Musings Part 8

A Greater Power

For years a top rated prime time television series has been "Touched By an Angel." Angels are depicted coming along side people during life's severe challenges, enabling them to find silver linings in the black clouds of their trials. I have been long tantalized by the possibility that angels might be more than just the stuff of fiction; that there might actually be unseen guardians committed to our welfare. For decades I have been haunted by unsettling doubt about the reality of the Christian faith. It has been my great longing that an angel might come along and tell me of spiritual realities that would provide the refuge of soul I have been seeking for decades.

It seems millions of others secretly struggle with the same thing. I suspect this drives much of our intense interest in angels. Perhaps many of us see angels as enabling us to jump the chasms of our doubt, landing securely on the far side of faith. If only we could encounter one of these divine messengers. Often I have prayed for an epiphany as a result of an angelic encounter. Scientifically-designed large-scale surveys are now suggesting these experiences are far more common than once thought. I have become far more hopeful of an epiphany of my own.

Twenty-eight years ago I was quite active in scientific research which included extensive work in a photographic darkroom. Knowing this, a friend asked me to process and print a roll of film for him. What I found on one of those frames was quite astounding. An image of a robed figure with outstretched arms, holding scepters, emerged from the silver bromide crystals embedded in the celluloid film. More startling was a background image of a black funnel cloud. I later learned this film had been exposed by a pastor standing on the steps of his storm cellar as a tornado roared down on him. He reported seeing the ominous cloud but not the angelic being I found hidden in the film.

For nearly twenty years this astonishing image was stored away in a file folder, mostly forgotten. When a neurologist suggested that I might be facing a neurologic death sentence, that image from another world suddenly became my most important possession. I took it out, had it placed in an elaborate frame, and then kept it ever before me. During those black days of medical uncertainty, the possibility that angels could appear in tornado clouds brought me profound hope that there might be something beyond the vast horrors of slow suffocation from degenerative nerve disease. Over the next two years I had complete resolution of whatever affliction threatened me. The safety of ten years now separates me from those days of liquid fear.

For years I have wondered about the miraculous nature of that photographic image. What did it mean for me? Am I well because of it? Could I safely set aside the doubt that has plagued me for years? Desperately, I wanted to release my doubts and the fears they fertilized.

This past week I had the good fortune to fly to Toronto for five days to participate in a medical conference. One who has shown herself to be a genuine soul mate joined me there and we shared true joy in one of the world's great cities. As it happened, Eileen was scheduled to return stateside on Wednesday with my return planned for Thursday. I heard bits of conversation all day about severe weather in Atlanta where she would be changing planes. I did not inform her, knowing her dread of hard turbulence in airplanes. Sharing this same fear, I know what it can do to cause one's soul to wilt inside. With some trepidation I put her on an airport bus at 6 PM to make her 8 PM flight.

At 8:10 PM Eileen called from the Toronto airport to tell me her flight was being delayed because of extreme weather in Atlanta. Over one thousand planes were delayed, diverted, or placed in vast holding patterns covering the whole of the southeastern United States. It was uncertain if her plane would take-off. I knew that if it did, she would fly into the teeth of an unseen monster. My impotence to come to her aid was all too apparent. All I could do was pray. I was to later learn this was more than enough. I did not hear from her again on Wednesday.

Eileen called again early Thursday morning, quite shaken and exhausted. It was with great relief I learned she was safely back in her own house in Florida. It turns out she went through a mind-numbing journey to a wind-driven hell and back. An enormous weather system extending more than a thousand miles from the gulf states to north of our border with Canada, created intense storms that frightened the most seasoned flight crews working on the major airlines. Eileen experienced terror beyond words. For three hours, seven miles above ground, she was slammed between level-four thunder cells while taunted by lavender electric bolts carrying a billion volts of intimidation and death.

Swarms of tornadoes blasted through four states, with her flights right in the midst of these. I learned on Thursday that many suburbs of Birmingham, 150 miles west of Atlanta, had been destroyed by storms about 8:20 PM on Wednesday night. News reports indicate one of three tornadoes that ripped through Birmingham was a so-called F-5, the most powerful storm known to man. With 300 MPH winds, this monster blasted a mile-wide scar across fifteen miles of Jefferson County in Alabama, destroying 1,000 homes, severely damaging 1,000 more, and killing dozens of people. These Homerian horrors showed up in Atlanta about midnight just as Eileen's first flight was arriving. Unknown to Eileen, a tornado had just touched down in Atlanta, killing several. Only three weeks ago, another huge funnel had gouged a half-mile path across twelve miles of suburban Atlanta, destroying everything in its path and snuffing out many lives.

Eileen described a mind numbing terror while in the Atlanta airport She considered forfeiting her ticket for her second flight and simply renting a car to drive the remaining four hundred miles to her home in Florida. Her fright was extreme and she could hardly bear the idea of getting onto another plane and going back up into a sky filled with unseen Minotaurs. Somehow, after very compassionate attention from airline personnel, she managed to get on that second plane, yet still highly agitated and anxious.

As impressive and powerful as this vast weather front was, a far greater power was operative; one that spoke thunderously with a still small voice. I listened, speechless, as Eileen described walking down the aisle, feeling like she walking to her own execution, when a tiny black woman, with platinum hair covered with white lace, in a window seat moved her things off the aisle seat and beckoned Eileen to sit down. Numbly, Eileen did as this diminutive soul beckoned. Amazingly, that second plane was soon launched into the boiling indigo terrors of that night. Eileen felt certain her mind and soul were about to fracture from the wedge of panic that had been driven into her.

In a quiet voice this woman simply said "I think this calls for a short prayer." As this compassionate being prayed, Eileen immediately had an experience much like that which occurs when anesthesia is induced. She passed out and lost all sense of time. She spent that flight of terror in a deep fearless slumber, awaking only when landing gears thudding on the runway brought her to wakefulness. With vast relief and astonishment she realized she was on earth and safe. Dumbfounded, she wondered how it was possible for her to have slept through her greatest fears. With weak knees and gratitude she stumbled off that MD 80 jet.

While waiting for her luggage in the baggage claim, Eileen saw this her ebony spirit of mercy standing back from all the other passengers, making no attempt to locate or identify any suitcases in the carousel. She gave Eileen a knowing smile. With reverence, Eileen wondered about this gentle Being who was with her through her boundless terrors. It's not the ordinary airline passenger that can induce instant anesthesia-like sleep in highly agitated and terrified people with short prayers.

Eileen pulled her case off the conveyor, turning back to her bearer of peace. In the blink of an eye, she simply was no longer there. A realization slammed into Eileen's consciousness. With great amazement she realized she had sat next to a literal angel that had brought her peace and safety in the midst of her darkest fears. I hung up the phone in silent awe. This experience was nothing short of an epiphany for both of us. I had developed faith in the realities for which I had so long searched.

The next day I flew the same route to Atlanta under a cerulean canopy with bright sun. I never saw an angel or experienced anything unusual. Yet, throughout my flight I thought about One who appeared to Eileen. Would I have exchanged my smooth air for a turbulent ride with an angel? It's hard to say. We usually don't have any say in such matters. Throughout recorded history it has been reported that angels meet us when we are in extremis. Many appearances take place in hospital rooms and intensive care units in times of great crisis. Other harbingers of hope and safety make themselves known in times of extreme physical danger.

In my very limited experience, angels seem to be found in the dark funnel clouds of life. An angelic being came to Eileen as she faced a literal F-5 tornado cloud and the even bigger vortices of her fear. Perhaps one left me a calling card when I faced the monster funnel of neurologic disease. One day I may meet one face to face. For certain, my doubts are no longer flame-breathing dragons, their fire extinguished by the messenger of safety and mercy who came to my dear friend Eileen. I sense this angel had a message for me, even though I was seven miles below, in another country, greatly concerned for my soul mate's safety.

Jesus and his disciples were in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee when a fierce storm arose. He was sound asleep when his disciples woke him in sheer panic, proclaiming they were about to die. Jesus questioned them for their lack of faith and then commanded the winds and waves to be still. "The storm subsided and all was calm." In wonderment, the disciples questioned who this was that even the wind and waves obey him. In wonderment, I question how a tiny woman could induce fearless sleep in my companion in seconds. I wondered how it is that a neurologic monster simply disappeared from my life.

There is nothing in the New Testament to suggest the Christian message promises us freedom from the turbulence that comes with life, be it literal tornadoes in the night, great loss stemming from relational failures, or the vast pain that accompanies severe illness. Yet, His message of Hope does promise us that we can live free of fear, trusting that one day our landing gear will touch down in the Kingdom He has prepared for us. If we are open to it, He just might deliver the message by angel.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind."


Mail Boxes


For five years my hobby has been to go into the dark recesses of the local community theater and create illusions out of old particle board, recycled sub flooring, masking tape, and remixed paint harvested from the cellars and trash piles of my home town. It has been a game of mine to see how little money I can spend to create a fictional world under Kleig lights. Set building has proven to be a splendid outlet for my often frustrated sense of creativity.

In the past couple of years I have been an example of the Peter Principle. The theater board decided that since I was able to take discards and make them into make-believe worlds of enchantment, then I could probably also function as a voting member of the board. Now I find myself beginning a second term as President of the theater board. For certain, I am not over confident in my role. I suppose forced humility of this kind is helpful in preventing a streak of arrogance from emerging out of the depths of my personality. After all, I can paint a line straighter and faster than any of 'em.

This week I have been helping our new manager settle into her office and responsibilities. Today I was showing Carol the boxes that were once used for in-house distribution of mail to board members and other volunteers. I was stopped in my tracks when I realized that of the seven names thereon, two represented faithful men who had given years of loyal volunteer service to the theater and were now deceased.

Two out of seven? These are lousy odds if one is describing airplane crash rates or the odds of beating a horrible disease. I had a sober reality check when I realized that the other five names would eventually need to be removed because their bearers had passed on. The odds are one hundred percent again the five. Today Carol put my name on one of the cardboard boxes. I presently enjoy good health and a happy relationship with the theater and life.

One day, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in the next millennium, someone will need to remove my name because I am gone, dead and gone. In the New Testament we are told that it is appointed unto all men to die once. Our practical experience in life leaves no doubt that this is true.

James enjoyed rich vibrant life and the options of upper middle class living. Just into his retirement he awoke one morning short of breath. For six months he fought a losing battle with an unnamed thief that eventually stole the breath of life from him; suffocating him. Robert had just gone out onto the patio to take in the new day after his devoted wife had served him breakfast. In the space of one single heart beat he was jettisoned from the warm vibrant realm of the living into the dark cold unknown void of death?

Robert was only about four years older than I. The reality is I don't have any idea how I am going to go or when. But what I can know with certainty is where I am going to end up. In a progressively secular world that ever more widely embraces agnosticism, atheism, or New Age concepts of a supreme unanimated universal force, death is likely to be viewed as little more appealing than a cosmic black hole from which no light escapes. Death can be and for so many is the ultimate terror.

For those of us with faith in the loving Creator God, death can represent a transition to an indescribable Paradise. In the midst of hideous, tormented dying, Jesus promised a common thief that he would that very day join Him in Paradise. The only thing they shared in common was the ground on which their Roman crosses were staked. That thief was wise enough to realize that Jesus was the way through and beyond the black hole of death. Another thief sharing that same common ground refused to embraced this Possibility. For him, that day ended with annihilation of Hope.

One day I will stand in the light of His radiance and there won't be anything make believe about the Paradise in which I find myself. We are told the Heavenly streets will be of transparent gold and the foundations of precious stones. There won't be any recycled particle board, mildewed latex paint, or delaminating luan panelling in the mansions He has prepared for us.

I could never afford to build sets of transparent gold, crystal, and precious stone. My wherewithal is only good for an occasional new sheet of plywood and in rare instances, a bit of new paint, but the Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills and all that is visible. He can afford the best. It will indeed be a grand opening night when we all get to Heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. And this show will never close.

"He ... showed me the Holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone,, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper... And the material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass... And there shall no longer be any night, and they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them, and they shall reign forever and ever"


Paradigm Shift

One of the things that has most amazed me about the American South is how rapidly everything remotely botanical or insect-like in nature grows. I remember when first moving to Alabama being astounded at how enormous and loud everything with six, eight, or a hundred legs tends to be in this sub-tropical region. The rate of conversion of invisible atmospheric gasses into leafy emerald monsters soon caught my attention as well, given I made my move towards the equator in mid-June.

A plant that has intrigued me for the entirety of my tenure in the former Confederate States is poke salad. With an abundance of blue-berry look-alikes, it can achieve ten feet of height in mere weeks. For nearly six years I have done pitched battle with this primeval vestige of the early Jurassic era, attempting to create suburban order in its place. It is the Ides of May following a warm non-winter, which means the poke salad got an early start this year and is now ahead of schedule. It has already achieved altitudes of more than six feet on the fringes of my suburban oasis.

Like anything else that is green and unwanted, it has been long classified in my neurons as a nuisance weed. Like other photosynthetic pests, poke salad seems immune to disease, insects, pesticides, herbicides or any other of myriad chemical assault weapons used to keep nature's competition at bay. It grows abundantly without water and fertilizer.

For a year and a half I have been attending to some of the daily needs of a nearly eighty-six year old shut-in saint and her quadriplegic son. Being one of those people that will work for food, Mrs. Rice has figgered out that she can get all manner of child labor out of me for the small price of a plate of food scraps. Actually, she views me as a rather late arriving son and takes vast pleasure in making sure I eat at least four servings of everything in her house, every day. Her son and I are often compelled to remind her that we cannot eat the world, even if we habitually make valiant attempts to do so.

Several weeks ago Mrs. Rice's daughter, Ann, brought an armload of leafy greens to her mother's house to be processed into one of those tasty Southern vegetable wonders. In the north we merely opened cans. Down here, people use fresh picked vegetables and create culinary wonders.

Being fitness minded and aware of the precariousness of my cardiac health, I have learned to not ask about methods of preparation. It is well known here that really tasty vegetables require salt pork, fat back, bacon drippings, and various other seasonings. I figger the emotional and psychological benefits from eating these scrumptious delights will more than offset any physiological hazards that might be lurking within. So far, so good, even if my cholesterol readings are a wee bit high. And Mrs. Rice is pushing eighty-six and her mind is better than mine.

Ann's armload of leafy greens looked suspiciously like the you-know-what growing on the edges of my universe. Inquiry confirmed that it was, indeed, none other. Growing up in the mountains of northeast Georgia during the depression with twelve siblings, Mrs. Rice had acquired a large data base of knowledge about what really constituted weeds and what constituted free vegetable crops. She passed this valuable knowledge on to her children.

Recently, I have learned that poke salad, properly cooked to get rid of the natural poisons, and then braised with purple onions and eggs in you-know-what produces something close to manna, certainly something far beyond a mere spinach souffle. Under Mrs. Rice's tutelage, I am now even exploring the culinary mysteries of wild lettuce and dandelion. Fortunately, as it turns out, I have all three of these crops in great abundance.

Given the time of year, I am again, on a nearly daily basis, fighting the thorny, prickly realities of nature. While doing battle this week, it occurred to me that beauty really is in the eyes of the beholder. In the past I have used a large lawn mower, a variety of iron tools, and defoliants to gain the upper hand on poke salad, thistles, briars, and other cuss-worthy opponents. With my newfound knowledge of cookery, I found myself looking for stands of poke salad and carefully culling out the plants and placing them in the back seat of the car. What had been a weed has now become a vegetable crop; something of value.

The past several days I have enjoyed the harvest of my own hand off my own land. Mrs. Rice worked her magic on my weeds and I ended up with culinary treasure. Yet, those leaves have not changed over the years, only my knowledge and attitude have changed and this has made all the difference. It is the difference between pesky weeds and fine dining. Attitude is the difference between trash and treasure. It is the difference between fear and Hope. It is the difference between Heaven and Hell.

A story is told of a vision of Hell in which a somber crowd was seated at sumptuously laden banquet tables, yet all were suffering from pangs of intractable hunger. It seems everyone present had very long-handled spoons with which they were unable to reach their own mouths. A vision of Heaven was then presented, showing a festive group of happy well-satisfied people sitting at the same tables using the same kind of spoons. The difference? Everyone was feeding the person across the table, rather than themselves, trusting others to feed them.


Jesus said to them "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work. There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages, and is gathering fruit for life eternal; that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, 'One sows, and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."


New Occupant

dark, cold, raw, rainy

came by your room today
wanted to see you once more

found the door closed
with disquiet, knocked, looked in
there's a stranger in your bed

asked the nurse where you were
would you please check at the front desk
knew what i would hear there
told me what i already knew ...


In my Fathers' house are many rooms,
if it were not so I would have told you.


This Way to Christmas

The traditional Christmas message has told uncounted generations of the hopeful that following a luminous star would lead seekers to One who could illuminate the deepest darkness in any life. Those many centuries ago there was little to be hopeful about. The iron-clad oppression of the Roman Empire was as inescapable as any remote recess of the Russian Gulag of the Stalin era. Leprosy invoked terror the equal of any twentieth-century exotic equatorial virus. In the blackness of a cold first century BC winter night, brilliant Radiance slammed into the ebony sky, filling heavy hearts with pearls of possibility.

Those who followed the star were not to be disappointed. They found Him who would change the course of history for all time. They found him who would give cause for the very renumbering of the centuries. Twenty centuries and two millennia later millions still trust in the message heralded by that cosmic harbinger of Hope.

Here in the ordinariness of daily life at the end of the second millennium I was on a mission. My goal was to complete the mailing of those cards we send each year at this time to remind each other of what happened so long ago. Having run out of cards, I journeyed to a near-by chain drugstore to purchase another small box of cards.

On the floor of this large outlet, just inside the entrance, was a large square sign declaring "This way to Christmas" with a large arrow pointing into the center of the store. As I waited for the cashier to take payment from several somber consumers in front of me, it occurred to me that the retail marketing people really have it all wrong.

I could bring the unbounded riches of Earth into that shop and yet I would never have any hope of finding Christmas inside. We think Christmas is "stuff" and that we can find it inside the corner Eckerds. As American society becomes ever more secular, Christmas has been reduced to little more than an annual retailing opportunity of the highest order. The forecast fate of the American economy is often hung on predictions of how reckless Americans will be with their holiday spending. As I stood there with my blue and gold images of the starry Jerusalem night sky, I realized that if we look out and up rather than down and in, we would find that which really constitutes Christmas. We can join the ultimate Christmas Club for which there are no payments.

After all Easter falls between Christmases.