Staying Awake to the Realm of Angels

At the start of Advent a woman I know, an energetic minister in her 30s, came to me with a story about angels.

Recently married and in the process of adopting foster children with her husband, she was baffled.  Lately she’s been visited by angels.

She is a very modern millennial woman, not given to flights of fantasy.  As we talked, she told me this story.

Eight years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Just before her treatments began she decided to fly to Chicago to attend the ordination of a divinity school friend.  During the luncheon following, he introduced her to his aunt.  The elderly woman listened to her account of her current medical crisis in silence.  Then she took her by the hand, looked her in the eye, and said,

“This is going to be hard.  Very hard.  You will need your angels.”

My young friend was first startled, then deeply moved, by this woman’s directness and honesty.  Until that moment, no one in her life had been able to face into the gravity of her situation with that kind of candor.  Instantly, she no longer felt alone.  She realize that this woman, who revealed that she was a cancer survivor, had volunteered to become her angel.

My friend’s treatments were successful, and she returned to her ministry.  One day, passing a shop, her eye fell on an angel and she remembered the wise old woman, and in that brief exchange her gift of presence at a critical time.  She bought the angel and sent it to her with a note, thanking for her gift that long-ago afternoon.

Two months ago, she attended a regional clergy conference and much to her surprise — who should she run into but the friend whose ordination she had attended in Chicago!  He had been transferred into her region — two old friends reunited again.  They talked that day about his aunt, and the angel.  Something had come full circle in a mysterious and beautiful way.  She went home, marveling at the ways of life’s serendipities.

The very next day, her supervisor at the mental health hospital where she serves as chaplain rushed up to her.

“I know what we are giving the patients this year!  We are going to paint angel ornaments!  Are you in?”

My young friend reeled.  What in the world was happening?  Why now, all these angels?

Then, suddenly she laughed, the way I imagine Elizabeth laughed when she learned that she was with child. The pieces suddenly fell into place.

Eight years ago, in the thin place of her illness, she’d been visited by an angel.

Today, as she prepares to become a mother — a role delayed by her cancer journey — the angels have reappeared.   Now she can be wide awake to the spiritual energies that are supporting her new path.

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Angels take many forms, of course.

Last Friday a wonderful group assembled for our Advent online journal workshop.  For an hour, we explored what gifts of new life we are yearning, each yearning in our hearts and souls, to bring into a world that needs all the gifts it can get.

How, we asked, do we stay away to the presence of angels?  This, it seems clear, is the question we need to be asking every morning when we get out of bed.  How can we stay awake?

“Staying awake to what matters” was also the topic of a vibrant, magical evening with the Far Flung Friends of St. Cecilia’s parish in Boston’s South End.  I truly felt that I was in the presence of nearly 100 angels that night, as participants from around the world spoke of their hope in the midst of the world’s current darknesses, their faith that even in these grim times of war and suffering and loss angels of love, mercy and restoration are very much alive.  Their insights and stories lit up the evening with lanterns of light.

These groups are examples of the ways in which community can sustain and nourish.  They are lights in the darkness of our culture of individualism and self-absorption, answers to the shadowy places of isolation and loneliness, virtual “hearths” that gather us in from the wilds of digital distraction and empty consumerism.

My own group has begin to share the practices they are adopting this Advent to keep them “awake to what matters.”  One has committed to performing an act of kindness to a neighbor each day.  (This week, she helped an elderly neighbor pack for a move.). Another is sharing images of nature on her Facebook page.  Another is reading Rilke every day.  A fourth is knitting each day with a friend who is going through a hard time, as they listen together to a contemplative Advent podcast.

If you have an Advent practice that is helping you to stay awake, please share in the comments!  We can use all the angels and life-giving practices we can get.

Blessings on all of you as I end this report today.  I’m looking forward to my next gathering of the journalers, when we will consider the infinitely creative and fascinating topic of the maps by which we navigate our days.

Kathleen