At 9:34 AM -0400 4/8/98, Greg Ulmer wrote:

> Then two shamans were brought in
> did a rain dance
> and the sky opened and quenched the fire.

I attended a small college in the Northwest called Fort Wright College of the Holy Names that was run by nuns. One summer, in either 1973 or 74, a forest fire raged on the outskirts of the city where the college was located and threatened to turn the campus to cinders. The nuns prayed and nailed pictures of Mother Mary Rose to a line of trees between the fire and the buildings. Mother Mary Rose, though dead, still had a talent for protecting the faithful from fire and needed one more miracle to be considered for sainthood.

The fire died out mysteriously at the line of trees with her picture and the school was saved. Though I was a lapsed Catholic I don't recall thinking this odd -- the nuns and Mother Mary Rose were on the job. If asked about it I would have replied, using today's vernacular: "Well, DUH"