Earth Angels

Philosopher and theologian Saint Augustine, said, “Angels are like diamonds. They can’t be made, you have to find them. Each one is unique. I know I have angels watching me from the other side.”

There isn’t a better time to recognize angels in our midst. We are in a world of discord, confusion and dread and we never know what life may throw our way. Or when. All too often there is a pile up of difficulties, things that are out of our control, but when it gets really rough and it feels like you’re all alone, if you look carefully and keep an open heart, earth angels show up. This concept is often misunderstood. These angels don’t have halos or play harps. They don’t have wings and fly through the air. They aren’t dogmatic or filled with rhetoric. They don’t wear diaphanous tunics like Tinkerbell and wave magic wands. But they are angels, none the less, arriving when you least expect it. They don’t tell you what to do. They don’t find fault with you. They’re there to witness your life and lend you a helping hand. They offer you hope in what seems like an unforgiving world.

We all have people who are so comforting, we turn to them when we can’t find our center. A few weeks ago, the 100 mile an hour winds blew the shingles off my roof. They were all over the neighborhood, leaving my roof exposed to the weather. A few days later when the rains came, it rained inside the far corner of my living room. There wasn’t one steady drip so a bucket wouldn’t work. I threw down a load of towels that got soaked right away and I called the Fire Department. Within ten minutes, three firemen knocked at my door. I had been close to panicking before they arrived but when they came in, calm and kind, and assessed the situation, I began to relax. I was having a visit from three angels wearing rubber boots and yellow jackets.

I had met with a roofer earlier that day before to assess the damage and give me an estimate. I texted him late that night about what had happened. When I got up in the morning at 7, there was a lot of noise on my roof. I live in a canyon so I thought that it was a wild animal. It wasn’t. The roofer and his worker were already here, putting a plastic covering all over my roof. Two more earth angels.

When they started work the next day, the banging and shuffling above my head was deafening and I did something that wasn’t acceptable to me. I had a coffee meeting set with a woman I had just met and I was so distracted, I forgot about it. I hate to waste anyone’s time. I hate to not keep my word so I called her to explain what happened and to apologize. She was completely forgiving. She was an angel and we made another coffee date.

Angels are walking among us all the time. The courageous firefighters who saved countless lives in the recent fires. The hospice workers who helped my mother die. My sister when I’m having a hard time and she just listens. My friend who makes me laugh no matter what’s going on. My neighbor who drove me to the vet when my cat was injured and called me during the roof replacement to see if I needed anything. A double angel. Rescuers and comforters are everywhere. We just have to recognize them.

Sometimes it’s hard because they are not necessarily a person. They can show up as courage. Compassion. Protection. And sometimes we have to be our own angels. Spiritual leader, Stephen Levine’s wife talked about her husband’s death. They were a unit, they were living in a remote part of New Mexico and she said, “When Stephen was gone, there was no one around and I had to hold my own hand.”

In the eighties, I was volunteering at an AIDS hospice with 27 beds and 27 dying young men. I walked from room to room, holding hands, bringing food, getting extra blankets and listening and chatting. They told me their stories and I found them all fascinating. I was aware that I might be the last person they spoke to before they died. One afternoon, I went to visit a man named Lori who had AIDS and cancer. I stood at the door to his room and asked him if I could come in. He said yes. I sat down. He smiled at me. “Thanks for asking if you could come into my room. Some of the volunteers just come barging in with no regard for my space.”

I felt a flush in my cheeks and a lightness in my body. I thought I saw a light moving through the air and pretty soon I realized that it was coming from me. I felt like an angel, his angel, floating and weightless, ready to do whatever he needed. Lori began to tell me how to be a good volunteer, what worked and what didn’t. What to say and what not to say. I was getting an education that no one else could have given me so I sat quietly and listened. When he got tired, he asked me to please come back and when I left his room, I realized that that angelic light had always been with me but I had only just noticed it while I was helping someone feel a little bit better.

We are all looking for safety in an unpredictable world, for a way to find the light in the darkness. Being an angel means shining that bright light in the midst of someone’s pain and reaching out your hand when they need to feel connected. When you need an angel, believe that you can find one, silence your mind and feel them fill you with light and hope. Remember that when angels appear, we don’t hear rustles of wings. We don’t see halos. But we know they’re there because of the love we feel in our hearts.