I do not know how it happens, but I keep running into angels. There I am, going about my day, feeling like I need a lift, and voila someone says just what I needed to hear. Or the right song plays on the radio. Or I meet some stranger who lays some deep wisdom on me and then I never see them again. I suppose I could consider these just happy accidents of life. Maybe they are.

But deep in my heart, back where the cobwebs are, in the dusty, musty space between belief and doubt there is this little light that burns as I sense that these messages of encouragement are from someone larger, greater and far less earthly than myself.

Call it what you will -- the universe's angle of demarcation, the collective unconscious, dumb luck, coincidence, a dazzling cacophony of neurons being hit with celestial silver hammers and driving the nervous system into ecstasy. Or maybe it's easier to call them angels-- earthly appointees of a greater energy who deliver consolation, comfort, insight -- just when we need it. How many times have you said: "It was just what I needed to hear."

I suppose I could go on about my hunch that the angels hanging out near me off and on are from God, but that really isn't the point here. My point is that we are lucky to have these messengers, regardless of what you call them, or how you think the universe delivers them, or whether or not you just imagine them to be a charming metaphor.

By the way, I don't mean big-white-flying-feathers-off-the-back angels, although I loved Travolta's take on that in the movie Michael.

By angels, I mean ordinary folk with extraordinary impact on an ordinary day. Everyday people who suddenly have something very meaningful to say -- people you did not expect, exactly when you need them.

Heck, at any given moment, you could be an angel to me -- or I to you. Who knows how we were delivered into each other's presence, but delivered we may have been.

I used to hang out in this coffeehouse in Alabama called Cafe Lynn's. There was a gang of regulars there. One night a strange guy came in, tall, skinny, long dark hair, ice blue eyes. He looked like the wind had blown him in. He was in town for about a week. No one knew him before, but in that week he had touched the lives in important ways of about six or seven people that I knew. He had somehow managed to say the right thing -- open the right window in their lives. I really did make a major and very helpful life change because of something he said to me. Others experienced similar things. He never purported to be anyone special. We never even knew his last name.

One day I got into a conversation with an old man in a parking lot as we were headed to our adjacent cars from the market. He told me that his son was a preacher, and that he himself had been a traveling gospel singer in his youth. He said he wanted to tell me about his son, and we leaned against our cars chatting for a while. I was in no hurry, and he seemed to want to talk.

He told me that his son had posted his sermon topic outside of his church -- and that it was "Feel The Pain".

He told me how foolish that topic seemed to him. "Now, who would want to come to church to hear that?" he asked. "People want to hear how NOT to feel the pain."

At that time I was going through a very "difficult patch" with my father, a man who was largely a stranger to gentleness. I would have been happy to hear how to not feel that pain, indeed. I nodded my head.

The man reached out and touched my arm as he said "And you and me -- why, we'd be dead wrong about that." He then went on. "See, my son said that if you don't let yourself feel the pain you are not going to know clearly what needs to be healed. How am I going to ask God or anyone else for help if I don't know that I need it, or what I need it for?" He went on about how he was proud of his son for teaching him that lesson.

He thanked me for letting him tell his story. I felt like I had been hit by a spiritual insight that might well change my life -- it wasn't news, it was just packaged in such a way that I heard it down to the right bones this time: "if you don't let yourself feel the pain you are not going to know clearly what needs to be healed".

I thanked him for sharing it with me, and for teaching me, too. "I guess I was just supposed to tell you that," he said, smiling, as he got in his car and started to drive away. "Have a nice day!"

I never saw him again. I went back to that store dozens of times.

I cannot explain all this away as chance circumstance. If you can, that's fine, too. If you have another name for it, OK. But it is wonderful, isn't it? When someone "gets" what you need to hear out of the seeming blue? I love this world, so full of mysteriously wonderful events,discoveries, teachings. I love that there is comfort on the other side of difficulty.

So, please tell me about your angel!

Always,

Mary