About thirty Friends came together at Cropwell Friends on Sunday, November 3, to hear about miracles from Diane Allen. Allen is well known as a former Philadelphia TV anchor and for long service in the New Jersey State Senate. She is also a Quaker who worships at nearby Mt. Laurel Meeting. Cropwell Meeting is a Friends community in Marlton/Cherry Hill, N.J.
Diane Allen told the audience she sees miracles as “signposts to God” and shared a survey that said 70 percent of Americans believe in miracles. She then told stories, roughly divided into sections.
The first set of miracles came from the Old Testament and included Moses’s parting of the Red Sea to save the fleeing Israelites (Exodus 14) and of the prophet Elisha being swept back to heaven in chariots of fire (2 Kings 2:1-12).
Allen then shared New Testament stories, such as Jesus healing a man let down through the roof of a house (Luke 5:17-39), Jesus healing two blind men (Matthew 9:27-31), and the bleeding woman being healed by touching Jesus’s cloak (found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Allen pointed out that one commonality in these stories was at it was the people’s faith that healed. As Jesus said to the woman: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Early Quakers were also involved in healing. Allen told the audience about George Fox’s Book of Miracles, a collection of stories about the founder of Quakerism that was later suppressed and lost and which survives only as fragments. One is the story of John Banks, who suffered paralysis of the arm and hand until he had a dream concerning Fox. Another concerned a traveling companion of Fox’s who was thrown off a horse and apparently killed until Fox held him up by the head and brought him back to life (both stories are told in a recent Friends Journal article by Marcelle Martin.)
Diane Allen then turned her attention to more modern miracles, many from a CBS television program she produced in the 1980s. These included stories from the Knock Shrine in Ireland; Lourdes in France; the remarkable healing of Cheryl Prewitt, who suffered a disfiguring automobile accident as a child but recovered so completely that she was crowned Miss America in 1980; astronaut Jim Irwin of the Apollo 15 mission, who heard a voice that helped him diagnose a mechanical failure in the lunar rover; and healings associated with Mother Katherine Drexel.
Finally, Allen told her own story of being diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer in the head and neck. Doctors told her that necessary tongue surgery meant she would never be able to talk again, a particularly horrible prognosis for a TV anchor and politician, but one that paled with the sadness of her no longer being able to read stories to her grandchildren. Resigned to her fate, she decided to pray and “give it to God.” Upon waking from surgery she learned that doctors found that the cancer didn’t need as extensive surgery as expected. After some speech therapy Allen recovered her voice completely. Her doctor had no explanation for this and told her that this was his “own miracle.”
The audience was rapt throughout the talk, alternatively laughing and gasping as Allen told her incredible stories. As is Cropwell’s tradition, Diane Allen was given one of Earl Even’s handmade wooden cutting boards as thanks. Friends then retired to the next room to share a bountiful potluck meal and fellowship and to share their own stories of miracles to one another.
Many members from Mt. Laurel Meeting attended the worship, talk, and meal. It was one of the most special aspect of the day and there was much discussion of doing more visiting between the two meetings.
Publicity:
Most of the publicity of the event happened over the usual channels of Facebook and the Cropwell website. About half of the audience came because of announcements at Allen’s home meeting of Mt. Laurel.
