In a time of great political division, we need common ground to bring us together again. Most of us believe in miracles. A recent Gallup poll found that three in four Americans identify with a specific religious faith – a majority as Christians, and nearly half say faith is very important in their lives. We can use this to unite as a country.
When we learn that someone has miraculously survived cardiac arrest — as NFL safety Damar Hamlin did on a football field in Cincinnati in 2023, or Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., did on a baseball field after being shot in 2017 — the last thing on our minds is whether he or she is a Democrat or a Republican.
As I describe in my new book “The Miracles Among Us,” in the case of Rep. Scalise, the doctors who performed the combined interventional radiological and surgical procedure to repair his severely torn iliac artery after transferring 50 units of transfused blood both said it was the most miraculous event of their careers. They also believe that Scalise’s “gratitude to God” played a direct role in his recovery.
DR. MARC SIEGEL: MY PERSONAL MIRACLE: A PHYSICIAN’S LESSONS IN FAITH AND HEALING
Scalise told me, “I never felt fear. Once I put my life in God’s hands, an incredible calm and ease came over me. My mind went to another place. Whatever happened that day was God’s, and He got me through it, and I felt Him during my recovery.”
Several subjects in my book report that when they experience a miracle, a calm comes over them knowing that their lives are in God’s hands.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., walks with his wife Jennifer from the House chamber to his office in the Capitol on his first day back in Congress on Thursday, September 28, 2017. Scalise was shot during baseball practice for the Congressional Baseball Game in June 2017.
Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief of surgery at NYU, suffered seven cardiac arrests before undergoing a heart transplant. “In these experiences I feel a connection to an expanse, a connection to something much greater than my experiences on Earth. I begin to become aware of my own breathing, and at first I’m not sure what the sound is. And just before the moment when all my thoughts and memories return, I am aware of transcendence that goes far beyond anything human or of this planet Earth we are on. I feel calm and serene. I feel my soul just before I am in my body. As I wake up, there is an overlap of awareness of this vastness and then knowing that I am a living being.”
Several subjects in my book report that when they experience a miracle, a calm comes over them knowing that their lives are in God’s hands.
Montgomery says this experience has helped him come to peace with who he is and has made him a much more effective doctor and surgeon.
Jordan Grafman, a neurophysiologist at Northwestern University, recently discovered through functional MRI imaging and brain lesion mapping that belief in miracles relies on similar networks in the right side and front of the brain as partisan political beliefs. Furthermore, both politics and spirituality are experienced in the same way and lead to a desire to be part of a common community – suggesting that one can sometimes replace the other.
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Indeed, I do not believe that a rigid separation of church and state is good for patient care or for society. Why would a deeply religious doctor leave his or her robes or tallis at the door of the hospital or medical practice? Why wouldn’t a devout doctor pray with his or her patients as Congressman Scalise’s doctors did?
Damar Hamlin watches the Buffalo Bills from his hospital bed on January 9, 2023. (Credit: @HamlinIsland / SPORTS REPORT+ /TMX)
Remember that recognizing a higher being in charge can reduce one’s desire to fear or argue with another. “Fear God, not your fellow man” is the lesson from the experiences of both Scalise and Montgomery. It’s a common theme in many religions – and it can help soothe the anger that fuels our politics.
My father, 102 years old, survived emergency bowel and hip surgery, a high-output fistula, a month on a ventilator, and more than three years of dialysis because of the love of my mother, 100 years old.
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Last week he explained to me how he had lived so long: “If someone throws a punch, I duck,” he said.
Split of the book cover of Dr. Marc Siegel and The Miracles Among Us. (FNC)
Praying for my patients means understanding that they are more than just a body in need of repair – that they also have precious souls that need to be cared for.
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This is the secret to great doctor work, and it keeps me from writing my patients off too quickly. In any case, a miracle can still occur.
Belief in miracles is also a path forward to mutual respect regardless of political affiliation in today’s troubled and divided times.
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