If desire is a magic potion, with instant effect (see Tristan and Isolde), then love is a miracle whose effects become apparent only in time.
But after a series of procedures a miracle is effected: Lette is not just presentable but eye-glazingly gorgeous.
Call it what you will -- wishful thinking, a miracle, the effect of the aggressive drug therapy, spontaneous regression or, as Ms. Girard believes, a mentally induced kick-start to her immune system -- but she reports that "the day my hope was first fed is the day I began to get well".
"Whatever the reality of the decaying bones and nauseous flesh…" Freeman explains, relics were treated as "symbols of faith and the miracles they effected".
The "Reform Bureaucrats" who marshalled the resources for total war from the early 1930s provided the model for bureaucrat-led growth after 1945 the miracle was in effect run on a war footing.
"Her smiling face lifted the spirits of the American people during the Great Depression", eulogises the Sun, adding how US President Franklin D Roosevelt dubbed her "Little Miss Miracle" for her effect on morale.
If not for this versatile, cost-efficient and ever-present object, buildings and vehicles could not explode with such spectacular precision, gunfights would lack realism, and makeup and special effects miracles would be harder to accomplish.
Webter's Dictionary defines a miracle as "an event or effect in the physical world beyond or out of the ordinary course of things, deviating from the known laws of nature, or transcending our knowledge of these laws". In reality, miracles are events that take place as a result of the operation of a higher, spiritual law.
"Nevertheless," they added, "thanks to the miracle of processing, reverb effects, and multi-tracking tricks to beef up her vocals, Duff's voice is still sweetly candy-coated enough to make the medicine go down".
The suggestion is that Carrie's abilities may not be a freakish miracle but a replicable event — in effect, a metaphysical result of a social problem.
