miracle bush.I'd been paddling a lower Eastern Shore river down to the bay for half an hour Wednesday before I became aware of another river flowing over and around my kayak.It was a procession of monarchs, the annual migration that funnels the butterflies from all over North America to winter roosts in the mountains of central Mexico, so remote they were not discovered until 1975.

TodaySeven older fillies and mares are set for the post in the $75,000-added Maryland Racing Writers Handicap at 1 1/8 miles. Off two consecutive victories, the favorite figures to be Merengue, the Broad Brush filly trained by Donald Barr. She scored by a nose in the Nellie Morse last time out after an impressive two-length victory in the mud in the graded Anne Arundel Handicap. Chief opposition could come from Mo Hotta Mo Betta with Edgar Prado up.TomorrowA wide-open affair looms in the $40,000-added Miracle Wood Stakes for 3-year-olds.

Four years ago, The Rev. Ronald P. Pytel's doctors took one look at his severely damaged heart and said he could die at any time. Months later, in a recovery doctors struggled to explain, he was found to be problem-free, taken off medication and sent home.Yesterday, Pope John Paul II declared that his cure was a miracle.And he decreed the miracle happened through divine intervention of a deceased Polish nun, Blessed Faustina Kowalska. The decision means she will be canonized a saint in April.

Face it, faithful Candid Closet readers, Dr. George Dover, director of Johns Hopkins Children's Center, has better things to worry about than his clothes. He says even his wife Barbara yawns at the sight of his standard wear.So what's this with the ties? Ever since Hopkins and Jos. A. Banks Clothiers produced the Miracle Collection, a line of men's neckwear featuring designs based on the molecular structure of important pediatric medications, Dover has been very, very big on his ties. The collection was launched for the fourth year yesterday with a fashion show that included the dapper Dr. Dover.

The Ryder Cup miracle? Everyone will tell you it was the United States team's dramatic and unprecedented comeback on the event's final day.But the comeback never would have occurred without the real Ryder miracle of 1999 -- captain Ben Crenshaw's feat of taking a dozen mostly spoiled, selfish PGA Tour rivals and turning them into a seamless, cohesive team capable of writing such history.The U.S. comeback not only was one of golf's best, but, at the risk of hyperbole, also one of the best seen in any sport.

The NFL's version of Houdini slipped out of his handcuffs one more time yesterday."We needed a miracle play," Buffalo Bills coach Wade Phillips said after his team took over on the Ravens' 45 with 3: 25 left following a Gabe Northern forced fumble.Doug Flutie, who had been in a virtual straitjacket the entire game and threw three interceptions, came up with two miracle plays just when most Bills fans were wondering why Phillips didn't yank Flutie for Rob Johnson.The result was that Buffalo escaped with a 13-10 victory.

WASHINGTON -- When Pat Williams thinks of Carolyn Peck, the coach and general manager of the WNBA's Orlando Miracle, all he can see is an upside.But for Williams, the senior executive vice president of the NBA's Orlando Magic, which operates the Miracle franchise, that upside isn't just about her basketball coaching ability."

Forget fifth place. Sixth is a stretch and so is seventh place.The Towson University basketball team is headed for eighth or ninth place in the final America East standings.That means the Tigers are most likely stuck with playing one of the two Friday night first-round games when the America East tournament opens in 10 days at the Carpenter Center on the University of Delaware campus.That is the fate of a Towson team that lost its seventh straight game last night when a go-for-broke second-half rally fell short against the University of Vermont, 66-57, at the Towson Center.

Two maintenance workers on a Catonsville communications tower survived a terrifying 200-foot fall onto a chain-link fence yesterday when their safety equipment failed, escaping with bruises and minor fractures."

On July 23, 2009, ELIZABETH HINTON. Friends may call at the family owned and operated Howell Funeral Home on Wednesday, July 29th, from 3 to 7 P.M. at 4600 Liberty Heights Avenue. Funeral service will be held on Thursday, July 30th, at New Miracle Christian Community Church, 4802 Liberty Heights Avenue. Wake 10 A.M. Funeral service beginning at 10:30. Interment, Crownsville Veteran Cemetery.

On July 19, 2009 CHARLOTTE MARIE PETERKIN-FAISON survived by her loving family. The family will receive friends on Sunday, July 26 from 12-5 p.m. at the family owned and operated Howell Funeral Home, 4600 Liberty Heights Avenue. The wake will be held on Monday, July 27 10 a.m. at New Miracle Christian Community Church, 4802 Liberty Heights Avenue with funeral service to follow at 10:30 a.m. Interment King Memorial Park Cemetery.

Miracle Laurie didn't want to get a role on just any TV show. She wanted to be on a Joss Whedon TV show. And now she is, and Fox has renewed Dollhouse for a second season, and life just couldn't be a whole lot better. "I auditioned for Buffy (the Vampire Slayer) at least a thousand times. I tried out to be a series regular on Firefly. I auditioned for years for his stuff," says Laurie, who will be in Baltimore this weekend, signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans at the annual Shore Leave sci-fi convention at the Hunt Valley Marriott.

On May 2, 2009, VERNAL. Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, 4300 Wabash Avenue on Thursday 1 to 8 P.M. The family will receive friends at Miracle Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church, 100 S. Rock Glen Road on Friday at 11:30 A.M. Funeral services will follow at 12 noon.

On October 16, 2008 RUBY E. Wife of the late David Brown. Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME EAST, 1101 E. North Avenue on Wednesday after 8:30 A.M. The family will receive friends at Miracle Baptist Church, 4613 Moravia Rd. on Thursday at 10:30 A.M. Funeral Services will follow at 11 A.M.

Spike Lee's Tuscany-set World War II movie, Miracle at St. Anna, is overlong, awkward and unsubtle, yet at the end, when the screen went black and a bracingly clear and fervid chorus broke into the glorious spiritual "He's got the whole world in his hands," my throat tightened and I fought back tears. For all his excesses and wrong turns, Lee has made a grown-up movie with an adult sense of loss and an adult sense of hope. He may be addicted to broad flourishes, but he has the big emotions to back them up. Miracle at St. Anna mostly follows four "Buffalo Soldiers" - African-American soldiers fighting in segregated units - as they leapfrog over the rest of the Army's positions and land in a hamlet filled with terrified villagers.

On March 25, 2008, RICHARD R. BLACKWELL, II, beloved husband of June A. Blackwell. On Sunday, friends may call at the VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES, 5151 Baltimore National Pike from 4-8 P.M. On Monday, Mr. Blackwell will lie in state at Miracle Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church, 100 S. Rock Glen Road, where the family will receive friends from 6:30-7 P.M., with services to follow. Inquiries to (410)233-2400.

BUFFALO, N.Y.-- Standing in line, they fidget in place, goose-necking over the large crowd and anxiously fingering their cell phones - one text message reads: "You'll never guess who I'm about to meet." They rehearse their lines with good reason, because what exactly are you supposed to say when you reach the front of the long line? Sorry you'll never play football again? Congratulations on walking? I prayed every morning and every night, and you're living proof that miracles exist and because of you, I'll never quit at anything ever again?

It's hard to stand out in a wonderland of kitsch, but Jim Pollock does just that. In 1996, the scrap-metal artist made a tiny Christmas tree out of hubcaps. Today, it's 8 feet high, incorporates more than 100 wheel covers and stands in front of his house at 708 W. 34th St. in Hampden, a dented destination of choice for the thousands who crowd his block for the famed miracle of lights every holiday season. They come for his hospitality - he opens his home to visitors, including 30,000 last year - but also for the whimsy in his work.

On November 2, 2007, DONALD BAILEY JR. Friends may call a the FAMILY OWNED MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, 4300 Wabash Avenue on Wednesday after 11:00 a.m. The family will receive friends on Thursday at the Miracle Temple 7th Day Adventist Church, 100 S. Rock Glen Avenue at 11;30 a.m. followed by funeral service at 12 noon.