The Dallas Morning News
December 29, 2004, Wednesday

Religion in the media: A look at recent books and magazines

[parts omitted]

Reader’s Digest (December)
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Four touching stories, all tied to the holiday season, are retold in
“Real People, Real Miracles.”

In “An Unlikely Santa,” Marc Howard Wilson tells of his depression
after leaving a rabbinate in South Carolina and facing long-term
unemployment.

He regained his sanity after playing Santa for homeless children.
“Stumbling across customs and religious boundaries did not concern
me,” and from the experience he realized that “these children were
God’s most fragile gifts to a cold world.”

Another miracle involves an American woman in Paris at Christmas.
Natalie Garibian Peters, missing her family back home, went to an
Armenian church. There, she gave up her seat to an older woman. As
Ms. Peters stood nearby, she was drawn to the woman.

After the service, they introduced themselves and discovered they
were related. The older woman was her aunt, part of the Armenian
diaspora and only temporarily in Paris.

“Auntie” Arev Kasparian cried that she had “been looking for your
father for 30 years. I knew you were someone special. I knew it in
your face.” Ms. Peters said: “I thought I was in France to discover
who I was” but instead, because of “an angel from the past,” her
family was reunited.

_ Robert Plocheck