The Angel of Death Calls
A Sufi tale with a profound message for life.
By Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/14/story ... mc_id=NL24
Excerpt from 'Angels Unveiled' by Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani published by KAZI. Reprinted with permission from Naqshbandi Sufi Order Library
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A certain king once went on a trip to one of his provinces. He set out on his journey, dressed in a sumptuous array and puffed up with pride. A man poorly dressed approached and greeted him from the side of the road; but the king would not answer. The man caught the bridles of the king's horse and none of the king's soldiers could make him let go. The king cried: "Let go of the bridle!" The man said: "First grant me my request." The king said: "Release the bridle and I promise to hear your request." The man said: "No, you must hear it right away," and he pulled harder on the reins. The king said: "What is your request?" The man replied: "Let me whisper it in your ear, for it is a secret." The king leaned down and the man whispered to him: "I am the Angel of Death."
The king's face became pale and he stammered: "Let me go home and bid farewell to my family, and wrap up my affairs." But Azra'il said: "By the One Who sent me, you will never see your family and your wealth in this world again!" He took his soul there and then, and the king fell from his horse like a wooden log.
The Angel of Death went on his way and saw a believer walking by himself on the road. The angel greeted him, and he gave back his greeting. The angel said: "I have a message for you." "Yes, my brother, what is it?" "I am the Angel of Death." The believer's face brightened with a big smile. "Welcome, welcome!" He said. "As God is my witness, I was waiting for you more impatiently than for anyone else."
"O my brother!" the Angel of Death said, "perhaps you have a matter that you wish to settle first, so go and take care of it, for there is no rush."
"As God is my witness," the believer said: "there is nothing I wish more dearly than to meet my Lord." The angel said: "Choose the way in which you would like me to take your soul, for so I have been ordered to ask you."
The believer said: "Then let me pray two cycles of prayer, and take my soul while I am kneeling in prostration."
Angels
Hello, Guardian Angel? It's Me...
Your angel is always beside you. All it takes is a shift in perception to reveal it.
By Denny Sargent
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18500_1.html
Reprinted from "Your Guardian Angel and You" by Denny Sargent, with permission of Red Wheel/Weiser LLC.
Encountering your Guardian Angel can change your life. This powerful relationship has reenergized people, added depth to friendships and marriages, encouraged people to leave abusive relationships, and helped alcoholics stay sober. It has brought people to a deeper understanding of their faith and to more compassionate and empathetic actions in their daily lives. It has, in every instance, helped people discover their true wills, the actions that they should be taking on this Earth, and the hidden talents they have within them that have gone undeveloped. However, before you can make this connection with your angel, you must come to terms with ideas and expectations concerning it.
Different accounts from different cultures portray angels as superhuman beings with powers and abilities that can be called divine or supernatural. When angels appear, they are always accompanied by amazing waves of pure love and power. They almost always appear as beings of light. Sometimes they come as balls of light, sometimes as glowing bands of light. When they appear in human form, they are often seen with large sweeping wings and beautiful faces and bodies. Sometimes they are naked, but more often they are clothed in flowing robes of light. White is the color most often attributed to them, although many different colors are also mentioned in various historical accounts.
There are basically two types of angels explained in holy books and legends. The Greater Angels, or Archangels like Gabriel who announced the birth of Jesus and is said to have given the Koran to Mohammed, have great power. They are said to guide the planets, the stars, and the course of cosmic events. Archangels guide the Jewish tribes (Israel is an angel!) and guard the gates of Buddhist paradise. These Greater Angels do the work of the ultimate power, or God. They appear at cosmic events and as participants in the past creation and the future destruction of the world. These Archangels, according to all the religions mentioned here, are beyond the reach of most humans. They appear in the mundane world only when God sends them forth to act, and it is unlikely that anyone reading this book will receive a divine visitation from one of these great beings—although you never know!
It is Lesser Angels, also called Guardian Angels, with which we wish to concern ourselves, however. In many traditions these angels are said to guard, protect, and guide all living things. Although plants, animals, cities, and nations are also reported to have Guardian Angels, the most important are those assigned to human beings. When I refer to Guardian Angels, I mean the divine spirits who help and protect each of us from the moment of birth until the day we leave this Earth.
Guardian Angels, even in ancient texts, are described as divine beings assigned to each person at birth. They embody the will and true understanding of their charge and their job is to protect and help that person through the dangers and transitions of life. They represent, in essence, each person’s direct connection to God. The function of the Guardian Angel is the same today as it has been throughout history.
Angels are different from us in important ways, however, and there is a tremendous gap between us. We can bridge this gap through love and will. Traditionally, your angel will make the loving effort to bridge this gap and reveal itself to you, usually at a time of extreme need. Yet there are many ways that you can expand your awareness and bridge the gap if you have the love and the will, and use the right techniques. You have only very limited senses with which to perceive the world, so you can’t normally see angels who may be around you. These beings are as real as you, but they are formed of a different kind of energy, an energy that is usually beyond your perception. You can see only a small part of the light spectrum. You can’t, for example, see ultraviolet light, but you know it exists nonetheless. Anyone who has been around pets knows that people usually feel, smell, and hear only a fraction of what many animals can. I’ve seen fish jumping and birds screeching just before a minor earthquake, and it is obvious that most pets have a sense of smell that far surpasses ours. Though this may seem to indicate that we are limited creatures, it merely shows that most of us don’t seek to enlarge the scope of our experience, of our senses. But we could see and hear more if we wanted to.
Just because you cannot immediately perceive something does not mean it is not real. Your mind "tunes out" many things around you all the time, but if you really pay attention, you’ll be amazed by what you are missing. One of the keys to connecting with your angel is to increase your ability to perceive. If you are not listening for something, you won’t hear it, but if you concentrate with real focus on your senses, it is remarkable what you will pick up. In this way, you can signal your angel that you are ready and willing to communicate, that you are reaching toward its higher level of perception and awareness. Your angel is waiting for such a signal.
Angels are beings of pure spirit and energy that have a higher level of consciousness. It therefore makes sense that your angel can be near you at all times without you sensing its presence in your day-to-day life. You have accepted your limited sense as the norm of your existence. But you can change your expectations so that you can bridge the gap between you and your angel. With effort you can sense and accomplish things that some would call miracles. Witness the stories of holy men and women around the world who have connected with the divine through love and dedication. The key is to expand your awareness, both of what is around you and what is within you. By using effective visualization techniques, meditations, mental exercises, and prayers, you can see and communicate with your Guardian Angel.
Preparing to Communicate With Your Guardian Angel
Before you begin to communicate with your Guardian Angel, you must prepare yourself by opening your senses and your mind. It generally requires both mental and emotional preparation before you are ready to meet and form a lasting relationship with your angel.
Mental preparation is perhaps the most important task. Before you can deal with something or communicate with it, you have to accept that it exists. How many times have you walked past a new picture on the wall or a book out of place on a shelf and not seen it? You missed seeing it because your mind did not expect to see it! I often lose my keys. Sometimes they are right in front of me, but if they are out of place I often just don’t "see" them until my wife points them out. She can see them because she doesn’t expect them to be elsewhere, I can’t see them because I don’t expect to see them there.
What does this have to do with your angel? You need to realize that your angel can be next to you without you always being aware of it. All it takes is a simple shift in perception to reveal this divine being to you! It’s not that your angel appears or disappears; it is simply that you change your viewpoint. The other day, I sat next to a friend on a bus without even noticing her. She didn’t notice me either! After a few minutes, of course, we both recognized each other and laughed. We hadn’t expected to see each other on that bus, and so we simply didn’t. One minute she was just a nameless person; a second later, she "appeared" as my friend! In just this way, you don’t expect to meet your Guardian Angel, so you don’t. So, the first step in preparing yourself to meet your Guardian Angel is to change your expectations—change what you think you will experience. Cultivate a belief that your angel exists and that you will meet it if you simply shift your perceptions. When you do, you’ll be halfway down the path to connecting with your Guardian Angel.
Your angel is always beside you. All it takes is a shift in perception to reveal it.
By Denny Sargent
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18500_1.html
Reprinted from "Your Guardian Angel and You" by Denny Sargent, with permission of Red Wheel/Weiser LLC.
Encountering your Guardian Angel can change your life. This powerful relationship has reenergized people, added depth to friendships and marriages, encouraged people to leave abusive relationships, and helped alcoholics stay sober. It has brought people to a deeper understanding of their faith and to more compassionate and empathetic actions in their daily lives. It has, in every instance, helped people discover their true wills, the actions that they should be taking on this Earth, and the hidden talents they have within them that have gone undeveloped. However, before you can make this connection with your angel, you must come to terms with ideas and expectations concerning it.
Different accounts from different cultures portray angels as superhuman beings with powers and abilities that can be called divine or supernatural. When angels appear, they are always accompanied by amazing waves of pure love and power. They almost always appear as beings of light. Sometimes they come as balls of light, sometimes as glowing bands of light. When they appear in human form, they are often seen with large sweeping wings and beautiful faces and bodies. Sometimes they are naked, but more often they are clothed in flowing robes of light. White is the color most often attributed to them, although many different colors are also mentioned in various historical accounts.
There are basically two types of angels explained in holy books and legends. The Greater Angels, or Archangels like Gabriel who announced the birth of Jesus and is said to have given the Koran to Mohammed, have great power. They are said to guide the planets, the stars, and the course of cosmic events. Archangels guide the Jewish tribes (Israel is an angel!) and guard the gates of Buddhist paradise. These Greater Angels do the work of the ultimate power, or God. They appear at cosmic events and as participants in the past creation and the future destruction of the world. These Archangels, according to all the religions mentioned here, are beyond the reach of most humans. They appear in the mundane world only when God sends them forth to act, and it is unlikely that anyone reading this book will receive a divine visitation from one of these great beings—although you never know!
It is Lesser Angels, also called Guardian Angels, with which we wish to concern ourselves, however. In many traditions these angels are said to guard, protect, and guide all living things. Although plants, animals, cities, and nations are also reported to have Guardian Angels, the most important are those assigned to human beings. When I refer to Guardian Angels, I mean the divine spirits who help and protect each of us from the moment of birth until the day we leave this Earth.
Guardian Angels, even in ancient texts, are described as divine beings assigned to each person at birth. They embody the will and true understanding of their charge and their job is to protect and help that person through the dangers and transitions of life. They represent, in essence, each person’s direct connection to God. The function of the Guardian Angel is the same today as it has been throughout history.
Angels are different from us in important ways, however, and there is a tremendous gap between us. We can bridge this gap through love and will. Traditionally, your angel will make the loving effort to bridge this gap and reveal itself to you, usually at a time of extreme need. Yet there are many ways that you can expand your awareness and bridge the gap if you have the love and the will, and use the right techniques. You have only very limited senses with which to perceive the world, so you can’t normally see angels who may be around you. These beings are as real as you, but they are formed of a different kind of energy, an energy that is usually beyond your perception. You can see only a small part of the light spectrum. You can’t, for example, see ultraviolet light, but you know it exists nonetheless. Anyone who has been around pets knows that people usually feel, smell, and hear only a fraction of what many animals can. I’ve seen fish jumping and birds screeching just before a minor earthquake, and it is obvious that most pets have a sense of smell that far surpasses ours. Though this may seem to indicate that we are limited creatures, it merely shows that most of us don’t seek to enlarge the scope of our experience, of our senses. But we could see and hear more if we wanted to.
Just because you cannot immediately perceive something does not mean it is not real. Your mind "tunes out" many things around you all the time, but if you really pay attention, you’ll be amazed by what you are missing. One of the keys to connecting with your angel is to increase your ability to perceive. If you are not listening for something, you won’t hear it, but if you concentrate with real focus on your senses, it is remarkable what you will pick up. In this way, you can signal your angel that you are ready and willing to communicate, that you are reaching toward its higher level of perception and awareness. Your angel is waiting for such a signal.
Angels are beings of pure spirit and energy that have a higher level of consciousness. It therefore makes sense that your angel can be near you at all times without you sensing its presence in your day-to-day life. You have accepted your limited sense as the norm of your existence. But you can change your expectations so that you can bridge the gap between you and your angel. With effort you can sense and accomplish things that some would call miracles. Witness the stories of holy men and women around the world who have connected with the divine through love and dedication. The key is to expand your awareness, both of what is around you and what is within you. By using effective visualization techniques, meditations, mental exercises, and prayers, you can see and communicate with your Guardian Angel.
Preparing to Communicate With Your Guardian Angel
Before you begin to communicate with your Guardian Angel, you must prepare yourself by opening your senses and your mind. It generally requires both mental and emotional preparation before you are ready to meet and form a lasting relationship with your angel.
Mental preparation is perhaps the most important task. Before you can deal with something or communicate with it, you have to accept that it exists. How many times have you walked past a new picture on the wall or a book out of place on a shelf and not seen it? You missed seeing it because your mind did not expect to see it! I often lose my keys. Sometimes they are right in front of me, but if they are out of place I often just don’t "see" them until my wife points them out. She can see them because she doesn’t expect them to be elsewhere, I can’t see them because I don’t expect to see them there.
What does this have to do with your angel? You need to realize that your angel can be next to you without you always being aware of it. All it takes is a simple shift in perception to reveal this divine being to you! It’s not that your angel appears or disappears; it is simply that you change your viewpoint. The other day, I sat next to a friend on a bus without even noticing her. She didn’t notice me either! After a few minutes, of course, we both recognized each other and laughed. We hadn’t expected to see each other on that bus, and so we simply didn’t. One minute she was just a nameless person; a second later, she "appeared" as my friend! In just this way, you don’t expect to meet your Guardian Angel, so you don’t. So, the first step in preparing yourself to meet your Guardian Angel is to change your expectations—change what you think you will experience. Cultivate a belief that your angel exists and that you will meet it if you simply shift your perceptions. When you do, you’ll be halfway down the path to connecting with your Guardian Angel.
Angels frequently show us their love by some sort of sign, sometimes a touch. It is impossible to miss it when an angel touches you. People may feel shivers, goosebumps, joy, or peace and calm.
-Barbara Mark & Trudy Griswold,
"The Angelspeake Storybook"
Joan of Arc: Voice of the Angels?
Was the young French girl really hearing God's guidance? Or was it something else?
By Johanna Skilling
Think of a 13-year-old girl you know or have known. If she’s like most young girls, she is alternately naive and wise, giddy and sulky, vulnerable and just starting to chafe at the boundaries of childhood. And yet you wouldn’t expect her to leave home, travel hundreds of miles, and lead an army against an enemy force. Particularly if this 13-year-old had no education, couldn’t read or write, and had never so much as picked up a weapon.
And yet Jeanne d’Arc did just that. Did she see an angel? Was it the Archangel Michael who became her advisor, and led her to become commander-in-chief of the French army? Because with no military background, this young girl did what generations of French generals had been unable to achieve: beat back the English invaders and liberate much of her homeland.
Joan was the youngest of five children, a girl who was good at sewing and spinning. From a young age, she was often in church, kneeling for hours in prayer.
At age 13, Joan heard a voice. It sounded quite close, as if someone was speaking in her ear; a blaze of light accompanied the sound. Joan continued to receive these heavenly messages; as time went on she recognized her angelic counselors to be St. Michael, St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and others.
By the time she was 16, the voices had begun to urge her to find the French Dauphin, Charles, whose armies were waging a losing war against the English for control of the country. She actually tried to meet one of Charles’ generals, but after she was rudely sent away, Joan’s voices became even more insistent.
"I am a poor girl,” Joan replied. “I do not know how to ride or fight." And yet the voices told her: "It is God who commands it."
So once again, Joan made the trip to see the general. While trying to gain access to him, she received a vision: The French would suffer a terrible defeat by the English, in the “Battle of the Herrings,” in the town of Orléans. When her prediction proved true, several days later, the general arranged for her to have an audience with Charles himself.
The Dauphin, of course, was skeptical of this young woman who claimed to hear the voices of angels. He had her brought into a room where he was in disguise, surrounded by many other men and women of his court. Joan knew him right away--this in an age before photography or other technology existed to transmit pictures of leaders throughout the country. Joan’s voices had not only helped her recognize Charles, but had given her a sign to show him that she indeed had heavenly guidance. This sign that was never publicly revealed, but we know that Charles accepted it as proof of Joan’s powers.
Joan herself never doubted her angels. “I saw them with my bodily eyes as clearly as I see you,” she once said. “And when they departed, I used to weep and wish they would take me with them.”
With Charles’ permission, Joan returned to the battlefield. Although he had given her a weapon, she wanted to find an ancient sword that, she had been told, was buried behind the altar in the small chapel of Ste-Catherine-de-Fierbois. A search was made, and the sword was found precisely where Joan’s voices had predicted.
Before going into battle, Joan made a series of startling predictions. According to a letter of the time, she said "that she would save Orléans and would compel the English to raise the siege, that she herself, in a battle before Orléans, would be wounded by a shaft but would not die of it, and that the King, in the course of the coming summer, would be crowned at Reims." All of these events came to pass.
A year later, her voices warned her that she would be taken prisoner by the English within weeks, and once again, this proved true. Even so, she remained unbowed. She told her captors that "within seven years' space, the English would have to forfeit a bigger prize.” Six years and eight months later, the English indeed lost Paris back to the French army.
Sadly, Joan wouldn’t live to see that day. Not long after her capture, and only a few months after her nineteenth birthday, she was burned at the stake for heresy. "Until the last," the recorder of her trial said, "she declared that her voices came from God and had not deceived her." Legend has it that her heart would not burn. After her death, her ashes were thrown into the River Seine.
Almost 500 years later, in 1920, Joan, the Maid of Orléans, was recognized as we know her today--Saint Joan of Arc.
-Barbara Mark & Trudy Griswold,
"The Angelspeake Storybook"
Joan of Arc: Voice of the Angels?
Was the young French girl really hearing God's guidance? Or was it something else?
By Johanna Skilling
Think of a 13-year-old girl you know or have known. If she’s like most young girls, she is alternately naive and wise, giddy and sulky, vulnerable and just starting to chafe at the boundaries of childhood. And yet you wouldn’t expect her to leave home, travel hundreds of miles, and lead an army against an enemy force. Particularly if this 13-year-old had no education, couldn’t read or write, and had never so much as picked up a weapon.
And yet Jeanne d’Arc did just that. Did she see an angel? Was it the Archangel Michael who became her advisor, and led her to become commander-in-chief of the French army? Because with no military background, this young girl did what generations of French generals had been unable to achieve: beat back the English invaders and liberate much of her homeland.
Joan was the youngest of five children, a girl who was good at sewing and spinning. From a young age, she was often in church, kneeling for hours in prayer.
At age 13, Joan heard a voice. It sounded quite close, as if someone was speaking in her ear; a blaze of light accompanied the sound. Joan continued to receive these heavenly messages; as time went on she recognized her angelic counselors to be St. Michael, St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and others.
By the time she was 16, the voices had begun to urge her to find the French Dauphin, Charles, whose armies were waging a losing war against the English for control of the country. She actually tried to meet one of Charles’ generals, but after she was rudely sent away, Joan’s voices became even more insistent.
"I am a poor girl,” Joan replied. “I do not know how to ride or fight." And yet the voices told her: "It is God who commands it."
So once again, Joan made the trip to see the general. While trying to gain access to him, she received a vision: The French would suffer a terrible defeat by the English, in the “Battle of the Herrings,” in the town of Orléans. When her prediction proved true, several days later, the general arranged for her to have an audience with Charles himself.
The Dauphin, of course, was skeptical of this young woman who claimed to hear the voices of angels. He had her brought into a room where he was in disguise, surrounded by many other men and women of his court. Joan knew him right away--this in an age before photography or other technology existed to transmit pictures of leaders throughout the country. Joan’s voices had not only helped her recognize Charles, but had given her a sign to show him that she indeed had heavenly guidance. This sign that was never publicly revealed, but we know that Charles accepted it as proof of Joan’s powers.
Joan herself never doubted her angels. “I saw them with my bodily eyes as clearly as I see you,” she once said. “And when they departed, I used to weep and wish they would take me with them.”
With Charles’ permission, Joan returned to the battlefield. Although he had given her a weapon, she wanted to find an ancient sword that, she had been told, was buried behind the altar in the small chapel of Ste-Catherine-de-Fierbois. A search was made, and the sword was found precisely where Joan’s voices had predicted.
Before going into battle, Joan made a series of startling predictions. According to a letter of the time, she said "that she would save Orléans and would compel the English to raise the siege, that she herself, in a battle before Orléans, would be wounded by a shaft but would not die of it, and that the King, in the course of the coming summer, would be crowned at Reims." All of these events came to pass.
A year later, her voices warned her that she would be taken prisoner by the English within weeks, and once again, this proved true. Even so, she remained unbowed. She told her captors that "within seven years' space, the English would have to forfeit a bigger prize.” Six years and eight months later, the English indeed lost Paris back to the French army.
Sadly, Joan wouldn’t live to see that day. Not long after her capture, and only a few months after her nineteenth birthday, she was burned at the stake for heresy. "Until the last," the recorder of her trial said, "she declared that her voices came from God and had not deceived her." Legend has it that her heart would not burn. After her death, her ashes were thrown into the River Seine.
Almost 500 years later, in 1920, Joan, the Maid of Orléans, was recognized as we know her today--Saint Joan of Arc.
There are three marks of an angel’s work.
First, they always say: "Don’t be afraid.
We’re here. We’re taking care of things."
Second, you are filled with warmth and joy.
Home! cries your lost and lonely soul, flooding
with remembrance. Third, you are never
quite the same: you cannot forget.
-Sophy Burnham
Heaven's Healer
A mysterious doctor soothes Denise's pain.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/122/stor ... mc_id=NL24
It was May, 1995, and 44-year-old Denise lay in the recovery room at Yale University Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. She had been very ill with throat cancer for over a year. Radiation hadn't worked, and surgery had been her only option. Now her voicebox and lymph nodes had been removed to halt the disease's progress. But her chance for life seemed even less than the doctor had thought. Now, as Denise slowly awakened, many people in white coats surrounded her. They seemed grim, and Denise was seized with a sudden terror. What was wrong? She looked up and noticed one very young doctor. He was looking down at her, his expression kind, and he seemed to glow. She must be dreaming…
When Denise got back to her room, her worried brother Ron was waiting. Although she could no longer speak, she gestured to Ron. "I wanted to see what they had cut and what they had done to me. Ron hesitated, but handed me my compact."
Denise gasped. Her head looked at least three times its normal size. Her throat had been cut past both ears and she couldn't raise her head. She began to sob. Ron ran for a doctor.
Instead, the young man Denise had seen in the recovery room came in. "It's all right," he told her soothingly. "Your head won't stay like this. The scar is bad, yes, but you're alive, and you're going to get better." He picked up her hand and held it. Peace seemed to flow through Denise. She fell asleep.
The next time Denise awakened, it was 4 a.m. When she rang for a nurse, the same doctor came in! He was smiling, and he spoke so softly she could barely hear him. "You're going to be all right. I want you to know that. I'm here. I'll never leave you," he said, leaning over her. This time Denise was awake enough to study him. His features seemed flawless. His hair was short and blond, cut in an old-fashioned way with longish bangs and parted on the left. He had bright blue-green eyes. His hand was warm, soft and strong. Again, Denise fell asleep again with him telling her she would be fine. From that point on, every day at 4 a.m. she would wake up and he would be there, holding her hand and talking softly.
"The next time Ron came in to see me, I wrote to him on my tablet about this doctor," Denise said. "I wanted Ron to find out his name. I wanted to thank him for being so kind to stay with me when I was too afraid to be alone. I suggested Ron check the interns because I thought he must be an intern. What doctor would have this much time to spend with just one patient?"
Ron went out to talk to the nurses, but when he returned, he looked at her strangely. "You must have been dreaming," he said.
"NO!" Denise scribbled on the pad.
"He doesn't exist, Dee, I asked all the nurses. And they checked. No one has seen anyone like him. No one knows him, either"
Denise knew better than to argue with Ron. It was only later, when she got home, that she learned her brother had continued to look for the unknown doctor. He had stopped only when several nurses assured him that wasn't unusual at all for a hospital patient to see her guardian angel.
Denise recovered from her cancer, and she knows she suffered less because of the angel's presence. "Maybe someday," she said, "I can tell him face-to-face once again, Thank you so much."
First, they always say: "Don’t be afraid.
We’re here. We’re taking care of things."
Second, you are filled with warmth and joy.
Home! cries your lost and lonely soul, flooding
with remembrance. Third, you are never
quite the same: you cannot forget.
-Sophy Burnham
Heaven's Healer
A mysterious doctor soothes Denise's pain.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/122/stor ... mc_id=NL24
It was May, 1995, and 44-year-old Denise lay in the recovery room at Yale University Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. She had been very ill with throat cancer for over a year. Radiation hadn't worked, and surgery had been her only option. Now her voicebox and lymph nodes had been removed to halt the disease's progress. But her chance for life seemed even less than the doctor had thought. Now, as Denise slowly awakened, many people in white coats surrounded her. They seemed grim, and Denise was seized with a sudden terror. What was wrong? She looked up and noticed one very young doctor. He was looking down at her, his expression kind, and he seemed to glow. She must be dreaming…
When Denise got back to her room, her worried brother Ron was waiting. Although she could no longer speak, she gestured to Ron. "I wanted to see what they had cut and what they had done to me. Ron hesitated, but handed me my compact."
Denise gasped. Her head looked at least three times its normal size. Her throat had been cut past both ears and she couldn't raise her head. She began to sob. Ron ran for a doctor.
Instead, the young man Denise had seen in the recovery room came in. "It's all right," he told her soothingly. "Your head won't stay like this. The scar is bad, yes, but you're alive, and you're going to get better." He picked up her hand and held it. Peace seemed to flow through Denise. She fell asleep.
The next time Denise awakened, it was 4 a.m. When she rang for a nurse, the same doctor came in! He was smiling, and he spoke so softly she could barely hear him. "You're going to be all right. I want you to know that. I'm here. I'll never leave you," he said, leaning over her. This time Denise was awake enough to study him. His features seemed flawless. His hair was short and blond, cut in an old-fashioned way with longish bangs and parted on the left. He had bright blue-green eyes. His hand was warm, soft and strong. Again, Denise fell asleep again with him telling her she would be fine. From that point on, every day at 4 a.m. she would wake up and he would be there, holding her hand and talking softly.
"The next time Ron came in to see me, I wrote to him on my tablet about this doctor," Denise said. "I wanted Ron to find out his name. I wanted to thank him for being so kind to stay with me when I was too afraid to be alone. I suggested Ron check the interns because I thought he must be an intern. What doctor would have this much time to spend with just one patient?"
Ron went out to talk to the nurses, but when he returned, he looked at her strangely. "You must have been dreaming," he said.
"NO!" Denise scribbled on the pad.
"He doesn't exist, Dee, I asked all the nurses. And they checked. No one has seen anyone like him. No one knows him, either"
Denise knew better than to argue with Ron. It was only later, when she got home, that she learned her brother had continued to look for the unknown doctor. He had stopped only when several nurses assured him that wasn't unusual at all for a hospital patient to see her guardian angel.
Denise recovered from her cancer, and she knows she suffered less because of the angel's presence. "Maybe someday," she said, "I can tell him face-to-face once again, Thank you so much."
The changes and transitions that occur in the experience of the soul at the moment of its passing must be extraordinary and mysterious. To have the companionship and guidance of angels at such a time is a gift of great comfort and peace.
-David Connolly,
"In Search of Angels"
What’s impossible to all humanity may be possible to the metaphysics and physiology of angels.
-Joseph Glanvill
Love allows a person to see the true angelic nature of another person, the halo, the aureole of divinity.
-Thomas Moore
Touched by the Hand of an Angel
As I drove my daughter home one night, a mysterious sensation on my shoulder saved us from disaster.
By Carol Crocker
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/186/stor ... mc_id=NL24
In 1984 I had left a marriage that had become violent and moved to another city. At the time, my children had been living with their dad and stepmother. However, over a period of months in one way or another, my children found ways to be with me. One profound incident that occurred has always stayed with me. On a gorgeous late October day, I woke up at 4:00 A.M. It was a happy day—because one of my daughters was coming to live with me permanently. I was planning to drive back to my hometown of Corner Brook, Newfoundland to pick her up and to visit my mother who was in a long-term care facility. I lived in St. John's, NL, approximately 700 km from my hometown, but because I had only one day off, I had to drive back and forth in the same day. This was quite a trek! I had done it before but not under such a time constraint.
My drive to Corner Brook went without a hitch. I arrived around lunchtime. I picked up my daughter, and we stopped by the hospital to have a short, sweet visit with my mom, who often worried about us. We put her mind at ease when she saw how happy my daughter was about living with me.
Around 2:00 P.M. I started driving back to St. John’s with my daughter. Anyone who has driven the route knows how beautiful Newfoundland is at that time of the year, and both of us were thoroughly enjoying the trip. But it was getting dark, and I was concerned about not being able to see any moose crossing the highway.
We stopped to have supper and stretch our legs. By the time we got on the road again, it was completely dark and my daughter drifted off to sleep. It was close to midnight, and I turned up the radio to keep me company for the last part of the drive; we were still two hours away from home.
The next thing I remember was looking at my daughter sleeping peacefully and, at the same time, feeling someone put a hand on my shoulder. When I felt the hand on my shoulder, I looked up and saw a steel signpost—letting me know there was a fork in the highway—and I was speeding straight towards it at 80 km per hour!
Miraculously, I was somehow able to slow down and safely pull onto the side of the highway. My daughter woke up thinking we were finally home, and I suddenly realized I had briefly fallen asleep behind the wheel! I waited until a tractor-trailer truck came by so I could follow it the rest of the way home—and we arrived safe and sound.
Had it not been for that sensation of a hand on my shoulder, causing me to wake up, I can’t even imagine what would have happened. The only conclusion that I can come to is that God or one of his angels definitely provided a miracle for me and my daughter. To this day, I still feel the touch of a hand on my shoulder whenever I think about that night so long ago
-David Connolly,
"In Search of Angels"
What’s impossible to all humanity may be possible to the metaphysics and physiology of angels.
-Joseph Glanvill
Love allows a person to see the true angelic nature of another person, the halo, the aureole of divinity.
-Thomas Moore
Touched by the Hand of an Angel
As I drove my daughter home one night, a mysterious sensation on my shoulder saved us from disaster.
By Carol Crocker
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/186/stor ... mc_id=NL24
In 1984 I had left a marriage that had become violent and moved to another city. At the time, my children had been living with their dad and stepmother. However, over a period of months in one way or another, my children found ways to be with me. One profound incident that occurred has always stayed with me. On a gorgeous late October day, I woke up at 4:00 A.M. It was a happy day—because one of my daughters was coming to live with me permanently. I was planning to drive back to my hometown of Corner Brook, Newfoundland to pick her up and to visit my mother who was in a long-term care facility. I lived in St. John's, NL, approximately 700 km from my hometown, but because I had only one day off, I had to drive back and forth in the same day. This was quite a trek! I had done it before but not under such a time constraint.
My drive to Corner Brook went without a hitch. I arrived around lunchtime. I picked up my daughter, and we stopped by the hospital to have a short, sweet visit with my mom, who often worried about us. We put her mind at ease when she saw how happy my daughter was about living with me.
Around 2:00 P.M. I started driving back to St. John’s with my daughter. Anyone who has driven the route knows how beautiful Newfoundland is at that time of the year, and both of us were thoroughly enjoying the trip. But it was getting dark, and I was concerned about not being able to see any moose crossing the highway.
We stopped to have supper and stretch our legs. By the time we got on the road again, it was completely dark and my daughter drifted off to sleep. It was close to midnight, and I turned up the radio to keep me company for the last part of the drive; we were still two hours away from home.
The next thing I remember was looking at my daughter sleeping peacefully and, at the same time, feeling someone put a hand on my shoulder. When I felt the hand on my shoulder, I looked up and saw a steel signpost—letting me know there was a fork in the highway—and I was speeding straight towards it at 80 km per hour!
Miraculously, I was somehow able to slow down and safely pull onto the side of the highway. My daughter woke up thinking we were finally home, and I suddenly realized I had briefly fallen asleep behind the wheel! I waited until a tractor-trailer truck came by so I could follow it the rest of the way home—and we arrived safe and sound.
Had it not been for that sensation of a hand on my shoulder, causing me to wake up, I can’t even imagine what would have happened. The only conclusion that I can come to is that God or one of his angels definitely provided a miracle for me and my daughter. To this day, I still feel the touch of a hand on my shoulder whenever I think about that night so long ago
Calling upon the angels to be your house guardians for protection and spiritual rejuvenation can bring a wonderful feeling of peace, harmony, and safety to your home.
-Denise Linn,
"Sacred Space"
***
Talk to the Angels
Pennies from heaven just in time.
By Carletta Leonard
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/21/story ... mc_id=NL24
Excerpted from ‘Expect Miracles’ by Mary Ellen published by Conari Press.
I had been tested lately in every aspect of my life. I was not satisfied with anything--my job, my home, my surroundings, not even my teenage daughter. I am hard-working, do my best to help others, and am usually a happy-go-lucky and optimistic person. So it's very discouraging when things get so rough. Then I caught the flu and was in bed for three days. My bank account was exactly 18 cents. I cashed in $2.30 worth of pennies so my daughter could have lunch money. Friends and family have encouraged me through bad times, so I called one of them, Margaret. She let me talk, and I cried and cried.
Then, in her wisdom, Margaret said, "You need to talk to your angels and let them know that you cannot endure any more."
I got off of the phone and sat quietly...and told my angels exactly that.
The next day, with barely a voice to answer the phones, I went back to work. Then two miracles occurred.
The first miracle was that I was the correct caller to a Seattle radio station and I won $1,000! Then, about an hour later, my boss called me into his office and handed me an envelope. The envelope held a Christmas bonusthe equivalent of two weeks' pay.
First, when I won the $1,000, I thanked God and my angels, over and over again...and cried. The second time, I realized no matter how down you are or how bad your life gets, you can ask your angels for help — and they'll listen.
-Denise Linn,
"Sacred Space"
***
Talk to the Angels
Pennies from heaven just in time.
By Carletta Leonard
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/21/story ... mc_id=NL24
Excerpted from ‘Expect Miracles’ by Mary Ellen published by Conari Press.
I had been tested lately in every aspect of my life. I was not satisfied with anything--my job, my home, my surroundings, not even my teenage daughter. I am hard-working, do my best to help others, and am usually a happy-go-lucky and optimistic person. So it's very discouraging when things get so rough. Then I caught the flu and was in bed for three days. My bank account was exactly 18 cents. I cashed in $2.30 worth of pennies so my daughter could have lunch money. Friends and family have encouraged me through bad times, so I called one of them, Margaret. She let me talk, and I cried and cried.
Then, in her wisdom, Margaret said, "You need to talk to your angels and let them know that you cannot endure any more."
I got off of the phone and sat quietly...and told my angels exactly that.
The next day, with barely a voice to answer the phones, I went back to work. Then two miracles occurred.
The first miracle was that I was the correct caller to a Seattle radio station and I won $1,000! Then, about an hour later, my boss called me into his office and handed me an envelope. The envelope held a Christmas bonusthe equivalent of two weeks' pay.
First, when I won the $1,000, I thanked God and my angels, over and over again...and cried. The second time, I realized no matter how down you are or how bad your life gets, you can ask your angels for help — and they'll listen.
-
nashvelshi
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nashvelshi
- Posts: 404
- Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:21 pm
- Location: Toronto
- Contact:
I agree with you in the sense that all the multiplicity of forms in the creation stem from the One Unity of God. In fact, all that multiplicity are, in essence, the One Unity itself. In this respect, the only help we can really recieve is from God himself.
However, we have seen from posts here and writings elsewhere that angels have functions of varying gravity, eg, Gabriel bringing the Quran to our Prophet and announcing the birth of Jesus, angels helping Prophet Mohammed at the battle of Badr, the angels Michael, Ashrafil, bad boy angel Azazil but there are also angels that accompany each human being through life and, among other things, they are there to help as well.
Its a cozy feeling to know that, when one could use some company and help during our solitary transition through life, one can talk to and ask for God's help through the medium of his non-material angelic helpers.
However, we have seen from posts here and writings elsewhere that angels have functions of varying gravity, eg, Gabriel bringing the Quran to our Prophet and announcing the birth of Jesus, angels helping Prophet Mohammed at the battle of Badr, the angels Michael, Ashrafil, bad boy angel Azazil but there are also angels that accompany each human being through life and, among other things, they are there to help as well.
Its a cozy feeling to know that, when one could use some company and help during our solitary transition through life, one can talk to and ask for God's help through the medium of his non-material angelic helpers.
Learn all you can about angels.
It's a form of higher education. -Douglas Pagels
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/25/story ... mc_id=NL24
Which Way Is Up?
A big, hairy angel saves a young girl from drowning.
By Beth Westmoreland
Reprinted from 'A Rustle of Angels' by Marilynn and William Webber, with permission of Zondervan Press 1994.
When I was around six or seven years old, my family went on vacation to the ocean along the South Carolina shore. My older sister, who was 17, was told to watch me on the beach while my parents made lunch back in our trailer. This section of the beach was deserted and certainly no fun for a teenage girl, so my sister warned me to stay put and then left for a walk down the beach. Being headstrong, too sure of myself, and indignant that my sister thought she could tell me what to do, I waited until she was out of sight, then galloped straight into the water.
I'd known how to swim in pools for years and didn't know enough to be afraid of the ocean. The waters that day were turbulent. Before I knew it, a huge wave knocked me down and the undertow grabbed me and began pulling me out to sea.
The waves were so rough and sandy that I couldn't even get my bearings as to which way was up. It felt as if I was underwater forever. I refused to give up and fought and struggled to find any indication of which way to go to find air.
Suddenly, I saw golden rays from the sun slice through the water right in front of me-where they illumined legs!--big, "man" legs, with big feet. I grabbed them and held on tight. The man scooped me up out of the water as easily as if I were a baby in a swing. I'll never forget how strong his arms felt, or how he looked. He was real big, and he had a big black beard, thick black hair, and lots of chest hair. My dad has red hair and freckles, and no hair on his legs, and I'd never seen a man that big or that hairy.
The man carried me to my blanket, wrapped me in a towel, and without a word he walked away. I looked around for my sister, mom, dad, or anybody. When I looked back toward the direction the man had walked he was gone. He'd just disappeared.
The towel wasn't mine. It had pink and blue shells and fishes printed on it. I was exhausted, but I ran as fast as I could back to the trailer. I tried to tell my parents what had happened, but I don't think they put much stock in my story. Maybe it was too farfetched for them.
After lunch that day, I went back to the blanket. There was no towel with shells and fishes. There were my footprints and my sister's but no 'big man' footprints. Not anywhere. But years later I still remember every inch of that brawny, dark-haired stranger, and I remember the odd sensation of feeling no heavier than a feather in his arms. Of course he left me something to remember him by--my life.
So if anyone tries to tell you that all angels are blond with white gowns, surrounded in light, I beg to differ!
It's a form of higher education. -Douglas Pagels
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/25/story ... mc_id=NL24
Which Way Is Up?
A big, hairy angel saves a young girl from drowning.
By Beth Westmoreland
Reprinted from 'A Rustle of Angels' by Marilynn and William Webber, with permission of Zondervan Press 1994.
When I was around six or seven years old, my family went on vacation to the ocean along the South Carolina shore. My older sister, who was 17, was told to watch me on the beach while my parents made lunch back in our trailer. This section of the beach was deserted and certainly no fun for a teenage girl, so my sister warned me to stay put and then left for a walk down the beach. Being headstrong, too sure of myself, and indignant that my sister thought she could tell me what to do, I waited until she was out of sight, then galloped straight into the water.
I'd known how to swim in pools for years and didn't know enough to be afraid of the ocean. The waters that day were turbulent. Before I knew it, a huge wave knocked me down and the undertow grabbed me and began pulling me out to sea.
The waves were so rough and sandy that I couldn't even get my bearings as to which way was up. It felt as if I was underwater forever. I refused to give up and fought and struggled to find any indication of which way to go to find air.
Suddenly, I saw golden rays from the sun slice through the water right in front of me-where they illumined legs!--big, "man" legs, with big feet. I grabbed them and held on tight. The man scooped me up out of the water as easily as if I were a baby in a swing. I'll never forget how strong his arms felt, or how he looked. He was real big, and he had a big black beard, thick black hair, and lots of chest hair. My dad has red hair and freckles, and no hair on his legs, and I'd never seen a man that big or that hairy.
The man carried me to my blanket, wrapped me in a towel, and without a word he walked away. I looked around for my sister, mom, dad, or anybody. When I looked back toward the direction the man had walked he was gone. He'd just disappeared.
The towel wasn't mine. It had pink and blue shells and fishes printed on it. I was exhausted, but I ran as fast as I could back to the trailer. I tried to tell my parents what had happened, but I don't think they put much stock in my story. Maybe it was too farfetched for them.
After lunch that day, I went back to the blanket. There was no towel with shells and fishes. There were my footprints and my sister's but no 'big man' footprints. Not anywhere. But years later I still remember every inch of that brawny, dark-haired stranger, and I remember the odd sensation of feeling no heavier than a feather in his arms. Of course he left me something to remember him by--my life.
So if anyone tries to tell you that all angels are blond with white gowns, surrounded in light, I beg to differ!
You don't have to try to be somebody new or better or different to become an angel. Just recognize that you already are somebody perfect and heavenly. Then, just be you!
-Karen Goldman,
The Angel Book: A Handbook for Aspiring Angels
'You Are Truly Blessed'
On the verge of suicide, a woman is given an angelic blessing and the courage to live.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18597_1.html
Repinted from "In the Arms of Angels" by Joan Wester Anderson, with permission of Loyola Press.
We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other.
–Luciano DeChescenzo
It was a quiet Sunday morning at Our Lady of Consolation Catholic Church in Callahan, Florida. No more than eighty people were attending Mass, but the church was so tiny that most of the pews were filled. To Jackie Hall, everything seemed normal as she gazed around the sunny space. Who among her neighbors here would have guessed that, despite Jackie's calm exterior, her mind and heart were in torment? Jackie was thinking seriously of committing suicide.
It is difficult, perhaps, for those who have never been clinically depressed to understand what a tremendous toll this illness takes on a person's mind and soul. Even people with strong spiritual faith can succumb to unbelievable feelings of sadness and, often, the unreasonable fear that depression and chronic pain create. Jackie had suffered from back problems for many years as a result of a car accident. She had recently given up a retail job she enjoyed in order to have fusion surgery. Her rehabilitation had been long and arduous, but she was still not well enough to go back to work or even to resume normal living. "I felt useless," she says. Her husband and children were at a loss to help her change from a morose and withdrawn woman back into the gracious, outgoing person they remembered. No one realized just how dark Jackie's thoughts had become recently.
For the previous few days, Jackie had been "getting ready," packing up family photos and organizing records, giving away certain possessions—all actions that are symptomatic of an impending suicide. On Sunday, she had awakened feeling especially fragile. Perhaps Mass would be her last outing. How she longed to feel God's love for her, his support! Even though she had often prayed to be delivered from despair, the answers had not come. Now the emotional pain was closing in on her. She could bear it no longer, and there seemed no other way out.
"When we arrived at church, I knelt and prayed with all my heart. I told God how much I loved him and begged him to guard me against whatever was happening to me." She needed a sign, just a little hint of reassurance or comfort. Once again, God seemed silent.
Several pews back and across the aisle, Judy Davies also knelt in prayer. She usually attended Sunday Mass at another church, the parish at which her son went to grade school, but today she had dropped into Our Lady of Consolation. Because the parish was so small, she usually knew everyone there.
However, this morning Judy noticed a woman just in front of her. She didn't know her, but as Mass began, something about the woman caught Judy's attention. What was it? The woman seemed sad, but she wasn't behaving unusually, just kneeling and praying. "I sensed a presence there. It's hard to describe, but the longer I looked, the more I seemed to see light around her, like an aura." The cloudlike glow was particularly strong behind the woman, as if some kind of force was protecting her. But from what? There was no danger in this peaceful church. Judy was even more astonished when she realized that no one else was reacting to this strange light. Was she the only one who could see it?
"I tried to keep my thoughts on the Gospel and the homily, but my eyes kept drifting to her, to see if the aura was still there. It was."
By the time Mass ended, the apparition had faded. Judy was in a quandary. Should she stop the woman and tell her about it? Things like this are always hard to do," Judy says. "You don't want others to think you're strange. But I felt that I had to tell her." Judy followed the woman out and tapped her on the shoulder. When the woman turned, Judy plunged into her message.
"You are truly blessed," she said earnestly. "I saw a glow all around you during Mass. It looked like an angel was looking over your shoulder, protecting you. I just had to tell you!"
An angel! Jackie was almost speechless as she stared at the woman. "Well, thank you," she murmured politely and watched as Judy turned away. But her thoughts were racing. An angel, watching over her, caring for her? Could this be the sign she had asked God to send? Suddenly, she felt an enormous weight begin to lift and a small stirring of hope. Tears filled her eyes. She turned to her husband. "I need help. I want to live."
Jackie's life changed quickly. She found an effective medication and began to feel more like herself. One day at a meeting, she heard herself volunteering to visit a cancer patient in her parish, something unlike any activity she had ever participated in. It was the start of what would become a visitor program, ministering to the sick and the shut-ins in the neighborhood. The program became extremely popular, and after some consideration, Jackie agreed to become its director. Gradually, she came to understand that her own suffering had prepared her for this kind of ministry; in God's eyes, there had been a purpose for it all. She had developed a wellspring of patience and tenderness for others in need, and she was constantly amazed and grateful when her work bore fruit.
Four or five years passed. Jackie improved dramatically, became a grandmother several times, and considered each day a blessing. There was just one mystery left: who was the woman who had brought her the reassuring news that critical morning in church? And would she even recognize her if they were to meet again? Jackie longed to thank her, to ask how she could have known....
One evening, Jackie attended a parish meeting, and a visitor asked the group a question about the Catholic church's teaching on angels. The host answered the question, and then Jackie spoke up. "I have an angel story. In fact, I think an angel saved my life!" As the audience sat transfixed, Jackie described her illness and that desperate morning when she almost gave up. "I haven't seen that woman since, even though our parish is small. I sometimes wonder if she was an angel in disguise."
From the back of the room, a woman spoke into the silence. "No," she said hesitantly, "I think it was me!"
Jackie gasped as Judy stood up. Both recognized each other and then embraced as the rest of the group wiped away tears. How had they failed to become acquainted during the last several years? Neither had an answer. God's timing is perfect, and he had started a chain reaction of faith that became an example to the entire parish.
Jackie and Judy have remained in touch and see each other every Sunday morning. "Our eyes often meet during Mass, and we share a smile from across the church," Judy says. She is enormously grateful that she took a risk and reached out to Jackie on that important morning. "Call it instinct, intuition, or a sign from God, but if someone feels the presence of the Lord—through his angel messengers-that person should share it."
-Karen Goldman,
The Angel Book: A Handbook for Aspiring Angels
'You Are Truly Blessed'
On the verge of suicide, a woman is given an angelic blessing and the courage to live.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18597_1.html
Repinted from "In the Arms of Angels" by Joan Wester Anderson, with permission of Loyola Press.
We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other.
–Luciano DeChescenzo
It was a quiet Sunday morning at Our Lady of Consolation Catholic Church in Callahan, Florida. No more than eighty people were attending Mass, but the church was so tiny that most of the pews were filled. To Jackie Hall, everything seemed normal as she gazed around the sunny space. Who among her neighbors here would have guessed that, despite Jackie's calm exterior, her mind and heart were in torment? Jackie was thinking seriously of committing suicide.
It is difficult, perhaps, for those who have never been clinically depressed to understand what a tremendous toll this illness takes on a person's mind and soul. Even people with strong spiritual faith can succumb to unbelievable feelings of sadness and, often, the unreasonable fear that depression and chronic pain create. Jackie had suffered from back problems for many years as a result of a car accident. She had recently given up a retail job she enjoyed in order to have fusion surgery. Her rehabilitation had been long and arduous, but she was still not well enough to go back to work or even to resume normal living. "I felt useless," she says. Her husband and children were at a loss to help her change from a morose and withdrawn woman back into the gracious, outgoing person they remembered. No one realized just how dark Jackie's thoughts had become recently.
For the previous few days, Jackie had been "getting ready," packing up family photos and organizing records, giving away certain possessions—all actions that are symptomatic of an impending suicide. On Sunday, she had awakened feeling especially fragile. Perhaps Mass would be her last outing. How she longed to feel God's love for her, his support! Even though she had often prayed to be delivered from despair, the answers had not come. Now the emotional pain was closing in on her. She could bear it no longer, and there seemed no other way out.
"When we arrived at church, I knelt and prayed with all my heart. I told God how much I loved him and begged him to guard me against whatever was happening to me." She needed a sign, just a little hint of reassurance or comfort. Once again, God seemed silent.
Several pews back and across the aisle, Judy Davies also knelt in prayer. She usually attended Sunday Mass at another church, the parish at which her son went to grade school, but today she had dropped into Our Lady of Consolation. Because the parish was so small, she usually knew everyone there.
However, this morning Judy noticed a woman just in front of her. She didn't know her, but as Mass began, something about the woman caught Judy's attention. What was it? The woman seemed sad, but she wasn't behaving unusually, just kneeling and praying. "I sensed a presence there. It's hard to describe, but the longer I looked, the more I seemed to see light around her, like an aura." The cloudlike glow was particularly strong behind the woman, as if some kind of force was protecting her. But from what? There was no danger in this peaceful church. Judy was even more astonished when she realized that no one else was reacting to this strange light. Was she the only one who could see it?
"I tried to keep my thoughts on the Gospel and the homily, but my eyes kept drifting to her, to see if the aura was still there. It was."
By the time Mass ended, the apparition had faded. Judy was in a quandary. Should she stop the woman and tell her about it? Things like this are always hard to do," Judy says. "You don't want others to think you're strange. But I felt that I had to tell her." Judy followed the woman out and tapped her on the shoulder. When the woman turned, Judy plunged into her message.
"You are truly blessed," she said earnestly. "I saw a glow all around you during Mass. It looked like an angel was looking over your shoulder, protecting you. I just had to tell you!"
An angel! Jackie was almost speechless as she stared at the woman. "Well, thank you," she murmured politely and watched as Judy turned away. But her thoughts were racing. An angel, watching over her, caring for her? Could this be the sign she had asked God to send? Suddenly, she felt an enormous weight begin to lift and a small stirring of hope. Tears filled her eyes. She turned to her husband. "I need help. I want to live."
Jackie's life changed quickly. She found an effective medication and began to feel more like herself. One day at a meeting, she heard herself volunteering to visit a cancer patient in her parish, something unlike any activity she had ever participated in. It was the start of what would become a visitor program, ministering to the sick and the shut-ins in the neighborhood. The program became extremely popular, and after some consideration, Jackie agreed to become its director. Gradually, she came to understand that her own suffering had prepared her for this kind of ministry; in God's eyes, there had been a purpose for it all. She had developed a wellspring of patience and tenderness for others in need, and she was constantly amazed and grateful when her work bore fruit.
Four or five years passed. Jackie improved dramatically, became a grandmother several times, and considered each day a blessing. There was just one mystery left: who was the woman who had brought her the reassuring news that critical morning in church? And would she even recognize her if they were to meet again? Jackie longed to thank her, to ask how she could have known....
One evening, Jackie attended a parish meeting, and a visitor asked the group a question about the Catholic church's teaching on angels. The host answered the question, and then Jackie spoke up. "I have an angel story. In fact, I think an angel saved my life!" As the audience sat transfixed, Jackie described her illness and that desperate morning when she almost gave up. "I haven't seen that woman since, even though our parish is small. I sometimes wonder if she was an angel in disguise."
From the back of the room, a woman spoke into the silence. "No," she said hesitantly, "I think it was me!"
Jackie gasped as Judy stood up. Both recognized each other and then embraced as the rest of the group wiped away tears. How had they failed to become acquainted during the last several years? Neither had an answer. God's timing is perfect, and he had started a chain reaction of faith that became an example to the entire parish.
Jackie and Judy have remained in touch and see each other every Sunday morning. "Our eyes often meet during Mass, and we share a smile from across the church," Judy says. She is enormously grateful that she took a risk and reached out to Jackie on that important morning. "Call it instinct, intuition, or a sign from God, but if someone feels the presence of the Lord—through his angel messengers-that person should share it."
We can think of angels as light, and it helps us to understand them, because they have all the properties of light. Light is very fast; it can travel across very vast distances in just a blink of the eye. A light illuminates the darkness, and angels can illuminate the darkness in our lives and in our minds.
-Terry Lynn Taylor
Marc Chagall: Painter of Angels
One night the artist saw a vision of an angel in blue--and it changed his art forever.
By Johanna Skilling
For close to a century, Marc Chagall painted luminous, beautiful angels in fantasy landscapes of fiddlers, lovers, cows and flowers. Famous for his depiction of Biblical scenes as well as nostalgic images of his Russian childhood, Chagall’s work continues to amaze, delight, and inspire us. But what inspired this visionary painter? Born Mark Zakharovich Shagal in the small Jewish ghetto of Vitebsk, Belorussia (now Belarus), Chagall was one of ten children. His father packed herring for a living; his mother ran a small store. While they didn’t have much money, the family was able to give young Marc violin and singing lessons. From an early age, Marc also drew and wrote poetry.
Becoming an artist was an unlikely goal for a boy growing up in rural Belorussia, and it was not an idea that Marc’s parent supported. Marc and his father fought frequently about his future. One day, after a particularly furious argument, Mark ran away from home to the imperial capital of St. Petersburg. He wasn’t yet twenty years old.
Far away from home, living in a small, furnished room, Marc faced many challenges. As a Jew, he was forbidden to live in St. Petersburg; without a permit to live in the city, he was continually forced to evade the authorities. Marc was jailed once, but still managed to study at two of St. Petersburg’s great art schools.
At that time, an amazing vision had a cataclysmic effect on his life and art. An article in “Angels on Earth” details the event: One night, drifting into sleep in his small room, Chagall thought he heard the rustle of wings. He opened his eyes and immediately felt pins and needles of pain in his forehead. The room was filled with an unearthly, brilliant blue light. An angel hovered above him. As Chagall watched, the angel slowly floated up through the ceiling; the light and the beautiful blue air vanished with him.
After this vision, Chagall began a lifetime of work to portray the wonder of the angel and the color of the beautiful blue air. Later, he would describe his work by saying, “My art is an extravagant art, a flaming vermilion, a blue soul flooding over my paintings.”
The miracle of blue also figured in Chagall’s long love story with his wife Bella. When she met him, she thought that his eyes, piercingly blue, must have come from heaven. For his part, Chagall felt that Bella brought “blue air, love and flowers” into the room every time he saw her. The angel that blesses the young couple in his painting “The Marriage” expresses the sense of divine joy he found with his wife.
In 1910, the Chagalls moved to Paris. Living and working as a poor artist, he moved back and forth between Paris and Moscow; slowly, his reputation grew. By 1930, Chagall was world famous.
Chagall’s beloved Bella died suddenly in 1944, but Chagall’s work sustained him. Not long after Bella died, he painted one of his greatest pictures, “Blue Concert,” a blend of his early angelic vision with the faces of Bella and their daughter Ida.
Marc Chagall continued to work until his death at 97. He created paintings, tapestries, theatre costumes, stained glass windows. His work illuminates museums and other public buildings throughout the world. Many of his works showed images from the Hebrew Bible. "I have been fascinated by the Bible since I was very young,” Chagall once said. “It always seemed to me, and it still does, that the Bible is the greatest source of poetry that has ever existed. Since that time, I have been seeking to express this philosophy in life and art."
One of his most emotional works later in life was a series of stained-glass windows on Jewish folk themes for the Hadassah University Medical Centre in Jerusalem. This work brought him a very different type of vision. "All the time I was working," he said, "I felt my father and my mother were looking over my shoulder, and behind them were Jews, millions of other vanished Jews of yesterday and a thousand years ago."
Chagall died on March 28, 1985, shortly after an exhibition of his work in Russia, his mother country. He remained active, creating art until the end of his extraordinary life. Pablo Picasso once said: "When Chagall paints, you do not know if he is asleep or awake. Somewhere or other inside his head there must be an angel."
-Terry Lynn Taylor
Marc Chagall: Painter of Angels
One night the artist saw a vision of an angel in blue--and it changed his art forever.
By Johanna Skilling
For close to a century, Marc Chagall painted luminous, beautiful angels in fantasy landscapes of fiddlers, lovers, cows and flowers. Famous for his depiction of Biblical scenes as well as nostalgic images of his Russian childhood, Chagall’s work continues to amaze, delight, and inspire us. But what inspired this visionary painter? Born Mark Zakharovich Shagal in the small Jewish ghetto of Vitebsk, Belorussia (now Belarus), Chagall was one of ten children. His father packed herring for a living; his mother ran a small store. While they didn’t have much money, the family was able to give young Marc violin and singing lessons. From an early age, Marc also drew and wrote poetry.
Becoming an artist was an unlikely goal for a boy growing up in rural Belorussia, and it was not an idea that Marc’s parent supported. Marc and his father fought frequently about his future. One day, after a particularly furious argument, Mark ran away from home to the imperial capital of St. Petersburg. He wasn’t yet twenty years old.
Far away from home, living in a small, furnished room, Marc faced many challenges. As a Jew, he was forbidden to live in St. Petersburg; without a permit to live in the city, he was continually forced to evade the authorities. Marc was jailed once, but still managed to study at two of St. Petersburg’s great art schools.
At that time, an amazing vision had a cataclysmic effect on his life and art. An article in “Angels on Earth” details the event: One night, drifting into sleep in his small room, Chagall thought he heard the rustle of wings. He opened his eyes and immediately felt pins and needles of pain in his forehead. The room was filled with an unearthly, brilliant blue light. An angel hovered above him. As Chagall watched, the angel slowly floated up through the ceiling; the light and the beautiful blue air vanished with him.
After this vision, Chagall began a lifetime of work to portray the wonder of the angel and the color of the beautiful blue air. Later, he would describe his work by saying, “My art is an extravagant art, a flaming vermilion, a blue soul flooding over my paintings.”
The miracle of blue also figured in Chagall’s long love story with his wife Bella. When she met him, she thought that his eyes, piercingly blue, must have come from heaven. For his part, Chagall felt that Bella brought “blue air, love and flowers” into the room every time he saw her. The angel that blesses the young couple in his painting “The Marriage” expresses the sense of divine joy he found with his wife.
In 1910, the Chagalls moved to Paris. Living and working as a poor artist, he moved back and forth between Paris and Moscow; slowly, his reputation grew. By 1930, Chagall was world famous.
Chagall’s beloved Bella died suddenly in 1944, but Chagall’s work sustained him. Not long after Bella died, he painted one of his greatest pictures, “Blue Concert,” a blend of his early angelic vision with the faces of Bella and their daughter Ida.
Marc Chagall continued to work until his death at 97. He created paintings, tapestries, theatre costumes, stained glass windows. His work illuminates museums and other public buildings throughout the world. Many of his works showed images from the Hebrew Bible. "I have been fascinated by the Bible since I was very young,” Chagall once said. “It always seemed to me, and it still does, that the Bible is the greatest source of poetry that has ever existed. Since that time, I have been seeking to express this philosophy in life and art."
One of his most emotional works later in life was a series of stained-glass windows on Jewish folk themes for the Hadassah University Medical Centre in Jerusalem. This work brought him a very different type of vision. "All the time I was working," he said, "I felt my father and my mother were looking over my shoulder, and behind them were Jews, millions of other vanished Jews of yesterday and a thousand years ago."
Chagall died on March 28, 1985, shortly after an exhibition of his work in Russia, his mother country. He remained active, creating art until the end of his extraordinary life. Pablo Picasso once said: "When Chagall paints, you do not know if he is asleep or awake. Somewhere or other inside his head there must be an angel."
Angels are...the bridge between heaven and earth.
-Megan McKenna
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/117/stor ... mc_id=NL24
Even Beans
A little girl learns God cares about all the little things in life, even her family's simple dinner.
By Joan Wester Anderson
Reprinted with permission from the website of Joan Wester Anderson.
Brother Leo Keigher, who has worked with the poor all over the world, remembers a little Guatemalan girl named Delilah. "She was about eight or nine when I knew her, and a very spiritual child," says Brother Leo, "and would never have told me anything but the absolute truth." Once Delilah came to him to report on a wondrous event that had just occurred.
Delilah was the oldest of several children whose father had deserted them. The family lived in a small shanty with one bed and a table and chairs as their only furniture. Their ingenious mother supported them by making lunches, which she then took to nearby factories and sold to the workers there. While her mother was gone, Delilah or one of the neighbors would watch the younger children. "After my mother sells all the lunches, she has enough money to buy food for the next day's lunches, and the beans for our supper that night," Delilah once explained to Brother Leo.
The system was working very well, and one day as Delilah's mother loaded up her cart to make the trip to town, she called to Delilah. "Today I have left beans simmering for our supper in the fireplace," she told her daughter.
"So early?" Delilah asked.
"I have chores to do in town after I sell the lunches," her mother explained. "I won't be back right away. But you know how to stir the beans so they won't stick to the kettle."
Delilah nodded. She had done it a few times. She was a little afraid of the open fire, but she had never let her mother know. "And you will keep the little ones away from the flames so that no one gets hurt," her mother instructed.
"Yes, Mother." Delilah watched as her mother, pulling the cart, walked down the dusty road towards town. Then she took the children out to play.
As time passed, Delilah looked into the shanty several times, and began to grow concerned. The flames seemed to be getting higher, and the beans were bubbling faster and faster. Standing on her tiptoes, Delilah stirred the mixture, but she didn't know how to make it calm down, the way her mother could. She went to the door, to watch the children. Just then, she heard a WHAM! Then another. She whirled. Oh, no! The pot had cracked, once, twice---no, many times---and beans were running down onto the fire, on the walls, across the floor. More beans flew into the room, coating the bed and table...The fire sizzled, filling the little hut with smoke. It was a mess! And there was nothing left for dinner.
"Oh, dear God," Delilah went out and fell on her knees. "What am I going to do? Because of me, our only kettle, and our supper, is ruined. My mother is going to be so angry. Please help me."
She looked up. There was her mother, hurrying down the road toward them. Delilah grabbed the children, brought them into the shanty, pushed them under the bed and slid in next to them. "Why are we under the bed?" her youngest sister asked. "It's dark in here!"
"Delilah! Where is everyone?" Her mother called as she came into the hut.
"We're under the bed," Delilah answered, dreading her mother's scream as she saw the ruined mess all over the room.
"Under the bed? Well, come out! The beans will be ready in just a few minutes, and you can have your supper."
The beans? What was wrong with her mother's eyesight? Hadn't she seen the pot, split in pieces, the liquid everywhere? Slowly Delilah crawled out from under the bed, her eyes riveted on the fireplace. There was the pot, intact, hanging from the hook like it always did. Inside were the beans, looking like they always did, filling the family's humble home with fragrance? Supper was indeed ready.
Delilah never hesitated to ask God for miracles--large and small--after that. She had learned that nothing was too little for Him to care about. Not even beans.
-Megan McKenna
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/117/stor ... mc_id=NL24
Even Beans
A little girl learns God cares about all the little things in life, even her family's simple dinner.
By Joan Wester Anderson
Reprinted with permission from the website of Joan Wester Anderson.
Brother Leo Keigher, who has worked with the poor all over the world, remembers a little Guatemalan girl named Delilah. "She was about eight or nine when I knew her, and a very spiritual child," says Brother Leo, "and would never have told me anything but the absolute truth." Once Delilah came to him to report on a wondrous event that had just occurred.
Delilah was the oldest of several children whose father had deserted them. The family lived in a small shanty with one bed and a table and chairs as their only furniture. Their ingenious mother supported them by making lunches, which she then took to nearby factories and sold to the workers there. While her mother was gone, Delilah or one of the neighbors would watch the younger children. "After my mother sells all the lunches, she has enough money to buy food for the next day's lunches, and the beans for our supper that night," Delilah once explained to Brother Leo.
The system was working very well, and one day as Delilah's mother loaded up her cart to make the trip to town, she called to Delilah. "Today I have left beans simmering for our supper in the fireplace," she told her daughter.
"So early?" Delilah asked.
"I have chores to do in town after I sell the lunches," her mother explained. "I won't be back right away. But you know how to stir the beans so they won't stick to the kettle."
Delilah nodded. She had done it a few times. She was a little afraid of the open fire, but she had never let her mother know. "And you will keep the little ones away from the flames so that no one gets hurt," her mother instructed.
"Yes, Mother." Delilah watched as her mother, pulling the cart, walked down the dusty road towards town. Then she took the children out to play.
As time passed, Delilah looked into the shanty several times, and began to grow concerned. The flames seemed to be getting higher, and the beans were bubbling faster and faster. Standing on her tiptoes, Delilah stirred the mixture, but she didn't know how to make it calm down, the way her mother could. She went to the door, to watch the children. Just then, she heard a WHAM! Then another. She whirled. Oh, no! The pot had cracked, once, twice---no, many times---and beans were running down onto the fire, on the walls, across the floor. More beans flew into the room, coating the bed and table...The fire sizzled, filling the little hut with smoke. It was a mess! And there was nothing left for dinner.
"Oh, dear God," Delilah went out and fell on her knees. "What am I going to do? Because of me, our only kettle, and our supper, is ruined. My mother is going to be so angry. Please help me."
She looked up. There was her mother, hurrying down the road toward them. Delilah grabbed the children, brought them into the shanty, pushed them under the bed and slid in next to them. "Why are we under the bed?" her youngest sister asked. "It's dark in here!"
"Delilah! Where is everyone?" Her mother called as she came into the hut.
"We're under the bed," Delilah answered, dreading her mother's scream as she saw the ruined mess all over the room.
"Under the bed? Well, come out! The beans will be ready in just a few minutes, and you can have your supper."
The beans? What was wrong with her mother's eyesight? Hadn't she seen the pot, split in pieces, the liquid everywhere? Slowly Delilah crawled out from under the bed, her eyes riveted on the fireplace. There was the pot, intact, hanging from the hook like it always did. Inside were the beans, looking like they always did, filling the family's humble home with fragrance? Supper was indeed ready.
Delilah never hesitated to ask God for miracles--large and small--after that. She had learned that nothing was too little for Him to care about. Not even beans.
Angels are the channel of our ever-present connection with God, whose mission is to guide us on our spiritual path.
-Ambika Wauters,
"The Angelic Year"
***
God has created every angel necessary, and they all continue to be, to this day.
-Marilynn Carlson Webber and William D. Webber,
"A Rustle of Angels"
***
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/9/story_ ... mc_id=NL24
Mamita
The unfriendly and hostile attitude toward missionaries in Ecuador is sweetened by an angelic intervention.
By Timothy Jones
Excerpted from 'Celebration of Angels' by Timothy Jones, published by Thomas Nelson.
V. Raymond Edman was a missionary to the Quichua Indians of Ecuador from 1923 to 1928. Later he was president of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, until his death in 1965. He tells this story of an angel encounter.
After our marriage in the capital city of Quito, we were given our first assignment in a city whose environs had thousands of Quichua-speaking Indians. We lived on the outskirts of that city where we could reach both the Spanish-speaking citizens on the streets and in the marketplaces, and also the shy, suspicious Indians who passed our doorway on the way to market.
Our assignment was a difficult one. The people were quite unfriendly; some were fanatical in their bitter opposition to our presence in their city. On occasion, small crowds would gather to hurl insults, punctuated by stones both large and small. As a result it was often difficult to get the bare necessities of life--fruits and vegetables or charcoal for the kitchen stove. Added to these physical factors was an inward sense of human loneliness.
Whenever we were not in the front part of the house, we kept the gate locked with an iron chain and padlock. There was constant danger that some bare-footed stranger would tiptoe into an unoccupied room and depart with more than he had come with.
One day as we were eating our mid-day meal, we heard a rattling at the gate as though someone were asking for admission. I excused myself from the table and went to the porch. I saw an Indian woman standing outside the gate. She had reached one hand inside through the bars and was knocking on the chain with the padlock. Quickly I went down to inquire what she might want. She was no one I had ever seen before.
As I approached the inside of the gate she began to speak softly in the mixture of Spanish and Quichua that was typical of the Indians who lived fairly close to the town. Pointing to a Gospel verse we had put on the porch she inquired, "Are you the people who have come to tell us about the living God?"
Her question startled me. No one had ever made that query before. Therefore with surprise I answered, "Mamita (little mother, the customary term for a woman of her years), yes, we are."
Then she raised the hand that was still inside the locked gate, and began to pray. She prayed for the blessing of God upon the inhabitants of this home. She asked that we have courage for the service committed to us, that we have joy in doing God’s bidding, and prayed that many would hear and obey the words of the Gospel. Then she pronounced a blessing from God upon me.
The prayer concluded, and she withdrew her hand. Then she smiled at me through the gate with a final, Dios le bendiga (God bless you). Her eyes fairly shone as she spoke those words, and then she bowed and turned to her left.
I was so astonished by all of this that for part of a minute I stood speechless and motionless. Quickly I remembered that it was the heat of the day, and that she should come in to eat with us. All the while I had held the key in my hand. In a matter of seconds I had unlocked the gate and stepped out to call her back. But she was not there! Where could she have gone so quickly?I ran to the corner and looked to the right, but she was not there. The same was true of the street to my left. Where could she be? The closest gate was to my right and that nearly a block away. There I ran (and my days on the track team in school stood me in good stead at the age of 24). I rushed inside the open gate and there my two closest neighbors were repairing the spokes in a large wooden wheel. Hastily I inquired, “Did an Indian woman just come in here?"
Both men looked up at once from their work and replied, "No sir."
"I mean just now," I insisted.
"No sir, we have been right here in the gate for an hour or more, and nobody has entered or left during that time."
I thanked them, and hastened back to the corner. There was not a soul in sight. At the noon hour there would be few in the road since it was time for lunch and the siesta. She must be somewhere; but where could she have gone? I waited there nearly 10 minutes looking in all directions, but no one appeared on the street. Slowly I retraced my steps to my own gate, and after locking it again went back to the table.
"Where have you been so long?" inquired my wife.
"There was an elderly Indian woman knocking on the gate. She prayed for us and invoked God’s blessing upon us then started on down the street. I unlocked the gate and stepped out to call her, but she was not along the wall as I had expected. So I ran to the corner and sought her, but in vain.”
We spoke no more about the matter. However, for days afterward my own heart remained strangely moved. It burned within me as I recalled that Indian woman’s prayer, and it was strengthened by the blessing she had pronounced upon me. There seemed to be an aroma indescribably sweet and indefinable that certainly did not come from the flowers in the garden. Even now, as I write down these words, there comes anew the witness of God’s Spirit to the ministry of that stranger.
After some days, I began to reflect upon the word in Hebrews 13:2 about showing hospitality to strangers. I began to understand that the Almighty had none of His earthly servants at hand to encourage two young missionaries, so He was pleased to send an angel from heaven. Through all the difficult moments that followed and over the many years since then, there has remained the glow of God’s blessings pronounced by someone who looked exactly like a little old Quichua Indian woman.
-Ambika Wauters,
"The Angelic Year"
***
God has created every angel necessary, and they all continue to be, to this day.
-Marilynn Carlson Webber and William D. Webber,
"A Rustle of Angels"
***
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/9/story_ ... mc_id=NL24
Mamita
The unfriendly and hostile attitude toward missionaries in Ecuador is sweetened by an angelic intervention.
By Timothy Jones
Excerpted from 'Celebration of Angels' by Timothy Jones, published by Thomas Nelson.
V. Raymond Edman was a missionary to the Quichua Indians of Ecuador from 1923 to 1928. Later he was president of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, until his death in 1965. He tells this story of an angel encounter.
After our marriage in the capital city of Quito, we were given our first assignment in a city whose environs had thousands of Quichua-speaking Indians. We lived on the outskirts of that city where we could reach both the Spanish-speaking citizens on the streets and in the marketplaces, and also the shy, suspicious Indians who passed our doorway on the way to market.
Our assignment was a difficult one. The people were quite unfriendly; some were fanatical in their bitter opposition to our presence in their city. On occasion, small crowds would gather to hurl insults, punctuated by stones both large and small. As a result it was often difficult to get the bare necessities of life--fruits and vegetables or charcoal for the kitchen stove. Added to these physical factors was an inward sense of human loneliness.
Whenever we were not in the front part of the house, we kept the gate locked with an iron chain and padlock. There was constant danger that some bare-footed stranger would tiptoe into an unoccupied room and depart with more than he had come with.
One day as we were eating our mid-day meal, we heard a rattling at the gate as though someone were asking for admission. I excused myself from the table and went to the porch. I saw an Indian woman standing outside the gate. She had reached one hand inside through the bars and was knocking on the chain with the padlock. Quickly I went down to inquire what she might want. She was no one I had ever seen before.
As I approached the inside of the gate she began to speak softly in the mixture of Spanish and Quichua that was typical of the Indians who lived fairly close to the town. Pointing to a Gospel verse we had put on the porch she inquired, "Are you the people who have come to tell us about the living God?"
Her question startled me. No one had ever made that query before. Therefore with surprise I answered, "Mamita (little mother, the customary term for a woman of her years), yes, we are."
Then she raised the hand that was still inside the locked gate, and began to pray. She prayed for the blessing of God upon the inhabitants of this home. She asked that we have courage for the service committed to us, that we have joy in doing God’s bidding, and prayed that many would hear and obey the words of the Gospel. Then she pronounced a blessing from God upon me.
The prayer concluded, and she withdrew her hand. Then she smiled at me through the gate with a final, Dios le bendiga (God bless you). Her eyes fairly shone as she spoke those words, and then she bowed and turned to her left.
I was so astonished by all of this that for part of a minute I stood speechless and motionless. Quickly I remembered that it was the heat of the day, and that she should come in to eat with us. All the while I had held the key in my hand. In a matter of seconds I had unlocked the gate and stepped out to call her back. But she was not there! Where could she have gone so quickly?I ran to the corner and looked to the right, but she was not there. The same was true of the street to my left. Where could she be? The closest gate was to my right and that nearly a block away. There I ran (and my days on the track team in school stood me in good stead at the age of 24). I rushed inside the open gate and there my two closest neighbors were repairing the spokes in a large wooden wheel. Hastily I inquired, “Did an Indian woman just come in here?"
Both men looked up at once from their work and replied, "No sir."
"I mean just now," I insisted.
"No sir, we have been right here in the gate for an hour or more, and nobody has entered or left during that time."
I thanked them, and hastened back to the corner. There was not a soul in sight. At the noon hour there would be few in the road since it was time for lunch and the siesta. She must be somewhere; but where could she have gone? I waited there nearly 10 minutes looking in all directions, but no one appeared on the street. Slowly I retraced my steps to my own gate, and after locking it again went back to the table.
"Where have you been so long?" inquired my wife.
"There was an elderly Indian woman knocking on the gate. She prayed for us and invoked God’s blessing upon us then started on down the street. I unlocked the gate and stepped out to call her, but she was not along the wall as I had expected. So I ran to the corner and sought her, but in vain.”
We spoke no more about the matter. However, for days afterward my own heart remained strangely moved. It burned within me as I recalled that Indian woman’s prayer, and it was strengthened by the blessing she had pronounced upon me. There seemed to be an aroma indescribably sweet and indefinable that certainly did not come from the flowers in the garden. Even now, as I write down these words, there comes anew the witness of God’s Spirit to the ministry of that stranger.
After some days, I began to reflect upon the word in Hebrews 13:2 about showing hospitality to strangers. I began to understand that the Almighty had none of His earthly servants at hand to encourage two young missionaries, so He was pleased to send an angel from heaven. Through all the difficult moments that followed and over the many years since then, there has remained the glow of God’s blessings pronounced by someone who looked exactly like a little old Quichua Indian woman.
Hope From Heaven
At the end of his life, Chris told his mother he was ready to go to heaven. But what if heaven didn't really exist?
By Joan Wester Anderson
Reprinted with permission from the website of Joan Wester Anderson.
Maureen Howell of Bloomingdale, Illinois, always believed in an afterlife, and raised her children with the same faith. But when her son Chris faced death, Maureen's belief wavered. How did she know, after all, that there was a heaven, or that Chris would reach it safely?
Chris, a hemophiliac, had had a childhood marked by hepatitis, a liver transplant, severe relapses and only brief periods of good health. He did manage to graduate from high school due in part to the prayerful support of people who knew him and, despite a noticeable weight loss, went for his college physical during the summer of 1988. It was then his physician discovered that Chris had contracted AIDS from a contaminated transfusion.
Maureen's extended family is huge--hundreds of first and second cousins on her mother's side alone. Once again, everyone began to pray. But Chris was exhausted from his battle with sickness and pain. "Tell everyone to stop praying for me, Mom," he told Maureen. "I'm ready to die and go straight to heaven."
Heaven. It was one thing to read about it in a book, another to believe when one’s heart was breaking. Could Maureen believe? What if she had been wrong all along? She blinked back tears.
Chris seemed to read her mind. "Don't worry, Mom. When I get there, I'll send you a sign that I'm happy with our Father."
A sign. Was such a thing possible? Maureen wondered. But soon Chris hemorrhaged and lost his speech, and on November 20, he died. It was a peaceful death, but was Chris in heaven? Maureen had no idea what kind of sign to look for, or even if she should hope for one. She told only her immediate family of her strange pact with her son--others would surely think her mad.
A few weeks later, a distant cousin of Maureen's was running the vacuum when her four-year-old son Ryan awakened from his nap and bounced down the stairs. "Mommy, Mommy, Chris was in my room!" he shouted.
"Who?" Surely Ryan didn't mean Chris Howell. The two had never met; in fact, the child didn't even know Chris had died.
"It was Chris, Mommy." Ryan was adamant. "He played with me. And he said he was very happy."
"He did?"
"Uh huh. I asked him to come back and play with me again. But he said he couldn't stay here anymore. He had to go and be with his Father."
Ryan's mother was getting goosebumps. How could a preschooler be so specific? She called Maureen, and wept with her as both recognized the exact message Chris had promised to send. It was truly the sign Maureen had been waiting to receive.
Heavenly comfort isn't always brought by angels; sometimes our loved ones can be messengers too. Maureen Howell misses her son, but she has no doubts now. She will see him again.
At the end of his life, Chris told his mother he was ready to go to heaven. But what if heaven didn't really exist?
By Joan Wester Anderson
Reprinted with permission from the website of Joan Wester Anderson.
Maureen Howell of Bloomingdale, Illinois, always believed in an afterlife, and raised her children with the same faith. But when her son Chris faced death, Maureen's belief wavered. How did she know, after all, that there was a heaven, or that Chris would reach it safely?
Chris, a hemophiliac, had had a childhood marked by hepatitis, a liver transplant, severe relapses and only brief periods of good health. He did manage to graduate from high school due in part to the prayerful support of people who knew him and, despite a noticeable weight loss, went for his college physical during the summer of 1988. It was then his physician discovered that Chris had contracted AIDS from a contaminated transfusion.
Maureen's extended family is huge--hundreds of first and second cousins on her mother's side alone. Once again, everyone began to pray. But Chris was exhausted from his battle with sickness and pain. "Tell everyone to stop praying for me, Mom," he told Maureen. "I'm ready to die and go straight to heaven."
Heaven. It was one thing to read about it in a book, another to believe when one’s heart was breaking. Could Maureen believe? What if she had been wrong all along? She blinked back tears.
Chris seemed to read her mind. "Don't worry, Mom. When I get there, I'll send you a sign that I'm happy with our Father."
A sign. Was such a thing possible? Maureen wondered. But soon Chris hemorrhaged and lost his speech, and on November 20, he died. It was a peaceful death, but was Chris in heaven? Maureen had no idea what kind of sign to look for, or even if she should hope for one. She told only her immediate family of her strange pact with her son--others would surely think her mad.
A few weeks later, a distant cousin of Maureen's was running the vacuum when her four-year-old son Ryan awakened from his nap and bounced down the stairs. "Mommy, Mommy, Chris was in my room!" he shouted.
"Who?" Surely Ryan didn't mean Chris Howell. The two had never met; in fact, the child didn't even know Chris had died.
"It was Chris, Mommy." Ryan was adamant. "He played with me. And he said he was very happy."
"He did?"
"Uh huh. I asked him to come back and play with me again. But he said he couldn't stay here anymore. He had to go and be with his Father."
Ryan's mother was getting goosebumps. How could a preschooler be so specific? She called Maureen, and wept with her as both recognized the exact message Chris had promised to send. It was truly the sign Maureen had been waiting to receive.
Heavenly comfort isn't always brought by angels; sometimes our loved ones can be messengers too. Maureen Howell misses her son, but she has no doubts now. She will see him again.
One of the hardest lessons we have to learn in this life…is to see the divine, the celestial, the pure in the common, the near at hand-to see that heaven lies above us here in this world.
-John Burroughs
A Great Healing During a Time of Grief
A grandmother's death is soothed by a blinding angelic visitor.
By Jennifer Helvey-Davis
Excerpted from "Angel Visions" by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D., published by Hay House, Inc.
I was very close to my grandmother as I grew up. My mother was a single mom, so there were many times that I actually lived with my grandma while she helped my mom. You could definitely call her a stabilizing factor in my life, and she was always there for me.
When I was 19, I moved back to live with her and my grandfather. One night, when I was 21, I had a horrible dream about a snake in my bed. It was so bad that I woke my grandmother up and made her come sit on my bed while I fell back to sleep. The next morning, I found her dead on the couch while reading a book. The event was extremely traumatic, and I was overwhelmed with grief.
While on my grass-stained knees visiting my grandma's grave site, I looked up to the sky and cursed God. I told Him that I wanted my grandma back. The sky I was looking into was slightly cloudy, and my eyes stung painfully from all of the crying I had done.
At that moment, this thing appeared in front of the clouds. It was like a starburst coming out from the center, yet it was gray, almost the same color as the clouds themselves. The starburst moved fast from inside itself and out again. I was certain that my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Once on my feet, an image appeared out of the starburst, and it stole the breath from my chest. The being had long hair and a distinct heavy robe with a cord around the waist. The hands were stretched on the being's sides with the palms facing upward.
I couldn't see a face, yet these majestic wings opened broadly from behind the back of the image I saw. They pointed straight up toward the heavens, and hands from the image were outstretched to its sides. From lack of breathing, I fell to my knees and whispered, "You are real...you are here."
This being had no face, yet it was the most powerful being I have ever seen. It was standing in the middle of the starburst and made me feel as if it had a lot of influence on my life. The wings were huge and pointed; they appeared solid and strong. The image was dressed in a long gown and had long hair parted in the middle. I was afraid, yet amazed at the same time. Although the being was hard to discern, I knew it was an angel. The wings and the hands made this fact very obvious to me. Now, I whispered, "You are an angel." As the tears spilled from my eyes, I could hardly believe what I saw. The angel acknowledged my presence and nodded its head toward me.
With miraculous speed, the angel's wings snapped back to its sides. They were fast and strong and made a loud "Whoosh!" as they did this. The noise frightened me, but I didn't move an inch. If this angel had been on the ground, it would have been at least seven feel tall, and the wings would have been even more enormous than that.
The situation was so overwhelmingly intense that I finally had to take my eyes off of the clouds. When I looked back, there was only the starburst shape, but no angel. I tried to look harder, but my eyes were so sore from all of my crying. I looked over at the place where my grandma was buried, and it seemed as if the grass on the plot made a shape. Some grass was darker in some places than others. When I looked really hard, I could see the shape of that angel in the grass.
I dropped the silk rose that I had brought for my grandmother onto the image of the angel, knowing that my grandma was in the mystical place that the angel had come from. Completely stunned by what had happened, I walked back to the car and scrawled a picture of the angel on a piece of paper.
I left the cemetery with a strange feeling of calm and peace that I had not experienced since before Grandma's death. I often doodle pictures of that angel when I am feeling stressed or need comfort, and it always cheers me up.
-John Burroughs
A Great Healing During a Time of Grief
A grandmother's death is soothed by a blinding angelic visitor.
By Jennifer Helvey-Davis
Excerpted from "Angel Visions" by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D., published by Hay House, Inc.
I was very close to my grandmother as I grew up. My mother was a single mom, so there were many times that I actually lived with my grandma while she helped my mom. You could definitely call her a stabilizing factor in my life, and she was always there for me.
When I was 19, I moved back to live with her and my grandfather. One night, when I was 21, I had a horrible dream about a snake in my bed. It was so bad that I woke my grandmother up and made her come sit on my bed while I fell back to sleep. The next morning, I found her dead on the couch while reading a book. The event was extremely traumatic, and I was overwhelmed with grief.
While on my grass-stained knees visiting my grandma's grave site, I looked up to the sky and cursed God. I told Him that I wanted my grandma back. The sky I was looking into was slightly cloudy, and my eyes stung painfully from all of the crying I had done.
At that moment, this thing appeared in front of the clouds. It was like a starburst coming out from the center, yet it was gray, almost the same color as the clouds themselves. The starburst moved fast from inside itself and out again. I was certain that my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Once on my feet, an image appeared out of the starburst, and it stole the breath from my chest. The being had long hair and a distinct heavy robe with a cord around the waist. The hands were stretched on the being's sides with the palms facing upward.
I couldn't see a face, yet these majestic wings opened broadly from behind the back of the image I saw. They pointed straight up toward the heavens, and hands from the image were outstretched to its sides. From lack of breathing, I fell to my knees and whispered, "You are real...you are here."
This being had no face, yet it was the most powerful being I have ever seen. It was standing in the middle of the starburst and made me feel as if it had a lot of influence on my life. The wings were huge and pointed; they appeared solid and strong. The image was dressed in a long gown and had long hair parted in the middle. I was afraid, yet amazed at the same time. Although the being was hard to discern, I knew it was an angel. The wings and the hands made this fact very obvious to me. Now, I whispered, "You are an angel." As the tears spilled from my eyes, I could hardly believe what I saw. The angel acknowledged my presence and nodded its head toward me.
With miraculous speed, the angel's wings snapped back to its sides. They were fast and strong and made a loud "Whoosh!" as they did this. The noise frightened me, but I didn't move an inch. If this angel had been on the ground, it would have been at least seven feel tall, and the wings would have been even more enormous than that.
The situation was so overwhelmingly intense that I finally had to take my eyes off of the clouds. When I looked back, there was only the starburst shape, but no angel. I tried to look harder, but my eyes were so sore from all of my crying. I looked over at the place where my grandma was buried, and it seemed as if the grass on the plot made a shape. Some grass was darker in some places than others. When I looked really hard, I could see the shape of that angel in the grass.
I dropped the silk rose that I had brought for my grandmother onto the image of the angel, knowing that my grandma was in the mystical place that the angel had come from. Completely stunned by what had happened, I walked back to the car and scrawled a picture of the angel on a piece of paper.
I left the cemetery with a strange feeling of calm and peace that I had not experienced since before Grandma's death. I often doodle pictures of that angel when I am feeling stressed or need comfort, and it always cheers me up.
'Your Daughter Will Recover. . .'
For one heartsick mother, these words from a mysterious stranger were all she needed to hear.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/112/story_11224_1.html
Reprinted with permission from the website of Joan Wester Anderson.
As the mother of a drug addict, Marta felt hopeless. The odds that her teen-age daughter would abandon her addiction and her lifestyle seemed unlikely. According to the specialists in Sicily, where the family lives, young, pretty, female addicts were the least likely people to stop taking drugs, especially heroin, "the tyrannical lover who never lets you go," Marta says. She does not remember many particular events during that painful time, but she does know that it was a very low point in her life.
The family had tried everything they knew, but the teenager had left home, and was living on the streets.One Monday evening, Marta was dismissing her catechism class, held in the Mother Church of Mascalucia, a town on the slopes of Mount Etna. The students were gathering papers, chatting with one another and leaving their seats at the foot of a huge crucifix at the left hand side of the alter. Marta looked up at the cross, then at her favorite, a statue of St Michael the Archangel in mighty combat with the Dragon. How she wished the angel could do battle for her daughter as well.
Just then she noticed a young man at the foot of the statue. He seemed to be waiting for something. As the last child straggled down the aisle, the man came forward to Marta.
"He introduced himself, but of course I immediately forgot his name," Marta says. "Then he mentioned that he was going to a famous detox center the following day and needed something to eat." Marta looked at him. Tall and thin, with fine features. Dressed very neatly in a short-sleeved shirt, tucked into a newly-pressed pair of jeans. "But it was his eyes, piercing and bright of an intense blue, which seemed to read into my soul," Marta says. "Blue eyes are not considered Sicilian features."
The situation was highly unusual. He hardly looked like an addict. Mascalucia is a small town, yet Marta had never seen him before. Why had he asked her--of all people--to feed him, when there were many tourists in the church? She could not give him any money, she told him. If he was, in fact, a drug user, who knew what he would spend it on? But she would buy him a snack at the restaurant across the street.The young man agreed. And as the two began to walk to the church exit, Marta felt tears filling her eyes. She had told very few people of her heartache, her hopelessness. And yet this man seemed as if he would understand. "I am a very emotional person normally, and of course, the worry over my daughter had upset me even more," Marta says. As tears spilled down her checks, she poured out her frustration and sorrow.
By now they were at the church door. Marta was winding down, reaching for tissue to dry her eyes. The young man had listened intently, but now he spoke. "Your daughter is going to recover," he said. "She will be fine, but you must send her to a specialized center, where she will receive the right help. Will you do that?"
"Why...yes." Marta nodded. The next thing she knew, her companion was striding away from her. Had he forgotten the snack she promised to buy? Had he truly needed anything from her, or had he been send to give her what she needed?
"I never saw this man again," she says. But her desperation had gone, and hope had returned. Had he been an angel? (They must certainly be in detox centers.) Who knew? But the Lord had obviously sent him to console her, to give her direction, and that was all she needed.
"Every time I remember this encounter, I am still moved to tears," Marta says. "But today they are happy tears." For her daughter is the contented mother of a toddler, whose name is also Marta. And she no longer takes drugs.
For one heartsick mother, these words from a mysterious stranger were all she needed to hear.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/112/story_11224_1.html
Reprinted with permission from the website of Joan Wester Anderson.
As the mother of a drug addict, Marta felt hopeless. The odds that her teen-age daughter would abandon her addiction and her lifestyle seemed unlikely. According to the specialists in Sicily, where the family lives, young, pretty, female addicts were the least likely people to stop taking drugs, especially heroin, "the tyrannical lover who never lets you go," Marta says. She does not remember many particular events during that painful time, but she does know that it was a very low point in her life.
The family had tried everything they knew, but the teenager had left home, and was living on the streets.One Monday evening, Marta was dismissing her catechism class, held in the Mother Church of Mascalucia, a town on the slopes of Mount Etna. The students were gathering papers, chatting with one another and leaving their seats at the foot of a huge crucifix at the left hand side of the alter. Marta looked up at the cross, then at her favorite, a statue of St Michael the Archangel in mighty combat with the Dragon. How she wished the angel could do battle for her daughter as well.
Just then she noticed a young man at the foot of the statue. He seemed to be waiting for something. As the last child straggled down the aisle, the man came forward to Marta.
"He introduced himself, but of course I immediately forgot his name," Marta says. "Then he mentioned that he was going to a famous detox center the following day and needed something to eat." Marta looked at him. Tall and thin, with fine features. Dressed very neatly in a short-sleeved shirt, tucked into a newly-pressed pair of jeans. "But it was his eyes, piercing and bright of an intense blue, which seemed to read into my soul," Marta says. "Blue eyes are not considered Sicilian features."
The situation was highly unusual. He hardly looked like an addict. Mascalucia is a small town, yet Marta had never seen him before. Why had he asked her--of all people--to feed him, when there were many tourists in the church? She could not give him any money, she told him. If he was, in fact, a drug user, who knew what he would spend it on? But she would buy him a snack at the restaurant across the street.The young man agreed. And as the two began to walk to the church exit, Marta felt tears filling her eyes. She had told very few people of her heartache, her hopelessness. And yet this man seemed as if he would understand. "I am a very emotional person normally, and of course, the worry over my daughter had upset me even more," Marta says. As tears spilled down her checks, she poured out her frustration and sorrow.
By now they were at the church door. Marta was winding down, reaching for tissue to dry her eyes. The young man had listened intently, but now he spoke. "Your daughter is going to recover," he said. "She will be fine, but you must send her to a specialized center, where she will receive the right help. Will you do that?"
"Why...yes." Marta nodded. The next thing she knew, her companion was striding away from her. Had he forgotten the snack she promised to buy? Had he truly needed anything from her, or had he been send to give her what she needed?
"I never saw this man again," she says. But her desperation had gone, and hope had returned. Had he been an angel? (They must certainly be in detox centers.) Who knew? But the Lord had obviously sent him to console her, to give her direction, and that was all she needed.
"Every time I remember this encounter, I am still moved to tears," Marta says. "But today they are happy tears." For her daughter is the contented mother of a toddler, whose name is also Marta. And she no longer takes drugs.
Angel Dog
St. John Bosco is sent an angel that guides and protects him.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/36/story_3686_1.html
By Fr. Paul O'Sullivan
Excerpted from "All About the Angels" by Fr. Paul O'Sullivan, O.P, published by Tan Books and Publishers, Inc.
Was it an angel or was it a dog? The life of Don Bosco furnishes us with a remarkable and interesting story of what appears to many an angelic intervention in saving the life of this servant of God from the fierce attacks of the Waldensian heretics, who made several attempts to assassinate him. These heretics were furious at the good done by Don Bosco and sought by violent means to rid themselves of his influence. Some of their adherents were men of the lowest and most vicious type, and these they hired to carry out their nefarious designs.
When returning home one night through a bad and dangerous part of the town, he saw a magnificent dog of huge size following him. At first he was frightened but quickly came to see that the dog was friendly. The animal walked by his side and accompanied him to the door of his house and then went away. This happened five, six or eight times. He called the dog Grigio.
What did it mean? He was soon to learn.
Hastening home by himself, some time after the first appearance of the dog, two shots were fired at him by an assassin from behind a tree. Both shots missed their mark, but his assailant then rushed at and grappled with him. At that moment, Grigio appeared and sank his teeth into the flesh of the would-be murderer, who fled away shrieking with pain.
On a second occasion, two men lay in wait for him and threw a sack over his head. This time it seemed all was over with him, but Grigio unexpectedly came to his rescue and jumped at one of the ruffians, seizing him by the throat. The other fled in terror. Don Bosco had then to liberate the first from the fangs of Grigio, who still held him by the throat.
A third time, no less than twelve hired assassins, armed with clubs, lay in ambush, into which Don Bosco walked unawares. Again, escape seemed impossible, but once more Grigio bounded into the midst of the group, and his fierce look and savage growl proved enough. The men made off as quickly as they could.
Sometimes the dog entered Don Bosco's house, but always with some reason, either to accompany him on a night journey or to prevent his leaving the house. No amount of animal instinct could explain these unexpected appearances of the dog.
On one of these occasions, when Don Bosco tried to go out, the great dog lay across the door and growled in such a menacing way that St. John was forced to remain at home. And it was well that he did so, for shortly afterwards a gentleman arrived to warn him not to leave the house on any consideration, as the heretics lay in wait to kill him.
As long as the persecution lasted, Grigio never failed to be at his post and when the danger passed he was seen no more. Whence he came or whither he went no one knew.
Ten years later, Don Bosco had to go to the farmhouse of some friends and had been advised that the road was dangerous.
"If only I had Grigio," he said. At once the great dog appeared by his side, as if he had heard the words, giving signs of the greatest joy. Both man and dog arrived safely at the farmhouse and went into the dining room, where the family invited Don Bosco to take part in the evening meal.
The dog lay down. No one thought any more of him. When the repast was finished the master of the house proposed to feed the dog. But he was gone! Doors and windows had been closed; how did he go?
In 1883, that was more than thirty years after the dog's first appearance, he appeared once more in a different locality to guide Don Bosco, who had lost his way.
How [are we to] explain those wonderful appearances of the dog, at the most opportune moments and in different localities? Surely we may believe that this was angelic intervention. [Especially is this so because the great dog was never known to eat.]
St. John Bosco is sent an angel that guides and protects him.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/36/story_3686_1.html
By Fr. Paul O'Sullivan
Excerpted from "All About the Angels" by Fr. Paul O'Sullivan, O.P, published by Tan Books and Publishers, Inc.
Was it an angel or was it a dog? The life of Don Bosco furnishes us with a remarkable and interesting story of what appears to many an angelic intervention in saving the life of this servant of God from the fierce attacks of the Waldensian heretics, who made several attempts to assassinate him. These heretics were furious at the good done by Don Bosco and sought by violent means to rid themselves of his influence. Some of their adherents were men of the lowest and most vicious type, and these they hired to carry out their nefarious designs.
When returning home one night through a bad and dangerous part of the town, he saw a magnificent dog of huge size following him. At first he was frightened but quickly came to see that the dog was friendly. The animal walked by his side and accompanied him to the door of his house and then went away. This happened five, six or eight times. He called the dog Grigio.
What did it mean? He was soon to learn.
Hastening home by himself, some time after the first appearance of the dog, two shots were fired at him by an assassin from behind a tree. Both shots missed their mark, but his assailant then rushed at and grappled with him. At that moment, Grigio appeared and sank his teeth into the flesh of the would-be murderer, who fled away shrieking with pain.
On a second occasion, two men lay in wait for him and threw a sack over his head. This time it seemed all was over with him, but Grigio unexpectedly came to his rescue and jumped at one of the ruffians, seizing him by the throat. The other fled in terror. Don Bosco had then to liberate the first from the fangs of Grigio, who still held him by the throat.
A third time, no less than twelve hired assassins, armed with clubs, lay in ambush, into which Don Bosco walked unawares. Again, escape seemed impossible, but once more Grigio bounded into the midst of the group, and his fierce look and savage growl proved enough. The men made off as quickly as they could.
Sometimes the dog entered Don Bosco's house, but always with some reason, either to accompany him on a night journey or to prevent his leaving the house. No amount of animal instinct could explain these unexpected appearances of the dog.
On one of these occasions, when Don Bosco tried to go out, the great dog lay across the door and growled in such a menacing way that St. John was forced to remain at home. And it was well that he did so, for shortly afterwards a gentleman arrived to warn him not to leave the house on any consideration, as the heretics lay in wait to kill him.
As long as the persecution lasted, Grigio never failed to be at his post and when the danger passed he was seen no more. Whence he came or whither he went no one knew.
Ten years later, Don Bosco had to go to the farmhouse of some friends and had been advised that the road was dangerous.
"If only I had Grigio," he said. At once the great dog appeared by his side, as if he had heard the words, giving signs of the greatest joy. Both man and dog arrived safely at the farmhouse and went into the dining room, where the family invited Don Bosco to take part in the evening meal.
The dog lay down. No one thought any more of him. When the repast was finished the master of the house proposed to feed the dog. But he was gone! Doors and windows had been closed; how did he go?
In 1883, that was more than thirty years after the dog's first appearance, he appeared once more in a different locality to guide Don Bosco, who had lost his way.
How [are we to] explain those wonderful appearances of the dog, at the most opportune moments and in different localities? Surely we may believe that this was angelic intervention. [Especially is this so because the great dog was never known to eat.]
Emanuel Swedenborg's Revelations
A sober scientist's detailed vision of God and the angels influenced thinkers like Emerson and Blake.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/183/story_18389_1.html
By Johanna Skilling
Two-thirds of the way through his long life, Emanuel Swedenborg experienced a change of heart--and of soul.
Born in Stockholm in the winter of 1688, Swedenborg lived a life of privilege. His father, a prominent Lutheran Bishop, had ties that later allowed young Emanuel to develop a close association with Charles XII, King of Sweden. For over thirty years, from the time he was 27 until he was 58, Swedenborg was Special Assessor to the Royal College of Mines, a sober and scientific pursuit. But while he might have stayed in this respected position until he retired, in 1746 Swedenborg suddenly resigned. “My sole object in tendering my resignation,” he wrote, “was that I might have more leisure to devote to the new office to which the Lord had called me.”
Three years earlier Swedenborg had been in Amsterdam on an October morning when "such dizziness...overcame me that I felt close to death." He felt a roaring wind pick him up; a hand clutched his, and he saw Christ.
"He showed me the face of my spirit,” he wrote toward the end of his life, “and thus led me into the world of the spirits and allowed me to see heaven and its wonders, and at the same time to see hell as well, and also to speak with angels and spirits, and this has gone on continually for twenty-seven years."
Swedenborg’s connection with the spiritual world gave him the gift of clairvoyance. One night, he was at a party in the town of Göteborg when he “saw” a raging fire burning in Stockholm, almost three hundred miles away. The next day, he was able to confirm that his vision of the fire had indeed been true.
(Not all of Swedenborg’s predictions turned out to be accurate, including his assertion that a race of people live on the moon, who speak through their stomachs, making a sound like belching.)
Swedenborg came to define his entire life as one lived among the angels. And yet he also continued to find acceptance among his peers.
“I am a Fellow and Member, by invitation, of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm,” Swedenborg wrote, “but I have never sought admission into any literary society in any other place, because I am in an angelic society, where such things as relate to heaven and the soul are the only subjects of discourse, while in literary societies the world and the body form the only subjects of discussion...
"Moreover, all the bishops of my native country, who are ten in number, and also that sixteen senators and the rest of those highest in office, entertain feelings of affection for me; from their affection they honor me, and I live with them on terms of familiarity, as a friend among friends; the reason of which is that they know I am in company with angels. Even the King and the Queen, and three princes, their sons, show me great favour...
"But all I have thus far related I consider of comparatively little importance, for it is far exceeded by the circumstance that I have been called to a holy office by the Lord Himself, who most mercifully appeared before me, His servant, in the year 1743, when He opened my sight into the spiritual world and enabled me to converse with spirits and angels, in which state I have continued up to the present day.
“From that time I began to print and publish the various arcana that were seen by me or revealed to me, concerning heaven and hell, the state of man after death, the true worship of God, the spiritual sense of the Word, besides other most important matters conducive to salvation and wisdom. The only reason of my journeys abroad has been the desire of making myself useful and of making known the arcana that were entrusted to me. Moreover, I have as much of this world's wealth as I need, and I neither seek nor wish for more.” Swedenborg believed that God can only be revealed through man’s humanity, and that both men and women are totally free to create their own lives. They can choose lives devoted to doing good and loving God, or lives of selfishness and evil. However, by doing so, they are choosing either heaven or hell after death, and the choice is final.
Swedenborg’s view of heaven is of a rather earthly place populated by angels, who are former humans complete with bodies, clothing, and homes. They even marry and have occupations. However, they have no sense of time, only of states of faith, love, and intelligence. There they progress to higher states of consciousness. All people, not just Christians, are accepted into heaven, where the angels instruct them in the ways of the Lord. Interestingly for a lifelong bachelor, Swedenborg had an idealized vision of marriage in heaven. Married love, he believed, bonds two minds into one, and each couple becomes one angel.
Swedenborg’s vision of hell is equally fascinating—much like the evil Gotham City in a Batman movie, with bestial lairs, filthy streets, tumbledown homes, and brothels. The residents of hell continue their evil, selfish ways, burning in a fire of their own hatred. There is no devil in charge.
For all these revelations Swedenborg gave credit to his angelic visitors. “I have seen a thousand times that angels are human forms, or men, for I have conversed with them as man to man, sometimes with one alone, sometimes with many in company.” Like the scientist he was, Swedenborg recorded his visions down to the last detail in numerous books, included the most famous, Heaven and Hell.
Swedenborg’s vision influenced millions. His spiritual writing exerted tremendous influence on writers and artists, including Emerson, Goethe, Dostoevsky, and William Blake. His thinking also had an impact on religious leaders like Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. Not long after his death, a group of Swedenborg’s devoted followers founded the New Jerusalem Church, and later, The Swedenborg Society, which still exists today. The author of over 50 works, Swedenborg’s books have been translated into thirty languages.
A sober scientist's detailed vision of God and the angels influenced thinkers like Emerson and Blake.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/183/story_18389_1.html
By Johanna Skilling
Two-thirds of the way through his long life, Emanuel Swedenborg experienced a change of heart--and of soul.
Born in Stockholm in the winter of 1688, Swedenborg lived a life of privilege. His father, a prominent Lutheran Bishop, had ties that later allowed young Emanuel to develop a close association with Charles XII, King of Sweden. For over thirty years, from the time he was 27 until he was 58, Swedenborg was Special Assessor to the Royal College of Mines, a sober and scientific pursuit. But while he might have stayed in this respected position until he retired, in 1746 Swedenborg suddenly resigned. “My sole object in tendering my resignation,” he wrote, “was that I might have more leisure to devote to the new office to which the Lord had called me.”
Three years earlier Swedenborg had been in Amsterdam on an October morning when "such dizziness...overcame me that I felt close to death." He felt a roaring wind pick him up; a hand clutched his, and he saw Christ.
"He showed me the face of my spirit,” he wrote toward the end of his life, “and thus led me into the world of the spirits and allowed me to see heaven and its wonders, and at the same time to see hell as well, and also to speak with angels and spirits, and this has gone on continually for twenty-seven years."
Swedenborg’s connection with the spiritual world gave him the gift of clairvoyance. One night, he was at a party in the town of Göteborg when he “saw” a raging fire burning in Stockholm, almost three hundred miles away. The next day, he was able to confirm that his vision of the fire had indeed been true.
(Not all of Swedenborg’s predictions turned out to be accurate, including his assertion that a race of people live on the moon, who speak through their stomachs, making a sound like belching.)
Swedenborg came to define his entire life as one lived among the angels. And yet he also continued to find acceptance among his peers.
“I am a Fellow and Member, by invitation, of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm,” Swedenborg wrote, “but I have never sought admission into any literary society in any other place, because I am in an angelic society, where such things as relate to heaven and the soul are the only subjects of discourse, while in literary societies the world and the body form the only subjects of discussion...
"Moreover, all the bishops of my native country, who are ten in number, and also that sixteen senators and the rest of those highest in office, entertain feelings of affection for me; from their affection they honor me, and I live with them on terms of familiarity, as a friend among friends; the reason of which is that they know I am in company with angels. Even the King and the Queen, and three princes, their sons, show me great favour...
"But all I have thus far related I consider of comparatively little importance, for it is far exceeded by the circumstance that I have been called to a holy office by the Lord Himself, who most mercifully appeared before me, His servant, in the year 1743, when He opened my sight into the spiritual world and enabled me to converse with spirits and angels, in which state I have continued up to the present day.
“From that time I began to print and publish the various arcana that were seen by me or revealed to me, concerning heaven and hell, the state of man after death, the true worship of God, the spiritual sense of the Word, besides other most important matters conducive to salvation and wisdom. The only reason of my journeys abroad has been the desire of making myself useful and of making known the arcana that were entrusted to me. Moreover, I have as much of this world's wealth as I need, and I neither seek nor wish for more.” Swedenborg believed that God can only be revealed through man’s humanity, and that both men and women are totally free to create their own lives. They can choose lives devoted to doing good and loving God, or lives of selfishness and evil. However, by doing so, they are choosing either heaven or hell after death, and the choice is final.
Swedenborg’s view of heaven is of a rather earthly place populated by angels, who are former humans complete with bodies, clothing, and homes. They even marry and have occupations. However, they have no sense of time, only of states of faith, love, and intelligence. There they progress to higher states of consciousness. All people, not just Christians, are accepted into heaven, where the angels instruct them in the ways of the Lord. Interestingly for a lifelong bachelor, Swedenborg had an idealized vision of marriage in heaven. Married love, he believed, bonds two minds into one, and each couple becomes one angel.
Swedenborg’s vision of hell is equally fascinating—much like the evil Gotham City in a Batman movie, with bestial lairs, filthy streets, tumbledown homes, and brothels. The residents of hell continue their evil, selfish ways, burning in a fire of their own hatred. There is no devil in charge.
For all these revelations Swedenborg gave credit to his angelic visitors. “I have seen a thousand times that angels are human forms, or men, for I have conversed with them as man to man, sometimes with one alone, sometimes with many in company.” Like the scientist he was, Swedenborg recorded his visions down to the last detail in numerous books, included the most famous, Heaven and Hell.
Swedenborg’s vision influenced millions. His spiritual writing exerted tremendous influence on writers and artists, including Emerson, Goethe, Dostoevsky, and William Blake. His thinking also had an impact on religious leaders like Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. Not long after his death, a group of Swedenborg’s devoted followers founded the New Jerusalem Church, and later, The Swedenborg Society, which still exists today. The author of over 50 works, Swedenborg’s books have been translated into thirty languages.
Most people, in the deepest part of their memory, hold the angels in great esteem.
-Janice T. Connell, "Angel Power"
***
Let your secret angel’s wings lift you outside the realm of the ordinary.
-Suzanne Siegel Zenkel,
"Your Secret Angel"
***
When your life is good or on an uphill swing, the angels will be there to share in your laughter and to maximize your success, too. They will teach you how to enjoy the good times, just as they help you with the difficult times.
-Barbara Mark and Trudy Griswold,
"The Angelspeake Storybook"
***
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/67/story_6700_1.html
Dropping Out of the Mob
When his daughter is critically injured, a gangster cuts a deal with an angel.
Edited by Brad and Sherry Steiger
Excerpted from "Angels Over Their Shoulders" by Brad and Sherry Steiger, published by Ballantine Books.
The source for this story was Bill Jameson, a former army intelligence officer who had also served a stint on the New York City police force before becoming a private investigator in Florida.
Jameson said that the racketeer--we'll call him Jerry Nichols--had been one of the criminal kingpins in Florida and had run the parts of the state under his control with an iron hand. Then, strangely, the gangster seemed to drop out of sight. When Jameson next discovered him, he was in a legitimate business and was preaching the word of God on the side.
Stunned, the private detective pressed his old nemesis for details, and Nichols was delighted to tell him the remarkable story of his conversion.
"My twelve-year-old daughter, Jackie, got hit by a car walking home from school," Nichols began. "She was rushed to the hospital with her skull badly crushed. My wife, Brenda, and I were sweating it out in the waiting room, when this young doc comes out.
"I told the medic to drop the suspense and cut to the chase. My coarse, blunt manner had its usual irritating effect and he just came out and said that he and the other doctors could offer us no hope for Jackie's recovery."
Nichols's wife went to pieces.
"I had one of my boys drive her home, and I gave him the number of one of Brenda's friends," Nichols said. "I told him to call the lady and ask her to come and sit with Brenda while I stayed at the hospital."
Nichols sat by his daughter's bedside for the rest of the day and all through the night. The gangster did not leave the hospital until the sun was coming up. He was walking toward his car across the deserted parking lot, when an angel appeared.
The tough racketeer dropped to his knees. "I know that I'm just a wise guy. I am not worthy to ask anything of you. But please, oh, please, do something to help my daughter. Jackie is young. Don't take her away before she's had a chance to live." The angel stood before him, silent, expressionless.
"So that's it." Nichols nodded soberly, believing that he had suddenly received some insight into the angel's master plan. "You want me, don't you? You want my life in exchange for my kid's. Okay, you've got it. Take me. Now. This minute. I don't care. I'll do whatever you say to save my baby."
Almost immediately, the angel vanished.
Uncertain of exactly what had transpired, Nichols walked slowly to his car and sat in the driver's seat for several minutes before he regained enough composure to drive home.
When he pulled into his driveway, he saw Brenda standing on their front porch with her friend, Gloria, and Bennie, one of his boys. It was apparent that she was in better control of herself and that she was about to leave for the hospital. They embraced, and Nichols mumbled, "No improvement, babe. You go on back to sit with Jackie. I'll try to catch some winks."
A few hours later, Nichols was awakened by the ringing of the telephone at his bedside. It was Brenda calling from Jackie's hospital room.
"Sweetheart," she managed to say, "our baby just opened her eyes and smiled at me!"
The doctors could not explain what had occurred. But Jackie made a miraculous recovery, and in a few days was discharged from the hospital to convalesce at home. On the night after Jackie was discharged, Nichols had another visit from the angel.
"Okay," he said, shrugging when the glowing entity materialized before him. "It's payback time, right? Well, I always keep my word, take my soul or whatever it is you want. A deal is a deal."
For the first time, Nichols was clearly able to perceive the supernatural being's eyes, and he felt himself drawn into their incredible depths.
Jerry Nichols burst into a loud spasm of uncontrollable laughter. "That's what you want? You want me to quit the rackets?" He stopped laughing as the angel's eyes exerted their full power.
Brenda was stunned when he told her that he had made the decision to quit the rackets. "This is too much joy," she said. "My daughter's life is spared and my husband is going legit. I am going to get drunk on happiness if I'm not careful!"
A week later, when three men came to call on him, Nichols could see they did not share Brenda's happiness. He recognized each one of them. They had been close "business associates."
"You heard right, boys," Nichols replied to their direct questions. "I'm quitting the rackets and becoming a minister."
"They were very polite," Nichols recalled, "but I knew that they were very upset with me. When they asked me to come with them, I knew that they planned to kill me. I asked them please not to do it in front of the house where Brenda and Jackie could see it. They promised me that they would not."
Nichols drove with the mobsters some distance into the country. He had made up his mind that he would not beg for his life.
"But then I heard that angel's voice inside my head," Nichols said. "What he was saying was crazy, but I knew that I had nothing to lose by repeating what he was telling me to say."
Nichols informed them that he had a quarter of a million dollars in the vault of "Mr. Big," Florida's mob boss. He explained that he did not want the money for himself or to bribe them, but he wanted the money to serve as an insurance policy for Brenda and Jackie.
"It had to be the power of the angel's words flowing through me," Nichols said, "for I managed to persuade them to take me to Mr. Big so that I might ask him to give the money to my family. I know it sounds unbelievable when you are talking about hardened tough guys, hit men, but somehow these men decided to take a chance. It had to be a miracle, that's all there is to it.
"Mr. Big nearly went berserk with rage when he saw the three hoods walk into his office with me in tow. He demanded to know why I wasn't dead."
Still taking heavenly dictation from the angel's voice inside his head, Nichols told the mob boss that he did not mind dying, but he wanted the money in Mr. Big's safe for his wife and daughter. The doomed man challenged the boss by reminding him that the money was, after all, truly his, not the mob's, because he had been the one who had collected it.
Once again Nichols knew that it had to be another miracle of angelic intervention that prevented the crime boss from having him killed on the spot; instead, Mr. Big asked him to explain why he had quit the rackets.
Nichols prayed for guidance then told the boss and the three mobsters the full details of Jackie's terrible accident, the materialization of the angelic being, and the miraculous recovery of his daughter. Nichols also informed Mr. Big of his decision to become a minister in order to pay his debt to the angel.
"Mr. Big sat quietly for a long time in his massive leather chair, then he told the three hoods who had brought me to him to take me home," Nichols continued. "That was all there was to it. The angel had just performed another miracle.
"Mr. Big kept my quarter of a million, but I didn't want it anyway. I had all I wanted: my wife, my kid, and a chance to start a whole new life in service to the living God. Mr. Big was welcome to all the loot."
The money didn't do Mr. Big much good. The Florida mob boss was killed about ten months later in a gangland slaying.
-Janice T. Connell, "Angel Power"
***
Let your secret angel’s wings lift you outside the realm of the ordinary.
-Suzanne Siegel Zenkel,
"Your Secret Angel"
***
When your life is good or on an uphill swing, the angels will be there to share in your laughter and to maximize your success, too. They will teach you how to enjoy the good times, just as they help you with the difficult times.
-Barbara Mark and Trudy Griswold,
"The Angelspeake Storybook"
***
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/67/story_6700_1.html
Dropping Out of the Mob
When his daughter is critically injured, a gangster cuts a deal with an angel.
Edited by Brad and Sherry Steiger
Excerpted from "Angels Over Their Shoulders" by Brad and Sherry Steiger, published by Ballantine Books.
The source for this story was Bill Jameson, a former army intelligence officer who had also served a stint on the New York City police force before becoming a private investigator in Florida.
Jameson said that the racketeer--we'll call him Jerry Nichols--had been one of the criminal kingpins in Florida and had run the parts of the state under his control with an iron hand. Then, strangely, the gangster seemed to drop out of sight. When Jameson next discovered him, he was in a legitimate business and was preaching the word of God on the side.
Stunned, the private detective pressed his old nemesis for details, and Nichols was delighted to tell him the remarkable story of his conversion.
"My twelve-year-old daughter, Jackie, got hit by a car walking home from school," Nichols began. "She was rushed to the hospital with her skull badly crushed. My wife, Brenda, and I were sweating it out in the waiting room, when this young doc comes out.
"I told the medic to drop the suspense and cut to the chase. My coarse, blunt manner had its usual irritating effect and he just came out and said that he and the other doctors could offer us no hope for Jackie's recovery."
Nichols's wife went to pieces.
"I had one of my boys drive her home, and I gave him the number of one of Brenda's friends," Nichols said. "I told him to call the lady and ask her to come and sit with Brenda while I stayed at the hospital."
Nichols sat by his daughter's bedside for the rest of the day and all through the night. The gangster did not leave the hospital until the sun was coming up. He was walking toward his car across the deserted parking lot, when an angel appeared.
The tough racketeer dropped to his knees. "I know that I'm just a wise guy. I am not worthy to ask anything of you. But please, oh, please, do something to help my daughter. Jackie is young. Don't take her away before she's had a chance to live." The angel stood before him, silent, expressionless.
"So that's it." Nichols nodded soberly, believing that he had suddenly received some insight into the angel's master plan. "You want me, don't you? You want my life in exchange for my kid's. Okay, you've got it. Take me. Now. This minute. I don't care. I'll do whatever you say to save my baby."
Almost immediately, the angel vanished.
Uncertain of exactly what had transpired, Nichols walked slowly to his car and sat in the driver's seat for several minutes before he regained enough composure to drive home.
When he pulled into his driveway, he saw Brenda standing on their front porch with her friend, Gloria, and Bennie, one of his boys. It was apparent that she was in better control of herself and that she was about to leave for the hospital. They embraced, and Nichols mumbled, "No improvement, babe. You go on back to sit with Jackie. I'll try to catch some winks."
A few hours later, Nichols was awakened by the ringing of the telephone at his bedside. It was Brenda calling from Jackie's hospital room.
"Sweetheart," she managed to say, "our baby just opened her eyes and smiled at me!"
The doctors could not explain what had occurred. But Jackie made a miraculous recovery, and in a few days was discharged from the hospital to convalesce at home. On the night after Jackie was discharged, Nichols had another visit from the angel.
"Okay," he said, shrugging when the glowing entity materialized before him. "It's payback time, right? Well, I always keep my word, take my soul or whatever it is you want. A deal is a deal."
For the first time, Nichols was clearly able to perceive the supernatural being's eyes, and he felt himself drawn into their incredible depths.
Jerry Nichols burst into a loud spasm of uncontrollable laughter. "That's what you want? You want me to quit the rackets?" He stopped laughing as the angel's eyes exerted their full power.
Brenda was stunned when he told her that he had made the decision to quit the rackets. "This is too much joy," she said. "My daughter's life is spared and my husband is going legit. I am going to get drunk on happiness if I'm not careful!"
A week later, when three men came to call on him, Nichols could see they did not share Brenda's happiness. He recognized each one of them. They had been close "business associates."
"You heard right, boys," Nichols replied to their direct questions. "I'm quitting the rackets and becoming a minister."
"They were very polite," Nichols recalled, "but I knew that they were very upset with me. When they asked me to come with them, I knew that they planned to kill me. I asked them please not to do it in front of the house where Brenda and Jackie could see it. They promised me that they would not."
Nichols drove with the mobsters some distance into the country. He had made up his mind that he would not beg for his life.
"But then I heard that angel's voice inside my head," Nichols said. "What he was saying was crazy, but I knew that I had nothing to lose by repeating what he was telling me to say."
Nichols informed them that he had a quarter of a million dollars in the vault of "Mr. Big," Florida's mob boss. He explained that he did not want the money for himself or to bribe them, but he wanted the money to serve as an insurance policy for Brenda and Jackie.
"It had to be the power of the angel's words flowing through me," Nichols said, "for I managed to persuade them to take me to Mr. Big so that I might ask him to give the money to my family. I know it sounds unbelievable when you are talking about hardened tough guys, hit men, but somehow these men decided to take a chance. It had to be a miracle, that's all there is to it.
"Mr. Big nearly went berserk with rage when he saw the three hoods walk into his office with me in tow. He demanded to know why I wasn't dead."
Still taking heavenly dictation from the angel's voice inside his head, Nichols told the mob boss that he did not mind dying, but he wanted the money in Mr. Big's safe for his wife and daughter. The doomed man challenged the boss by reminding him that the money was, after all, truly his, not the mob's, because he had been the one who had collected it.
Once again Nichols knew that it had to be another miracle of angelic intervention that prevented the crime boss from having him killed on the spot; instead, Mr. Big asked him to explain why he had quit the rackets.
Nichols prayed for guidance then told the boss and the three mobsters the full details of Jackie's terrible accident, the materialization of the angelic being, and the miraculous recovery of his daughter. Nichols also informed Mr. Big of his decision to become a minister in order to pay his debt to the angel.
"Mr. Big sat quietly for a long time in his massive leather chair, then he told the three hoods who had brought me to him to take me home," Nichols continued. "That was all there was to it. The angel had just performed another miracle.
"Mr. Big kept my quarter of a million, but I didn't want it anyway. I had all I wanted: my wife, my kid, and a chance to start a whole new life in service to the living God. Mr. Big was welcome to all the loot."
The money didn't do Mr. Big much good. The Florida mob boss was killed about ten months later in a gangland slaying.
Not to believe in the angels is to believe in a mindless, meaningless, and soulless universe.
-Harold Begbie,
"On The Side Of The Angels"
***
We Go Together
A woman's unique, growing figurine collection keeps the memory of her father alive.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18542_1.html
Repinted from "In the Arms of Angels" by Joan Wester Anderson, with permission of Loyola Press.
Miracles...seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always. -Willa Cather
Scripture tells us that when we die, we join that "great cloud of witnesses" that St. Paul spoke about, a community of saints who, like angels, can send little signs of hope to the family members left here on earth, if God wills it. Arles Hendershott Love of Rockford, Illinois, understands this very well.
Arles grew up an only child, but her dad (also an only child) was her best pal, sharing his time and his rich spiritual faith with her. "I was very close to him," Arles says. (Even after Arles married Joe Love, she did not totally change her name. She said it was for professional reasons, but Joe knew it was because his wife didn't want to let go of her dad's name.) Her paternal grandmother, Emma, was also an only child and had been so delighted with Arles's birth that she planted a yellow rosebush in honor of the event. Arles loved her grandmother. "I spent a lot of time with her, and even looked like her. People often called me Little Emma. In her later years, I was her legal guardian and took care of everything for her. When she died, of course I had yellow roses everywhere."
Arles's mother loved to collect antiques and figurines, and her interest rubbed off on Arles. In 1986 Arles started her own collection: Santa Clauses. "I'm not exactly sure how or why it began, but eventually I branched out into other items too." She and Joe enjoyed attending collectors' events and trading with others in the field.
Meanwhile Arles's father had contracted Parkinson's disease. Eventually he needed a wheelchair and a feeding tube, which he handled with great courage and his usual faith. In December 1995, however, he began preparing his loved ones for his death. He asked his wife to buy Arles a specific gift—two Santas for her collection, but not just any Santas. "No, Dad wanted the Santas to be identical, but one big and one little." When she opened the gift on Christmas morning, her dad explained its significance.
"It's to remind you that we will never be apart," her father told Arles. "I'm the big, and you're the little. And even after I move on, I'll be looking out for you and Joe.
"Oh, Dad..." Arles's eyes filled with tears. She couldn't think about losing him. But six months later, her father died. The night before his funeral, Arles saw a double rainbow in the sky. One was big, and the other was little.
That should have brought her some comfort. But as the weeks passed, and grief took hold, she wondered whether she would ever be happy again. Life without her father seemed unlivable. Even though she believed in heaven, she found herself wondering: Was he there? Could he see her? Did he know how she felt?
In addition to Santas, Arles collects Egyptian artwork and artifacts. One afternoon she and Joe went to a small store in Milwaukee that sells such things. They bought some papyrus paintings, and the owner rang up the purchase and bagged it. Then he impulsively reached over to a shelf, took an item, and handed it to Arles. "Here," he said. "You need to have this.
It was a brass pyramid. It was identical to one she had at home, only larger. Arles looked at Joe. He was smiling. "Looks like you have a big-little pair now," he said. Just like the Santas her dad had given her, just like the rainbows. It was probably a coincidence. But how had the storekeeper known that this pyramid would have such special meaning for her? Slowly, more pairs began to come, most through unexplained circumstances. Sometimes the big came first, followed several weeks or months later by the little. For example, two years after her father's death, as Christmas approached, Arles was laid up from surgery, and her mother brought over a Santa for her collection. "I have several hundred now, so keeping them straight can be a challenge," Arles says. "But as soon as I saw it, I realized it was the small version of one I had picked up several years before." Her dad had been with her when she bought it.
Arles also noticed that her pairs seemed to arrive when she most missed her father or was having a difficult day because of her health or her job. Each unexpected treasure brought her much-needed reassurance. One year, Arles joined a Lenox ornament club in which the company sends figurines to members at random intervals. "You never knew when one would arrive," she says. "The day after a particularly rough day, a package came in the mail. It was a big snowman dad holding the hand of a small snowman girl." The timing was perfect. "I took this as a sign that Dad was still watching over us both and that things would work out."
Last summer Arles and Joe came across an exquisite angel figurine holding an armload of pink roses. The angel's name, according to the tag, was Emma. Her grandmother's name! Arles had to buy her. But when she went to the sales associate, she had a surprise. "Emma comes in a smaller version too," the associate explained. "It's the first time the company has ever done that." Arles was getting a funny feeling. Even though the figurines would not he delivered for a while, she decided to purchase both.
The figurines were delayed in shipment. Meanwhile, Arles learned that she would need surgery again. She was extremely worried, so she and Joe decided to enjoy a day in Lake Geneva, a tourist area in southern Wisconsin. "There just happened to be a huge merchant sale going on that day," Arles says, "and everywhere I looked, I saw big-little pairs—carved figures, wood chimes, on vendors' carts, in the VIP area." How she wanted to believe that such a happening was more than coincidence or her imagination, that such little signs were truly meaningful. But could she?
She got her answer a few weeks later, when she learned that her surgery had been successful. That day a deliveryman also brought her a package. Arles had been so absorbed that she had forgotten her Emma angels. Happily she opened the box—and gasped. The figurine she had seen at the display had been holding pink roses. But the roses in both of these angels' arms were yellow—the color that she and her grandmother Emma had always loved best.
Since her dad's death, Arles estimates that she has received some seventy-five big-little pairs. "I believe now that they are definitely messages from my dad, and probably Grandma Emma too. I know they are both safe and with the angels, sending me a little touch of heaven."
-Harold Begbie,
"On The Side Of The Angels"
***
We Go Together
A woman's unique, growing figurine collection keeps the memory of her father alive.
By Joan Wester Anderson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18542_1.html
Repinted from "In the Arms of Angels" by Joan Wester Anderson, with permission of Loyola Press.
Miracles...seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always. -Willa Cather
Scripture tells us that when we die, we join that "great cloud of witnesses" that St. Paul spoke about, a community of saints who, like angels, can send little signs of hope to the family members left here on earth, if God wills it. Arles Hendershott Love of Rockford, Illinois, understands this very well.
Arles grew up an only child, but her dad (also an only child) was her best pal, sharing his time and his rich spiritual faith with her. "I was very close to him," Arles says. (Even after Arles married Joe Love, she did not totally change her name. She said it was for professional reasons, but Joe knew it was because his wife didn't want to let go of her dad's name.) Her paternal grandmother, Emma, was also an only child and had been so delighted with Arles's birth that she planted a yellow rosebush in honor of the event. Arles loved her grandmother. "I spent a lot of time with her, and even looked like her. People often called me Little Emma. In her later years, I was her legal guardian and took care of everything for her. When she died, of course I had yellow roses everywhere."
Arles's mother loved to collect antiques and figurines, and her interest rubbed off on Arles. In 1986 Arles started her own collection: Santa Clauses. "I'm not exactly sure how or why it began, but eventually I branched out into other items too." She and Joe enjoyed attending collectors' events and trading with others in the field.
Meanwhile Arles's father had contracted Parkinson's disease. Eventually he needed a wheelchair and a feeding tube, which he handled with great courage and his usual faith. In December 1995, however, he began preparing his loved ones for his death. He asked his wife to buy Arles a specific gift—two Santas for her collection, but not just any Santas. "No, Dad wanted the Santas to be identical, but one big and one little." When she opened the gift on Christmas morning, her dad explained its significance.
"It's to remind you that we will never be apart," her father told Arles. "I'm the big, and you're the little. And even after I move on, I'll be looking out for you and Joe.
"Oh, Dad..." Arles's eyes filled with tears. She couldn't think about losing him. But six months later, her father died. The night before his funeral, Arles saw a double rainbow in the sky. One was big, and the other was little.
That should have brought her some comfort. But as the weeks passed, and grief took hold, she wondered whether she would ever be happy again. Life without her father seemed unlivable. Even though she believed in heaven, she found herself wondering: Was he there? Could he see her? Did he know how she felt?
In addition to Santas, Arles collects Egyptian artwork and artifacts. One afternoon she and Joe went to a small store in Milwaukee that sells such things. They bought some papyrus paintings, and the owner rang up the purchase and bagged it. Then he impulsively reached over to a shelf, took an item, and handed it to Arles. "Here," he said. "You need to have this.
It was a brass pyramid. It was identical to one she had at home, only larger. Arles looked at Joe. He was smiling. "Looks like you have a big-little pair now," he said. Just like the Santas her dad had given her, just like the rainbows. It was probably a coincidence. But how had the storekeeper known that this pyramid would have such special meaning for her? Slowly, more pairs began to come, most through unexplained circumstances. Sometimes the big came first, followed several weeks or months later by the little. For example, two years after her father's death, as Christmas approached, Arles was laid up from surgery, and her mother brought over a Santa for her collection. "I have several hundred now, so keeping them straight can be a challenge," Arles says. "But as soon as I saw it, I realized it was the small version of one I had picked up several years before." Her dad had been with her when she bought it.
Arles also noticed that her pairs seemed to arrive when she most missed her father or was having a difficult day because of her health or her job. Each unexpected treasure brought her much-needed reassurance. One year, Arles joined a Lenox ornament club in which the company sends figurines to members at random intervals. "You never knew when one would arrive," she says. "The day after a particularly rough day, a package came in the mail. It was a big snowman dad holding the hand of a small snowman girl." The timing was perfect. "I took this as a sign that Dad was still watching over us both and that things would work out."
Last summer Arles and Joe came across an exquisite angel figurine holding an armload of pink roses. The angel's name, according to the tag, was Emma. Her grandmother's name! Arles had to buy her. But when she went to the sales associate, she had a surprise. "Emma comes in a smaller version too," the associate explained. "It's the first time the company has ever done that." Arles was getting a funny feeling. Even though the figurines would not he delivered for a while, she decided to purchase both.
The figurines were delayed in shipment. Meanwhile, Arles learned that she would need surgery again. She was extremely worried, so she and Joe decided to enjoy a day in Lake Geneva, a tourist area in southern Wisconsin. "There just happened to be a huge merchant sale going on that day," Arles says, "and everywhere I looked, I saw big-little pairs—carved figures, wood chimes, on vendors' carts, in the VIP area." How she wanted to believe that such a happening was more than coincidence or her imagination, that such little signs were truly meaningful. But could she?
She got her answer a few weeks later, when she learned that her surgery had been successful. That day a deliveryman also brought her a package. Arles had been so absorbed that she had forgotten her Emma angels. Happily she opened the box—and gasped. The figurine she had seen at the display had been holding pink roses. But the roses in both of these angels' arms were yellow—the color that she and her grandmother Emma had always loved best.
Since her dad's death, Arles estimates that she has received some seventy-five big-little pairs. "I believe now that they are definitely messages from my dad, and probably Grandma Emma too. I know they are both safe and with the angels, sending me a little touch of heaven."
-
nashvelshi
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Once your angel is by your side everything is possible. Acknowledge that now. Open up your heart to your angel and ask for extra help in believing in yourself.
-Margaret Neylon
***
The Angel Wore a Black Mask
A lay chaplain encounters a heavenly guide in a raccoon coat.
By Diane H. Berger
Excerpted from "The Journal of Pastoral Care," Fall 1999, Vol. 53, No. 2.
On that particular morning, I was jarred awake by the phone ringing. For 22 months I had been the volunteer lay chaplain, and the only chaplain, for our local hospice program. "Things are bad at Mr. White's house. William is dying. The nurse and the family's volunteer have both been there all night and need to leave now. Are you available to stay with the family?" The request came from my friend, Betty, the volunteer coordinator.
A short while later, I find myself driving slowly and carefully along the twisting, turning roads in the hill country that is nestled in an area not far from the small town where I live. This is truly God's Country where the noise that invades the silence is the buzz of insects and the call of birds and animals; where one passes from the sun dappled road into the dancing shadows of overhanging tree limbs then out again, playing a game of hide-and-seek with the daystar that warms our earth.
William's family is exhausted. One daughter, Rita, who has been up most of the night, is trying to nap on the living room couch. The two younger daughters, Krista and Laurie, are talking quietly in the kitchen. Meg is at her father's bedside, and Catherine, William's wife, is nowhere to be seen, probably resting in her bedroom.
I soon learn that Meg is the one who has been her Dad's "boy"--the one who went fishing and hunting and learned to swing an ax in a masculine manner. This slim, attractive professional woman, wife, and mother of three, had promised her father that she would not leave him alone in his dying.
The hours drag by. I watch the sun as it journeys on its appointed path from a low rising point in the east past the noontime meridian. Meg and I discuss our shared belief that when a person dies, an angel or a family member will come to aid the newly deceased's soul on his or her journey to the light that is our God.
How aware is William of what is actually going on? I don't know. He hasn't uttered a sound since my arrival, but I know that the last sense to leave a person's physical body is that of hearing. And so we talk of the beauty of the day, of the birds at and below the feeders, and of the squirrel trying to shimmy up the pole to feast on seeds that were never intended for him.
The question I dread the most is, "How much longer can this go on?" I always wish at these moments that I were a prophet and knew the hour and minute, or at least the day when a patient will exhale that last breath.
"When?" Meg asks me repeatedly during the slow moving hours of the day.
I can only shrug my shoulders and reply, "Only God knows."
At one point, close to the evening meal time, I think death might be near, and I bring the family to the patient's bedside. But, once again, I am reminded that God's time is not our time. We wait and watch. His breathing is slower than ever. His skin is turning gray and feet are beginning to mottle. All are signs of impending death--but death will not come.
We take a break for supper; that is, all of us but Meg, who stays right by her father's side just as she promised. After dinner, we gather again in William's room. The shadows lengthened as the sun approaches the western horizon and dusk begins to descend. Suddenly I see it. The biggest raccoon I have ever seen in my life lumbers over the ridge of the hill that abuts the back yard. He waddles from side to side until he is under the swing set, and then he just sits and stares at us. He isn't foraging for good. He just stares.
"Look out the window at that huge raccoon. Have you seen that animal before?" I ask.
"No," Catherine says, "we've been watching a racoon come into the yard for food but it wasn't as big as this one."
The racoon and I then enter into a staring contest. It is similar to the action that follows a dare young children make with each other to see who will look away first.
"So have you finally come for him?" is the unspoken message from my brain to the raccoon's. I had recently read a book that talked of how angel messengers inhabit animal bodies. This is so typical of William's and Meg's beliefs. They will have no winged angels in gossamer dancing on the head of a pin or on the bed rails, but a heavenly being in a raccoon's coat will be most acceptable.
The patient clears his throat as if to say something to us or to whomever he sees. He takes another breath, clears his throat again--and dies. The racoon immediately leaves by the same route used for its entrance.
Perhaps it was just a fat raccoon, but you'll never convince Meg or me. Angels have many jobs but the two most obvious seem to be functioning as heralds of God's messages and leading souls back to their heavenly home.
-Margaret Neylon
***
The Angel Wore a Black Mask
A lay chaplain encounters a heavenly guide in a raccoon coat.
By Diane H. Berger
Excerpted from "The Journal of Pastoral Care," Fall 1999, Vol. 53, No. 2.
On that particular morning, I was jarred awake by the phone ringing. For 22 months I had been the volunteer lay chaplain, and the only chaplain, for our local hospice program. "Things are bad at Mr. White's house. William is dying. The nurse and the family's volunteer have both been there all night and need to leave now. Are you available to stay with the family?" The request came from my friend, Betty, the volunteer coordinator.
A short while later, I find myself driving slowly and carefully along the twisting, turning roads in the hill country that is nestled in an area not far from the small town where I live. This is truly God's Country where the noise that invades the silence is the buzz of insects and the call of birds and animals; where one passes from the sun dappled road into the dancing shadows of overhanging tree limbs then out again, playing a game of hide-and-seek with the daystar that warms our earth.
William's family is exhausted. One daughter, Rita, who has been up most of the night, is trying to nap on the living room couch. The two younger daughters, Krista and Laurie, are talking quietly in the kitchen. Meg is at her father's bedside, and Catherine, William's wife, is nowhere to be seen, probably resting in her bedroom.
I soon learn that Meg is the one who has been her Dad's "boy"--the one who went fishing and hunting and learned to swing an ax in a masculine manner. This slim, attractive professional woman, wife, and mother of three, had promised her father that she would not leave him alone in his dying.
The hours drag by. I watch the sun as it journeys on its appointed path from a low rising point in the east past the noontime meridian. Meg and I discuss our shared belief that when a person dies, an angel or a family member will come to aid the newly deceased's soul on his or her journey to the light that is our God.
How aware is William of what is actually going on? I don't know. He hasn't uttered a sound since my arrival, but I know that the last sense to leave a person's physical body is that of hearing. And so we talk of the beauty of the day, of the birds at and below the feeders, and of the squirrel trying to shimmy up the pole to feast on seeds that were never intended for him.
The question I dread the most is, "How much longer can this go on?" I always wish at these moments that I were a prophet and knew the hour and minute, or at least the day when a patient will exhale that last breath.
"When?" Meg asks me repeatedly during the slow moving hours of the day.
I can only shrug my shoulders and reply, "Only God knows."
At one point, close to the evening meal time, I think death might be near, and I bring the family to the patient's bedside. But, once again, I am reminded that God's time is not our time. We wait and watch. His breathing is slower than ever. His skin is turning gray and feet are beginning to mottle. All are signs of impending death--but death will not come.
We take a break for supper; that is, all of us but Meg, who stays right by her father's side just as she promised. After dinner, we gather again in William's room. The shadows lengthened as the sun approaches the western horizon and dusk begins to descend. Suddenly I see it. The biggest raccoon I have ever seen in my life lumbers over the ridge of the hill that abuts the back yard. He waddles from side to side until he is under the swing set, and then he just sits and stares at us. He isn't foraging for good. He just stares.
"Look out the window at that huge raccoon. Have you seen that animal before?" I ask.
"No," Catherine says, "we've been watching a racoon come into the yard for food but it wasn't as big as this one."
The racoon and I then enter into a staring contest. It is similar to the action that follows a dare young children make with each other to see who will look away first.
"So have you finally come for him?" is the unspoken message from my brain to the raccoon's. I had recently read a book that talked of how angel messengers inhabit animal bodies. This is so typical of William's and Meg's beliefs. They will have no winged angels in gossamer dancing on the head of a pin or on the bed rails, but a heavenly being in a raccoon's coat will be most acceptable.
The patient clears his throat as if to say something to us or to whomever he sees. He takes another breath, clears his throat again--and dies. The racoon immediately leaves by the same route used for its entrance.
Perhaps it was just a fat raccoon, but you'll never convince Meg or me. Angels have many jobs but the two most obvious seem to be functioning as heralds of God's messages and leading souls back to their heavenly home.
Petal Power
A mourning daughter finds a special present from her 'flower angel.'
By Joan Wester Anderson
Lynn's mother was a true "earth angel." She worked in a factory alongside big burly men, doing the same work, and never complained. If she saw a child without a coat, she would go to a store, buy one, and give it--and a big hug--to the little one. If someone admired a flower in her garden, she would pick it and present it to the admirer. She loved Christmas, Lynn says, because it was another chance to give. What she gave most was a positive attitude, and an infectious smile.
She was only 47 when she died, and people came from all over the country to pay their respects. The waitress who brought her morning coffee, the nurses who cared for her, perfect strangers who just heard about her…the line to the funeral home stretched around the block. Lynn did not know what she would do without her mother. The first year's holidays came: Easter, Memorial Day and then Thanksgiving. Lynn, who lived alone, mourned. Would life ever be good again? Then, two weeks before Christmas, she realized that she was getting depressed. It was time to go out and be with people, no matter how difficult it might be. Lynn had enough gas, and a dollar and 60 cents in her purse. The mall was only ten minutes from the house, and as she got her coat, she saw the first perfect snowflakes starting to fall. Her spirit lifted. Maybe it would be a happy day.
The mall parking lot, of course, was packed with cars. Lynn parked in the center, but she didn't mind the walk. The snowflakes seemed to be dancing all around her, and again, she felt cheered. Once inside, she strolled, admiring the window displays, noting the families laden down with packages, calling to their children in this seasonal juggling act. Families were everywhere, and she was alone. But she didn't feel lonely. She felt…happy.
Eventually she approached a flower shop that had extended bouquets onto the mall floor. She could already smell the roses and carnations, two of her favorites. She had to have a flower, she thought, leaning forward to pick up a rose. It would remind her of Mom, of the good times they'd shared, of spring and the promise of new life. She reached for her purse, remembering that she had only a dollar and sixty cents. The price sign on the roses was evident: "$1.50 plus tax." Too expensive. "How much for a carnation?" she asked the clerk.
"A dollar apiece, plus tax," the lady answered, busily arranging vases.
Well, that was too expensive too. She might need her money for something else. People reached by her, buying flowers with abandon. Slowly, Lynn put the rose back in its vase. Oh, how she longed for her mother. Even being almost penniless wouldn't have seemed so bad if Mom had been at the mall with her.
She took a deep breath. Christ's birthday was just around the corner, she was fine and had had the pleasure of smelling some of God's most beautiful fragrances. That was enough for her first day out. Slowly she made her way out of the mall, and though the parking lot, now inches deep with snow. No plows had yet come through, it was difficult to see more than a few yards ahead, and people were walking with care. Lynn avoided the slush thrown up by passing cars, and at last, saw her own. Quickly she approached the driver's side…and stopped.
Lying in the snow right new to her car door, with flakes gracefully falling upon it, was an individually-wrapped red rose. No footprints anywhere around…and surely the rose had not been here long or it would have been covered. But who had seen her looking at the rose? Who knew of her longing, her loneliness? As tears rolled down her cheeks, Lynn understood.
"My mom had been watching me," Lynn says. "My Mom and the Lord. They made certain that I had a rose to take home, just because they loved me." They sent it on angels' wings.
Lynn still has the dried rose, some 10 years later. It does not have the beauty it once did. "But when I look at that dried rose today, it still brings me so much joy I cannot describe it to anyone," she says. "Praise the Lord for my flower angel."
A mourning daughter finds a special present from her 'flower angel.'
By Joan Wester Anderson
Lynn's mother was a true "earth angel." She worked in a factory alongside big burly men, doing the same work, and never complained. If she saw a child without a coat, she would go to a store, buy one, and give it--and a big hug--to the little one. If someone admired a flower in her garden, she would pick it and present it to the admirer. She loved Christmas, Lynn says, because it was another chance to give. What she gave most was a positive attitude, and an infectious smile.
She was only 47 when she died, and people came from all over the country to pay their respects. The waitress who brought her morning coffee, the nurses who cared for her, perfect strangers who just heard about her…the line to the funeral home stretched around the block. Lynn did not know what she would do without her mother. The first year's holidays came: Easter, Memorial Day and then Thanksgiving. Lynn, who lived alone, mourned. Would life ever be good again? Then, two weeks before Christmas, she realized that she was getting depressed. It was time to go out and be with people, no matter how difficult it might be. Lynn had enough gas, and a dollar and 60 cents in her purse. The mall was only ten minutes from the house, and as she got her coat, she saw the first perfect snowflakes starting to fall. Her spirit lifted. Maybe it would be a happy day.
The mall parking lot, of course, was packed with cars. Lynn parked in the center, but she didn't mind the walk. The snowflakes seemed to be dancing all around her, and again, she felt cheered. Once inside, she strolled, admiring the window displays, noting the families laden down with packages, calling to their children in this seasonal juggling act. Families were everywhere, and she was alone. But she didn't feel lonely. She felt…happy.
Eventually she approached a flower shop that had extended bouquets onto the mall floor. She could already smell the roses and carnations, two of her favorites. She had to have a flower, she thought, leaning forward to pick up a rose. It would remind her of Mom, of the good times they'd shared, of spring and the promise of new life. She reached for her purse, remembering that she had only a dollar and sixty cents. The price sign on the roses was evident: "$1.50 plus tax." Too expensive. "How much for a carnation?" she asked the clerk.
"A dollar apiece, plus tax," the lady answered, busily arranging vases.
Well, that was too expensive too. She might need her money for something else. People reached by her, buying flowers with abandon. Slowly, Lynn put the rose back in its vase. Oh, how she longed for her mother. Even being almost penniless wouldn't have seemed so bad if Mom had been at the mall with her.
She took a deep breath. Christ's birthday was just around the corner, she was fine and had had the pleasure of smelling some of God's most beautiful fragrances. That was enough for her first day out. Slowly she made her way out of the mall, and though the parking lot, now inches deep with snow. No plows had yet come through, it was difficult to see more than a few yards ahead, and people were walking with care. Lynn avoided the slush thrown up by passing cars, and at last, saw her own. Quickly she approached the driver's side…and stopped.
Lying in the snow right new to her car door, with flakes gracefully falling upon it, was an individually-wrapped red rose. No footprints anywhere around…and surely the rose had not been here long or it would have been covered. But who had seen her looking at the rose? Who knew of her longing, her loneliness? As tears rolled down her cheeks, Lynn understood.
"My mom had been watching me," Lynn says. "My Mom and the Lord. They made certain that I had a rose to take home, just because they loved me." They sent it on angels' wings.
Lynn still has the dried rose, some 10 years later. It does not have the beauty it once did. "But when I look at that dried rose today, it still brings me so much joy I cannot describe it to anyone," she says. "Praise the Lord for my flower angel."
Angels Are for Real
A minister recalls his brush with angels, both in his congregation and in his personal life.
By Dr. Arthur Caliandro
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/93/story_9396_1.html
This article is adapted from a sermon delivered at Marble Collegiate Church.
Years ago, my family and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Italy. We spent two weeks crisscrossing the country. At the end of our trip, we did something very special. We visited the house where my father was born in a little town called Ciegli, near Bari.
As I stood before that house, I visualized my father as a child, playing in the street. Then I imagined his mother leaning out one of the windows, calling him for dinner, just as my mother had done for me.
After visiting that house, we went to find the summer home of my father's family. We drove out into the countryside and got lost. After searching for an hour and a half, I was still making many wrong turns down many wrong roads. It was getting late, my family was impatient, and I felt a growing desperation. I didn't know what to do. Then I recalled something I had learned from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. I said to my family, "I need a few moments to be quiet while I figure this out."
I stopped the car and worked to relax my mind and my body. I spent two or three minutes getting centered in that place of stillness within, and then I addressed my father with my inner voice.
"Daddy," I said, "please show us the way to the house."
In a second, my inner voice answered, "Go down the road about a half mile. There's a driveway. Turn left." I followed those directions, and there was the house.
For me, those events seemed so simple and natural at the time. But when I thought about them later, I realized that, in that instant, I had experienced the intersection of this earthly experience and a higher realm. It was a supernatural moment for me.
For years, I believed that the voice I heard was my father's. But I have since come to believe that the presence that interceded on our behalf that night was probably a guardian angel. Because, hear me, angels are for real.
Even most skeptical people believe our earthly life is not all there is. We know there's another level of reality, another dimension, a spiritual dimension. If you have trouble accepting that idea, think about radio waves. We know there are radio waves, even though we can't see them, touch them, or feel them. Like radio waves, a spiritual wavelength also exists. When we tune into it, extraordinary things happen.
Angels are the messengers from this other dimension. Think for a moment about the wonder of the nativity. One day, a young woman named Mary was astounded when an angel appeared and told her she was to bear a child and that child was going to make an enormous difference in the world.
Months later, angels appeared to shepherds in a field. They were scared, and the angel reassured them by saying, "Don't be afraid. I've got good news for you. Not far from here, in the city of David, a savior has been born, who is Christ the Lord."
When Jesus's work was nearly done, he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. He knew that the next day would bring an agonizing death on the cross. Jesus felt abandoned by friends--even by His God--and in desperation He cried out, "Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me. Not my will, but let yours be done." Then the Bible tells us: "An angel came from heaven and gave him strength."
At Easter, the two Marys went to the tomb to pray. The Bible says that an angel rolled away the stone. When the women saw that Jesus was not there, the angel told them: "Don't be afraid. He's not here. He is risen." Again an angel came bearing momentous news.
Are angels still around? Are they here with us in this church?
I know they are. Over many decades, countless prayers have been said here and I believe our walls still hold the power and faith contained in all of them. Only last year, two women were sitting in our balcony. One was a church member; the other was here for the very first time. As the visitor was listening to the choir, she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She looked again, and thought she saw the wings of an angel. She turned away, then turned back again, and the wings were still there. She turned to her friend and said, "Do you see what I see?"
The other woman said, "Yes. I see an angel."
About a dozen years ago, I was about to marry a certain middle-aged couple. Some people said, "Don't do it, Arthur. This marriage is not going to work; it's the wrong thing."
Yet the wedding was very uplifting. After the service, a man who had been sitting in the back of the church came forward and said, "Arthur, did you notice anything different about that service? Did you feel any special presence?"
"No, why?" I asked.
"During the entire ceremony, a group of angels was hovering over you and the wedding party." Years later, that man and woman remain wonderfully happy in their marriage. I believe their happiness is due to the angelic presence in their lives.
I also know there is a connection between prayer and angels. I once read: "When you pray for someone else, an angel goes and sits on that person's shoulder."
Not long ago, I heard a wonderful true story from a friend. A missionary, on furlough from his assignment in Africa, was visiting his family in Michigan. While there, he preached a sermon in his home church, which was supporting his missionary work.
He talked about the small field hospital where he worked. Every other week, he had to make a two-day bicycle trip to a nearby city to obtain supplies, medicine, and cash. On one of his trips, he witnessed a fight between two young men. One of them was injured and the missionary went to him. While treating his injuries, he told him about Jesus's and God's love.
Two weeks later, when the missionary was again in the city, the same young man stopped him and said, "I want to tell you something. After you were here two weeks ago, five of my friends and I followed you to where you were camping by the road. We knew you had money and drugs, and we intended to kill and rob you. But when we approached where you were sleeping, we saw 26 armed guards, who scared us away."
As the missionary was telling this story, a man in the congregation stood up and said, "Excuse me, but I need to interrupt you and ask a question. When was the date of that incident?" The missionary thought a moment and then told him.
The man responded, "On that day, I was going to play golf. But I had a very strong urge to pray for you. It was so compelling that I called a group of people and said, 'Meet me in the sanctuary, we have to pray for our missionary friend.' So we met here, and we prayed. Would all of you who were with me that morning stand up?"
They all stood up. And then he counted the men who were standing--10, 15, and finally 26.
So I say again, angels are for real. Give them the time. Give them the space. Heed the messages they bring from that other higher realm and they will surely serve you.
A minister recalls his brush with angels, both in his congregation and in his personal life.
By Dr. Arthur Caliandro
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/93/story_9396_1.html
This article is adapted from a sermon delivered at Marble Collegiate Church.
Years ago, my family and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Italy. We spent two weeks crisscrossing the country. At the end of our trip, we did something very special. We visited the house where my father was born in a little town called Ciegli, near Bari.
As I stood before that house, I visualized my father as a child, playing in the street. Then I imagined his mother leaning out one of the windows, calling him for dinner, just as my mother had done for me.
After visiting that house, we went to find the summer home of my father's family. We drove out into the countryside and got lost. After searching for an hour and a half, I was still making many wrong turns down many wrong roads. It was getting late, my family was impatient, and I felt a growing desperation. I didn't know what to do. Then I recalled something I had learned from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. I said to my family, "I need a few moments to be quiet while I figure this out."
I stopped the car and worked to relax my mind and my body. I spent two or three minutes getting centered in that place of stillness within, and then I addressed my father with my inner voice.
"Daddy," I said, "please show us the way to the house."
In a second, my inner voice answered, "Go down the road about a half mile. There's a driveway. Turn left." I followed those directions, and there was the house.
For me, those events seemed so simple and natural at the time. But when I thought about them later, I realized that, in that instant, I had experienced the intersection of this earthly experience and a higher realm. It was a supernatural moment for me.
For years, I believed that the voice I heard was my father's. But I have since come to believe that the presence that interceded on our behalf that night was probably a guardian angel. Because, hear me, angels are for real.
Even most skeptical people believe our earthly life is not all there is. We know there's another level of reality, another dimension, a spiritual dimension. If you have trouble accepting that idea, think about radio waves. We know there are radio waves, even though we can't see them, touch them, or feel them. Like radio waves, a spiritual wavelength also exists. When we tune into it, extraordinary things happen.
Angels are the messengers from this other dimension. Think for a moment about the wonder of the nativity. One day, a young woman named Mary was astounded when an angel appeared and told her she was to bear a child and that child was going to make an enormous difference in the world.
Months later, angels appeared to shepherds in a field. They were scared, and the angel reassured them by saying, "Don't be afraid. I've got good news for you. Not far from here, in the city of David, a savior has been born, who is Christ the Lord."
When Jesus's work was nearly done, he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. He knew that the next day would bring an agonizing death on the cross. Jesus felt abandoned by friends--even by His God--and in desperation He cried out, "Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me. Not my will, but let yours be done." Then the Bible tells us: "An angel came from heaven and gave him strength."
At Easter, the two Marys went to the tomb to pray. The Bible says that an angel rolled away the stone. When the women saw that Jesus was not there, the angel told them: "Don't be afraid. He's not here. He is risen." Again an angel came bearing momentous news.
Are angels still around? Are they here with us in this church?
I know they are. Over many decades, countless prayers have been said here and I believe our walls still hold the power and faith contained in all of them. Only last year, two women were sitting in our balcony. One was a church member; the other was here for the very first time. As the visitor was listening to the choir, she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She looked again, and thought she saw the wings of an angel. She turned away, then turned back again, and the wings were still there. She turned to her friend and said, "Do you see what I see?"
The other woman said, "Yes. I see an angel."
About a dozen years ago, I was about to marry a certain middle-aged couple. Some people said, "Don't do it, Arthur. This marriage is not going to work; it's the wrong thing."
Yet the wedding was very uplifting. After the service, a man who had been sitting in the back of the church came forward and said, "Arthur, did you notice anything different about that service? Did you feel any special presence?"
"No, why?" I asked.
"During the entire ceremony, a group of angels was hovering over you and the wedding party." Years later, that man and woman remain wonderfully happy in their marriage. I believe their happiness is due to the angelic presence in their lives.
I also know there is a connection between prayer and angels. I once read: "When you pray for someone else, an angel goes and sits on that person's shoulder."
Not long ago, I heard a wonderful true story from a friend. A missionary, on furlough from his assignment in Africa, was visiting his family in Michigan. While there, he preached a sermon in his home church, which was supporting his missionary work.
He talked about the small field hospital where he worked. Every other week, he had to make a two-day bicycle trip to a nearby city to obtain supplies, medicine, and cash. On one of his trips, he witnessed a fight between two young men. One of them was injured and the missionary went to him. While treating his injuries, he told him about Jesus's and God's love.
Two weeks later, when the missionary was again in the city, the same young man stopped him and said, "I want to tell you something. After you were here two weeks ago, five of my friends and I followed you to where you were camping by the road. We knew you had money and drugs, and we intended to kill and rob you. But when we approached where you were sleeping, we saw 26 armed guards, who scared us away."
As the missionary was telling this story, a man in the congregation stood up and said, "Excuse me, but I need to interrupt you and ask a question. When was the date of that incident?" The missionary thought a moment and then told him.
The man responded, "On that day, I was going to play golf. But I had a very strong urge to pray for you. It was so compelling that I called a group of people and said, 'Meet me in the sanctuary, we have to pray for our missionary friend.' So we met here, and we prayed. Would all of you who were with me that morning stand up?"
They all stood up. And then he counted the men who were standing--10, 15, and finally 26.
So I say again, angels are for real. Give them the time. Give them the space. Heed the messages they bring from that other higher realm and they will surely serve you.
The Secret of Inspiration: Living in Gratitude
An audio selection read by Dr. Wayne Dyer: The Mysterious Butterfly
What happens when you choose to live at the level of Spirit, in a state of gratitude from morning to night? In his new book "Inspiration," best-selling author and spiritual teacher Dr. Wayne Dyer explains that when you're living in Spirit, your "vibrational energy is more attuned to that of the creative energy of the Universe." Strange, even miraculous things can happen at this level of energy.
Listen as Dr. Dyer tells of a profoundly mystical experience that occurred to him while in this state of inspiration. It started with a monarch butterfly...
A link on the page of the following URL address has a link to the audio file about the incident with the butterfly.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/189/story_18945_1.html#
An audio selection read by Dr. Wayne Dyer: The Mysterious Butterfly
What happens when you choose to live at the level of Spirit, in a state of gratitude from morning to night? In his new book "Inspiration," best-selling author and spiritual teacher Dr. Wayne Dyer explains that when you're living in Spirit, your "vibrational energy is more attuned to that of the creative energy of the Universe." Strange, even miraculous things can happen at this level of energy.
Listen as Dr. Dyer tells of a profoundly mystical experience that occurred to him while in this state of inspiration. It started with a monarch butterfly...
A link on the page of the following URL address has a link to the audio file about the incident with the butterfly.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/189/story_18945_1.html#
Things From Heaven
The adventure of opening an angel store.
By Keith Richardson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/29/story ... mc_id=NL24
Reprinted from "Andy Lakey's Psychomanteum" by Keith Richardson, with permission of Ventura Press.
This article was originally featured in 2000.
Francesca began having strange, recurring dreams where she would find herself walking outside and looking skyward. Then the clouds would open to reveal hundreds of beautiful angels. She would look at them and smile, and the angels would smile back at her, but no one spoke.
These dreams continued until January 1995, when she began to see something different. Alejandro Figueroa, a childhood friend from Nicaragua who had died the previous year, came to Francesca with a beautiful gold-bound book.
"What are you doing here, Alejandro?" Francesca asked, surprised. "You're supposed to be dead."
"I know I'm dead, but I've been sent to bring you this book."
"What kind of book is this?" she asked.
"Read the book with me and find out."
Alejandro opened the golden book. It was full of information about angels. Francesca read the following passages:
"Angels are beings of light."
"Angels are messengers of God."
"Angels bring God's love to the world."
She read the entire book in her dream.
Later at breakfast with our two sons, Keith and Kevin, Francesca enthusiastically related her dream.
Kevin, our youngest, who was 13 at the time, shook his head and said, "No, Mom. I don't think so! You can't read in a dream."
Kevin continued. "One side of your brain reads and the other side dreams. You can't do both at the same time. Either you didn't read the book or it wasn't a dream."
Francesca and I stared at each other. We knew Kevin was right but we could not explain what had happened.
"I know I read the book," Francesca said. "I remember what I read."
With that, she again began quoting the things she had read.
"'Angels are messengers of God. They're beings of light. They bring God's love to the world.' I know what I read!"
Later that day we walked down Main Street searching for a site for our proposed thrift store. To our surprise, we found a storefront with a "for lease" sign in the window. The landlord's office was around the corner, so we went there and spoke to his representative. He was anxious to have someone lease the property.
The storefront was in the worst part of downtown Ventura. The awning hung in shreds. Street people who were living in the recessed entrance to the small shop were begging us for money.
The inside was worse. The building had most recently been used as a drug rehabilitation recreation center. The place had recently been fumigated, and dead rats and cockroaches were spread among the cigarettes. As we walked further into the building, things got worse. The back room was filled, floor to ceiling, with broken furniture, rotting carpets, and old mattresses.
Francesca looked at this hopeless mess, this renovation disaster, and announced, "This is perfect. This is where we're supposed to be. We're not supposed to have a thrift shop. We're supposed to have an angel store here. That's what my dream was all about." I disagreed. "We don't know anything about running a retail gift store," I pointed out. "We don't know where to purchase angel gifts. We don't know how to display angel gifts.
Things from Heaven: An Angel Store
We opened our store April 1, 1995 with little fanfare. The original name of our business was Things from Heaven Food and Gifts. We had no sign, no telephone and we did no advertising. Those were luxuries requiring money we did not have.
We found right away that our customers were not interested in food. They were only interested in our angels. Within several months, we closed out all the food and sold only angel gifts. We also changed our store's name to Things from Heaven: An Angel Store.
Two months later, in June 1995, Monsignor O'Brien from the nearby San Buenaventura Mission came to bless our store. He told us that the land our building occupied had once been the mission gardens. Once the store was blessed, magical things began to occur.
When we placed two photos of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the shelf of an ugly old cabinet, it bloomed into a spontaneous downtown shrine. Visitors to the store began to write messages on little pieces of paper and put them on the cabinet around the pictures.
Today people come from miles away to pray and write notes to God and place them on that shrine. The most important thing to happen, however, was the arrival of Andy Lakey's art in our store.
When I bought our first three Lakey paintings, I faced a major retail challenge. I wanted to sell them but I also needed to keep some on display in order to sell more. Lakey suggested I do what many of his other galleries were doing: commission "spiritual energy" paintings.
"What is a spiritual energy painting?" I naturally asked.
"I have the gift of feeling the energy from spiritual items," he explained. "Whenever I put a meaningful item behind one of my canvases, I pick up its energy and I paint what I receive.
"Spiritual energy is like a lake, I reach in and grab some of it and put it on the canvas. I never know what I am going to paint. Collectors are always amazed by the results."
"What kinds of items can we use?" I wondered.
"It can be almost anything," he said. "It can be a photograph, a letter, a fingerprint, an outline of someone's hand or any other thing that means something to your customer.
Our first request for a spiritual energy painting came from a Christian youth group leader named Arley. He and his group lived in a city about two hours away, and they had found our store while on a spiritual retreat in Ventura.
Arley commissioned an 8-by-10-inch painting. He gave me a photo of his entire group so Lakey could use its spiritual energy. Arley included a note requesting a painting that would enhance spirituality and healing within the group. I sent the photo and note to Lakey and about six weeks later I received Arley's painting.
It seemed so odd in style and format that I was concerned. It was unlike Lakey's other creations. Seven tiny golden angel figures each had a wavy line under them. They looked to me like small golden bugs surfing on seven wavy little surfboards. The more I studied it, the more concerned I became. I suspected Arley and his group would ask for their money back.
Arley and two assistants arrived on a Saturday morning. I showed them the painting making certain they saw their youth group photo taped behind it. Arley looked at it and then whispered something to one of the others. They passed it back and forth among the three of them. I became more and more concerned.
My worst fears seemed confirmed. Arley and his assistants put their hands over their eyes and began to shake their heads back and forth.
"What did you tell Andy Lakey about our group?" Arley asked as he pointed at me.
Now I was on the defensive.
"All I told him was that you wanted a painting that would help with your group's spirituality and healing. If you're dissatisfied, I'll have Lakey paint you something else."
"But we love this painting!" Arley smiled. "We're totally amazed! We're blown away! How did Andy Lakey know our group's philosophy?" he asked. "Did you tell him?"
"I don't know anything about it. What is this philosophy anyway?" I asked.
"It's right here on our painting," Arley responded. "Don't you see it? We saw it right away"
"No," I said. "I don't see anything special at all."
"Every morning when we start our meeting, we tell our kids the same thing. 'We all walk different paths, but we're all are going to the same place, seven days a week.'"
Then I saw it clearly. There were seven little golden angels next to wavy lines, which represented the paths. They were all going to the same place. All the angels were headed toward the light of heaven.
I have met with Arley several times since. He was so impressed that he commissioned spiritual energy paintings for his two sons and his daughter. He tells me the paintings continue to bring his children and his youth group renewed peace and increased spirituality.
The adventure of opening an angel store.
By Keith Richardson
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/29/story ... mc_id=NL24
Reprinted from "Andy Lakey's Psychomanteum" by Keith Richardson, with permission of Ventura Press.
This article was originally featured in 2000.
Francesca began having strange, recurring dreams where she would find herself walking outside and looking skyward. Then the clouds would open to reveal hundreds of beautiful angels. She would look at them and smile, and the angels would smile back at her, but no one spoke.
These dreams continued until January 1995, when she began to see something different. Alejandro Figueroa, a childhood friend from Nicaragua who had died the previous year, came to Francesca with a beautiful gold-bound book.
"What are you doing here, Alejandro?" Francesca asked, surprised. "You're supposed to be dead."
"I know I'm dead, but I've been sent to bring you this book."
"What kind of book is this?" she asked.
"Read the book with me and find out."
Alejandro opened the golden book. It was full of information about angels. Francesca read the following passages:
"Angels are beings of light."
"Angels are messengers of God."
"Angels bring God's love to the world."
She read the entire book in her dream.
Later at breakfast with our two sons, Keith and Kevin, Francesca enthusiastically related her dream.
Kevin, our youngest, who was 13 at the time, shook his head and said, "No, Mom. I don't think so! You can't read in a dream."
Kevin continued. "One side of your brain reads and the other side dreams. You can't do both at the same time. Either you didn't read the book or it wasn't a dream."
Francesca and I stared at each other. We knew Kevin was right but we could not explain what had happened.
"I know I read the book," Francesca said. "I remember what I read."
With that, she again began quoting the things she had read.
"'Angels are messengers of God. They're beings of light. They bring God's love to the world.' I know what I read!"
Later that day we walked down Main Street searching for a site for our proposed thrift store. To our surprise, we found a storefront with a "for lease" sign in the window. The landlord's office was around the corner, so we went there and spoke to his representative. He was anxious to have someone lease the property.
The storefront was in the worst part of downtown Ventura. The awning hung in shreds. Street people who were living in the recessed entrance to the small shop were begging us for money.
The inside was worse. The building had most recently been used as a drug rehabilitation recreation center. The place had recently been fumigated, and dead rats and cockroaches were spread among the cigarettes. As we walked further into the building, things got worse. The back room was filled, floor to ceiling, with broken furniture, rotting carpets, and old mattresses.
Francesca looked at this hopeless mess, this renovation disaster, and announced, "This is perfect. This is where we're supposed to be. We're not supposed to have a thrift shop. We're supposed to have an angel store here. That's what my dream was all about." I disagreed. "We don't know anything about running a retail gift store," I pointed out. "We don't know where to purchase angel gifts. We don't know how to display angel gifts.
Things from Heaven: An Angel Store
We opened our store April 1, 1995 with little fanfare. The original name of our business was Things from Heaven Food and Gifts. We had no sign, no telephone and we did no advertising. Those were luxuries requiring money we did not have.
We found right away that our customers were not interested in food. They were only interested in our angels. Within several months, we closed out all the food and sold only angel gifts. We also changed our store's name to Things from Heaven: An Angel Store.
Two months later, in June 1995, Monsignor O'Brien from the nearby San Buenaventura Mission came to bless our store. He told us that the land our building occupied had once been the mission gardens. Once the store was blessed, magical things began to occur.
When we placed two photos of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the shelf of an ugly old cabinet, it bloomed into a spontaneous downtown shrine. Visitors to the store began to write messages on little pieces of paper and put them on the cabinet around the pictures.
Today people come from miles away to pray and write notes to God and place them on that shrine. The most important thing to happen, however, was the arrival of Andy Lakey's art in our store.
When I bought our first three Lakey paintings, I faced a major retail challenge. I wanted to sell them but I also needed to keep some on display in order to sell more. Lakey suggested I do what many of his other galleries were doing: commission "spiritual energy" paintings.
"What is a spiritual energy painting?" I naturally asked.
"I have the gift of feeling the energy from spiritual items," he explained. "Whenever I put a meaningful item behind one of my canvases, I pick up its energy and I paint what I receive.
"Spiritual energy is like a lake, I reach in and grab some of it and put it on the canvas. I never know what I am going to paint. Collectors are always amazed by the results."
"What kinds of items can we use?" I wondered.
"It can be almost anything," he said. "It can be a photograph, a letter, a fingerprint, an outline of someone's hand or any other thing that means something to your customer.
Our first request for a spiritual energy painting came from a Christian youth group leader named Arley. He and his group lived in a city about two hours away, and they had found our store while on a spiritual retreat in Ventura.
Arley commissioned an 8-by-10-inch painting. He gave me a photo of his entire group so Lakey could use its spiritual energy. Arley included a note requesting a painting that would enhance spirituality and healing within the group. I sent the photo and note to Lakey and about six weeks later I received Arley's painting.
It seemed so odd in style and format that I was concerned. It was unlike Lakey's other creations. Seven tiny golden angel figures each had a wavy line under them. They looked to me like small golden bugs surfing on seven wavy little surfboards. The more I studied it, the more concerned I became. I suspected Arley and his group would ask for their money back.
Arley and two assistants arrived on a Saturday morning. I showed them the painting making certain they saw their youth group photo taped behind it. Arley looked at it and then whispered something to one of the others. They passed it back and forth among the three of them. I became more and more concerned.
My worst fears seemed confirmed. Arley and his assistants put their hands over their eyes and began to shake their heads back and forth.
"What did you tell Andy Lakey about our group?" Arley asked as he pointed at me.
Now I was on the defensive.
"All I told him was that you wanted a painting that would help with your group's spirituality and healing. If you're dissatisfied, I'll have Lakey paint you something else."
"But we love this painting!" Arley smiled. "We're totally amazed! We're blown away! How did Andy Lakey know our group's philosophy?" he asked. "Did you tell him?"
"I don't know anything about it. What is this philosophy anyway?" I asked.
"It's right here on our painting," Arley responded. "Don't you see it? We saw it right away"
"No," I said. "I don't see anything special at all."
"Every morning when we start our meeting, we tell our kids the same thing. 'We all walk different paths, but we're all are going to the same place, seven days a week.'"
Then I saw it clearly. There were seven little golden angels next to wavy lines, which represented the paths. They were all going to the same place. All the angels were headed toward the light of heaven.
I have met with Arley several times since. He was so impressed that he commissioned spiritual energy paintings for his two sons and his daughter. He tells me the paintings continue to bring his children and his youth group renewed peace and increased spirituality.
Angels in the Classroom
'Clearly, he knew there was no way his demands could be met and had intended all along on using his bomb...'
By Ron and Nate Hartley
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/62/story_6299_1.html
Reprinted with permission from Angels on Earth, a Guideposts publication.
Ron Hartley
In the spring of 1986, I was a sheriff’s investigator for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in Cokeville, a little ranching town nestled in the craggy mountains of western Wyoming. On May 16, at approximately 1:30 p.m., a man with a bomb--a warped criminal genius named David Gary Young--seized the Cokeville Elementary School and threatened mass murder if his bizarre demands were not met. Among those he held hostage were my four children, including my six-year-old son, Nathan.
Nathan Hartley
After lunch, strange things began to happen at school. All of us kids and the teachers were herded into Mrs. Mitchell’s first-grade classroom. Somebody said something about a safety demonstration and a big surprise. I thought, Cool, no more class today! Then I saw him--a raggedy man with wild eyes and a gun. He had shaggy hair and a red beard. A plain-looking woman was with him. She acted as his helper. The man growled orders at us. There were a whole bunch of rifles and guns lined up under the blackboard at the front of the room. The man threatened to shoot anyone who gave him trouble. Pretty soon everyone was jammed shoulder to shoulder in the room. It was stuffy and there was a strong smell of gasoline in the air.
What was really frightening, though, was a shopping cart he had--the kind you use at the supermarket. It was full of wires and metal and was attached to him by a string. Notebooks were strewn across the floor. When he and the woman finished piling up the notebooks, the man waved his gun and shouted at us, "I am a revolutionary! I am the most wanted man in the country!"
Ron
David Gary Young was no stranger to Cokeville. Some years earlier he had been appointed town marshal. Soon, however, it became disturbingly clear that he fancied himself another Wyatt Earp. He swaggered around town, recklessly twirling a pair of loaded side arms. He was given to irrational outbursts. In a matter of months his erratic behavior got him summarily dismissed. When he married a local woman, a would–be café singer named Doris Luff, and roared off on his motorcycle, the townspeople thought they’d seen the last of him. Now he was back.
The shopping cart was filled with deadly explosives. Young had attached the bomb’s trigger mechanism to his wrist with a short length of twine. If anything happened to David Gary Young, the whole school would be blown sky-high with him.
Eventually, Young sent out his demands to the police officers who had surrounded the school. He wanted $300 million in ransom for the 167 hostages he held--students, teachers, school workers, and a UPS driver, nearly a quarter of Cokeville’s population. He also wanted a personal phone call from the president of the United States.
Nathan
Some of the kids started crying after the man with the red beard said he was the most wanted man in the country. Some of us started to pray quietly. I don’t know why but I wasn’t that scared. I knew it was a very dangerous situation, but I didn’t think about being hurt. But the smell of gasoline! The fumes were overpowering. Some of the kids started getting sick. The man wouldn’t let anyone leave the room so the kids threw up in wastebaskets. Then he ordered the windows opened.
The woman who was with him did everything he said. Her name was Doris. The funny thing was she seemed pretty nice. She walked around talking to us, and even got us interested in playing games. She said, “Think of this as an adventure, something you can tell your own kids and grandkids about.” The sort of calmed the tension, and some of the kids and teachers started singing “Happy Birthday” to my best friend, Jeremiah Moore, who turned seven that day. Still there was something scary about the woman.
After an hour or so, a lot of the kids were getting fidgety and some of the real young ones started to edge around the man with the shopping cart. This made him even angrier. Finally he asked a teacher to take some masking tape and mark off a square around him on the floor. “Cross this line of death,” he warned, “and I’ll start shooting the grown-ups. I’ll shoot everyone if I have to!” Another hour passed with all of us crammed into Mrs. Mitchell’s classroom. The man was acting more and more nervous, like he might explode. Sweat dripped down from his face and his eyes got wild. Then he carefully transferred the string from his wrist to the woman’s and headed toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” he muttered.
Ron
Negotiations dragged on. Clearly, Young knew there was no way his demands could be met and had intended all along on using his shopping-cart bomb. He had combined one jug of gasoline with loose ammunition, powerful blasting caps, flour and aluminum powder. The string attached to his wrist led to a spring-loaded clothespin. If Young pulled the string, the clothespin would snap shut, triggering a battery-operated detonator.
The initial explosion would launch the flour and aluminum powder into the air, igniting the gasoline and triggering a second explosion. In the middle of this deadly hell, hundreds of rounds of ammunition packed into the shopping cart would be set off, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Admittedly, it was a fiendishly ingenious design, a bomb constructed to inflict maximum terror and bloodshed. But the bomb was as unstable as its maker.
Nathan
I was sitting in the classroom playing with a toy when something made me look up. That’s when I saw the angels. They were shiny, with flowing white robes. Some were holding hands. They glided down through the ceiling, then hung in the air for a second. I felt totally safe. Everyone seemed to have an angel. They came down next to us. My angel was a beautiful shining woman. It was almost as if she landed on my shoulder. She said, “Don’t be scared, Nathan. Get up and go to the window. The bomb is about to go off.” I did just what she said. Other children started doing the same thing. Just then something startled the lady at the front of the classroom. She whirled around.
There was a horrible explosion. Everything turned black. People screamed. Something went off, sounding like a giant string of firecrackers exploding. There were flashes of light and a whirring filled the room. Somebody pulled me down; it was my sister. A teacher helped me crawl through the window. Another teacher caught me and put me on the ground and told me to run away as fast as I could. A crowd of police and others had gathered and I raced across the playground and found my mother.
Ron
On the morning of the fateful day in Cokeville, I had been out of town on assignment. I returned in the afternoon, unaware of the terror unfolding at my children’s school. But as I entered the town I knew something was wrong. My stomach twisted. Cars were backed up and a civil defense worker was directing traffic. I asked what was wrong.
“A bomb went off at the elementary school twenty minutes ago,” she said. In panic and shock I sped to the school. Smoke thickened the air. Everywhere people were weeping. I pushed my way through the throng of cops, townspeople and media folk, looking for my wife, Claudia, and our four children. The local sheriff saw me and told me the kids were fine, but that Claudia had taken them to the hospital to be checked out.
Of the 167 hostages--150 children and 17 adults--quite a few had burns and cuts; Nathan was one of them. Miraculously, none of them had been killed. The same could not be said for David Gary Young and his wife. Both had perished. When the bomb went off, Young had charged from the bathroom, wielding a .45 caliber pistol and a .22 caliber pistol. He fired the .22 at a teacher, John Miller, wounding him in the shoulder. He then raced to the burning classroom, where he found Doris engulfed in flames. Pitifully, she staggered toward him, arms outstretched. Young raised the .45 and fired, killing her. He then went back into the bathroom, pressed the muzzle under his chin and pulled the trigger.
For months I examined the evidence and Young’s numerous diaries--the notebooks he had stacked in the classroom. They told the ghastly story of his madness. After blowing up the school, he believed Doris, the children and he would be reincarnated into a new world where he would lead his charges in paradise.
When my investigation was finally over and all the parts of the awful puzzle had been found, I couldn’t help feeling that a few pieces didn’t fit. For instance, how could so much ammunition go off in a packed room without fatally injuring anyone? Furthermore, the second explosion could have killed everyone instantly. Yet the bomb didn’t explode as intended, even though Young, a man with a high IQ, had rigged it with several blasting caps. We found that one of the lead wires had been inexplicably cut.
Two weeks before the explosion, an unexplained short in the school’s fire alarm system kept setting it off, initiating numerous unplanned fire drills. The children became highly proficient at emergency evacuations.
But for a hard-nosed investigator like me, the angels were the most difficult part to accept. I grilled Nathan about his story, but he never wavered. In fact, two other children said they too had seen angels. They told of glimmering robed figures descending from above, warning of the blast and directing them safely to the windows. Children who had not discussed it among themselves told similar stories.
As I said, I deal in facts. And one hard fact stands out above all the others: 167 people escaped with their lives when the odds against even a fraction of them surviving the cunning wrath of a desperate madman were slim. The conclusion we have all reached in Cokeville is that God sent his angels to rescue our children and keep them from harm.
'Clearly, he knew there was no way his demands could be met and had intended all along on using his bomb...'
By Ron and Nate Hartley
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/62/story_6299_1.html
Reprinted with permission from Angels on Earth, a Guideposts publication.
Ron Hartley
In the spring of 1986, I was a sheriff’s investigator for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in Cokeville, a little ranching town nestled in the craggy mountains of western Wyoming. On May 16, at approximately 1:30 p.m., a man with a bomb--a warped criminal genius named David Gary Young--seized the Cokeville Elementary School and threatened mass murder if his bizarre demands were not met. Among those he held hostage were my four children, including my six-year-old son, Nathan.
Nathan Hartley
After lunch, strange things began to happen at school. All of us kids and the teachers were herded into Mrs. Mitchell’s first-grade classroom. Somebody said something about a safety demonstration and a big surprise. I thought, Cool, no more class today! Then I saw him--a raggedy man with wild eyes and a gun. He had shaggy hair and a red beard. A plain-looking woman was with him. She acted as his helper. The man growled orders at us. There were a whole bunch of rifles and guns lined up under the blackboard at the front of the room. The man threatened to shoot anyone who gave him trouble. Pretty soon everyone was jammed shoulder to shoulder in the room. It was stuffy and there was a strong smell of gasoline in the air.
What was really frightening, though, was a shopping cart he had--the kind you use at the supermarket. It was full of wires and metal and was attached to him by a string. Notebooks were strewn across the floor. When he and the woman finished piling up the notebooks, the man waved his gun and shouted at us, "I am a revolutionary! I am the most wanted man in the country!"
Ron
David Gary Young was no stranger to Cokeville. Some years earlier he had been appointed town marshal. Soon, however, it became disturbingly clear that he fancied himself another Wyatt Earp. He swaggered around town, recklessly twirling a pair of loaded side arms. He was given to irrational outbursts. In a matter of months his erratic behavior got him summarily dismissed. When he married a local woman, a would–be café singer named Doris Luff, and roared off on his motorcycle, the townspeople thought they’d seen the last of him. Now he was back.
The shopping cart was filled with deadly explosives. Young had attached the bomb’s trigger mechanism to his wrist with a short length of twine. If anything happened to David Gary Young, the whole school would be blown sky-high with him.
Eventually, Young sent out his demands to the police officers who had surrounded the school. He wanted $300 million in ransom for the 167 hostages he held--students, teachers, school workers, and a UPS driver, nearly a quarter of Cokeville’s population. He also wanted a personal phone call from the president of the United States.
Nathan
Some of the kids started crying after the man with the red beard said he was the most wanted man in the country. Some of us started to pray quietly. I don’t know why but I wasn’t that scared. I knew it was a very dangerous situation, but I didn’t think about being hurt. But the smell of gasoline! The fumes were overpowering. Some of the kids started getting sick. The man wouldn’t let anyone leave the room so the kids threw up in wastebaskets. Then he ordered the windows opened.
The woman who was with him did everything he said. Her name was Doris. The funny thing was she seemed pretty nice. She walked around talking to us, and even got us interested in playing games. She said, “Think of this as an adventure, something you can tell your own kids and grandkids about.” The sort of calmed the tension, and some of the kids and teachers started singing “Happy Birthday” to my best friend, Jeremiah Moore, who turned seven that day. Still there was something scary about the woman.
After an hour or so, a lot of the kids were getting fidgety and some of the real young ones started to edge around the man with the shopping cart. This made him even angrier. Finally he asked a teacher to take some masking tape and mark off a square around him on the floor. “Cross this line of death,” he warned, “and I’ll start shooting the grown-ups. I’ll shoot everyone if I have to!” Another hour passed with all of us crammed into Mrs. Mitchell’s classroom. The man was acting more and more nervous, like he might explode. Sweat dripped down from his face and his eyes got wild. Then he carefully transferred the string from his wrist to the woman’s and headed toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” he muttered.
Ron
Negotiations dragged on. Clearly, Young knew there was no way his demands could be met and had intended all along on using his shopping-cart bomb. He had combined one jug of gasoline with loose ammunition, powerful blasting caps, flour and aluminum powder. The string attached to his wrist led to a spring-loaded clothespin. If Young pulled the string, the clothespin would snap shut, triggering a battery-operated detonator.
The initial explosion would launch the flour and aluminum powder into the air, igniting the gasoline and triggering a second explosion. In the middle of this deadly hell, hundreds of rounds of ammunition packed into the shopping cart would be set off, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Admittedly, it was a fiendishly ingenious design, a bomb constructed to inflict maximum terror and bloodshed. But the bomb was as unstable as its maker.
Nathan
I was sitting in the classroom playing with a toy when something made me look up. That’s when I saw the angels. They were shiny, with flowing white robes. Some were holding hands. They glided down through the ceiling, then hung in the air for a second. I felt totally safe. Everyone seemed to have an angel. They came down next to us. My angel was a beautiful shining woman. It was almost as if she landed on my shoulder. She said, “Don’t be scared, Nathan. Get up and go to the window. The bomb is about to go off.” I did just what she said. Other children started doing the same thing. Just then something startled the lady at the front of the classroom. She whirled around.
There was a horrible explosion. Everything turned black. People screamed. Something went off, sounding like a giant string of firecrackers exploding. There were flashes of light and a whirring filled the room. Somebody pulled me down; it was my sister. A teacher helped me crawl through the window. Another teacher caught me and put me on the ground and told me to run away as fast as I could. A crowd of police and others had gathered and I raced across the playground and found my mother.
Ron
On the morning of the fateful day in Cokeville, I had been out of town on assignment. I returned in the afternoon, unaware of the terror unfolding at my children’s school. But as I entered the town I knew something was wrong. My stomach twisted. Cars were backed up and a civil defense worker was directing traffic. I asked what was wrong.
“A bomb went off at the elementary school twenty minutes ago,” she said. In panic and shock I sped to the school. Smoke thickened the air. Everywhere people were weeping. I pushed my way through the throng of cops, townspeople and media folk, looking for my wife, Claudia, and our four children. The local sheriff saw me and told me the kids were fine, but that Claudia had taken them to the hospital to be checked out.
Of the 167 hostages--150 children and 17 adults--quite a few had burns and cuts; Nathan was one of them. Miraculously, none of them had been killed. The same could not be said for David Gary Young and his wife. Both had perished. When the bomb went off, Young had charged from the bathroom, wielding a .45 caliber pistol and a .22 caliber pistol. He fired the .22 at a teacher, John Miller, wounding him in the shoulder. He then raced to the burning classroom, where he found Doris engulfed in flames. Pitifully, she staggered toward him, arms outstretched. Young raised the .45 and fired, killing her. He then went back into the bathroom, pressed the muzzle under his chin and pulled the trigger.
For months I examined the evidence and Young’s numerous diaries--the notebooks he had stacked in the classroom. They told the ghastly story of his madness. After blowing up the school, he believed Doris, the children and he would be reincarnated into a new world where he would lead his charges in paradise.
When my investigation was finally over and all the parts of the awful puzzle had been found, I couldn’t help feeling that a few pieces didn’t fit. For instance, how could so much ammunition go off in a packed room without fatally injuring anyone? Furthermore, the second explosion could have killed everyone instantly. Yet the bomb didn’t explode as intended, even though Young, a man with a high IQ, had rigged it with several blasting caps. We found that one of the lead wires had been inexplicably cut.
Two weeks before the explosion, an unexplained short in the school’s fire alarm system kept setting it off, initiating numerous unplanned fire drills. The children became highly proficient at emergency evacuations.
But for a hard-nosed investigator like me, the angels were the most difficult part to accept. I grilled Nathan about his story, but he never wavered. In fact, two other children said they too had seen angels. They told of glimmering robed figures descending from above, warning of the blast and directing them safely to the windows. Children who had not discussed it among themselves told similar stories.
As I said, I deal in facts. And one hard fact stands out above all the others: 167 people escaped with their lives when the odds against even a fraction of them surviving the cunning wrath of a desperate madman were slim. The conclusion we have all reached in Cokeville is that God sent his angels to rescue our children and keep them from harm.
Just as humans look "down" the chain at the animal and plant species, we should also be able to look "up" at the higher beings we call angels.
-David Connolly,
"In Search of Angels
****
Queenie, the Self-Taught Angel
An unbelievable dog serves as companion and guardian to a young girl with epilepsy.
By Roger Caras
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/102/stor ... mc_id=NL24
Reprinted with permission from "Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover's Soul."
During my years in animal welfare work--I served as the president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals--I have heard wonderful stories about the power of the human-animal bond. One of my favorites is about a girl and her very special dog.
When the girl was born, her parents were stationed with the U.S. Army overseas. The tiny baby spiked a fever of 106 degrees and when they couldn't help her at the military base, the baby and her family were flown home to the United States where she could receive the proper medical care. The alarming fever kept recurring, but the baby survived. When the episode was over, the child was left with thirteen different seizure causes, including epilepsy. She had what was called multiple seizure syndrome and had several seizures every day. Sometimes she stopped breathing.
As a result, the little girl could never be left alone. She grew to be a teenager and if her mother had to go out, her father or brothers had to accompany her everywhere, including to the bathroom, which was awkward for everyone involved. But the risk of leaving her alone was too great and so, for lack of a better solution, things went on in this way for years.
The girl and her family lived near a town where there was a penitentiary for women. One of the programs there was a dog-training program. The inmates were taught how to train dogs to foster a sense of competence, as well as to develop a job skill for the time when they left the prison. Although most of the women had serious criminal backgrounds, many made excellent dog trainers and often trained service dogs for the handicapped while serving their time.
The girl's mother read about this program and contacted the penitentiary to see if there was anything they could do for her daughter. They had no idea how to train a dog to help a person in the girl's condition, but her family decided that a companion animal would be good for the girl, as she had limited social opportunities and they felt she would enjoy a dog's company.
The girl chose a random-bred dog named Queenie and together with the women at the prison, trained her to be an obedient pet. But Queenie had other plans. She became a "seizure-alert" dog, letting the girl know when a seizure was coming on, so that the girl could be ready for it.
I heard about Queenie's amazing abilities and went to visit the girl's family and meet Queenie. At one point during my visit, Queenie became agitated and took the girl's wrist in her mouth and started pulling her towards the living room couch. Her mother said, "Go on now. Listen to what Queenie's telling you."
The girl went to the couch, curled up in a fetal position, facing the back of the couch and within moments started to seize. The dog jumped on the couch and wedged herself between the back of the couch and the front of the girl's body, placing her ear in front of the girl's mouth. Her family was used to this performance, but I watched in open-mouthed astonishment as the girl finished seizing and Queenie relaxed with her on the couch, wagging her tail and looking for all the world like an ordinary dog, playing with her mistress.
Then the girl and her dog went to the girl's bedroom as her parents and I went to the kitchen for coffee. A little while later, Queenie came barreling down the hallway, barking. She did a U-turn in the kitchen and then went racing back to the girl's room.
"She's having a seizure," the mother told me. The girl's father got up, in what seemed to me a casual manner for someone whose daughter often stopped breathing, and walked back to the bedroom after Queenie.
My concern must have been evident on my face because the girl's mother smiled and said, "I know what you're thinking, but you see, that's not the bark Queenie uses when my daughter stops breathing."
I shook my head in amazement. Queenie, the self-taught angel, proved to me once again how utterly foolish it is to suppose that animals don't think or can't communicate.
-David Connolly,
"In Search of Angels
****
Queenie, the Self-Taught Angel
An unbelievable dog serves as companion and guardian to a young girl with epilepsy.
By Roger Caras
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/102/stor ... mc_id=NL24
Reprinted with permission from "Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover's Soul."
During my years in animal welfare work--I served as the president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals--I have heard wonderful stories about the power of the human-animal bond. One of my favorites is about a girl and her very special dog.
When the girl was born, her parents were stationed with the U.S. Army overseas. The tiny baby spiked a fever of 106 degrees and when they couldn't help her at the military base, the baby and her family were flown home to the United States where she could receive the proper medical care. The alarming fever kept recurring, but the baby survived. When the episode was over, the child was left with thirteen different seizure causes, including epilepsy. She had what was called multiple seizure syndrome and had several seizures every day. Sometimes she stopped breathing.
As a result, the little girl could never be left alone. She grew to be a teenager and if her mother had to go out, her father or brothers had to accompany her everywhere, including to the bathroom, which was awkward for everyone involved. But the risk of leaving her alone was too great and so, for lack of a better solution, things went on in this way for years.
The girl and her family lived near a town where there was a penitentiary for women. One of the programs there was a dog-training program. The inmates were taught how to train dogs to foster a sense of competence, as well as to develop a job skill for the time when they left the prison. Although most of the women had serious criminal backgrounds, many made excellent dog trainers and often trained service dogs for the handicapped while serving their time.
The girl's mother read about this program and contacted the penitentiary to see if there was anything they could do for her daughter. They had no idea how to train a dog to help a person in the girl's condition, but her family decided that a companion animal would be good for the girl, as she had limited social opportunities and they felt she would enjoy a dog's company.
The girl chose a random-bred dog named Queenie and together with the women at the prison, trained her to be an obedient pet. But Queenie had other plans. She became a "seizure-alert" dog, letting the girl know when a seizure was coming on, so that the girl could be ready for it.
I heard about Queenie's amazing abilities and went to visit the girl's family and meet Queenie. At one point during my visit, Queenie became agitated and took the girl's wrist in her mouth and started pulling her towards the living room couch. Her mother said, "Go on now. Listen to what Queenie's telling you."
The girl went to the couch, curled up in a fetal position, facing the back of the couch and within moments started to seize. The dog jumped on the couch and wedged herself between the back of the couch and the front of the girl's body, placing her ear in front of the girl's mouth. Her family was used to this performance, but I watched in open-mouthed astonishment as the girl finished seizing and Queenie relaxed with her on the couch, wagging her tail and looking for all the world like an ordinary dog, playing with her mistress.
Then the girl and her dog went to the girl's bedroom as her parents and I went to the kitchen for coffee. A little while later, Queenie came barreling down the hallway, barking. She did a U-turn in the kitchen and then went racing back to the girl's room.
"She's having a seizure," the mother told me. The girl's father got up, in what seemed to me a casual manner for someone whose daughter often stopped breathing, and walked back to the bedroom after Queenie.
My concern must have been evident on my face because the girl's mother smiled and said, "I know what you're thinking, but you see, that's not the bark Queenie uses when my daughter stops breathing."
I shook my head in amazement. Queenie, the self-taught angel, proved to me once again how utterly foolish it is to suppose that animals don't think or can't communicate.