When the ancients looked up into the nighttime sky and saw the Milky Way overhead, some thought it marked the path of angels…
When the ancients saw the trees buffeted by the strong winds, some believed they were witnessing the passage of an angel. If that is true, even a wisp of a breeze in passing may be nothing more spectacular than an angel in flight…
In past programs, I have mentioned the tale about the two traveling angels who asked for shelter in the house of a rich man. They are not welcomed warmly, but they are given lodging in the cellar of his dwelling. While there, the older of the two angels finds a hole in the wall and repairs it. Puzzled, the younger of the two asks why the older one would expend any effort to fix the hole in the wall. The older one replies, “Things aren’t always as they seem.” On the next night of their journey here on Earth, they ask for lodging at the house of a poor farm couple. They are welcomed warmly and given the couple’s bed. The old couple have given up their own comforts to ensure their guests have a restful night’s sleep. In the morning, the farmer and his wife find their cow lying dead. This animal was their only source of income. The younger of the two angels is furious. The angel scolds the older one even more than the night before. The angel says that while they were in the home of the wealthy man, the older one patched up a hole in the wall. When they arrived at the farmer’s home, they were treated like royalty, and yet the angel let the cow die. Again, the older angel says: “Things aren’t always as they seem.” The older one reveals what the younger one missed. There was a hidden stash of riches in the hole in the wall. The older angel, realizing how greedy the wealthy man was, decided to ensure the man didn’t find it by fixing the hole. During the long night at the farmer’s home, the Angel of Death came to claim the farmer’s wife; the angel gave him the cow instead.
It’s a wonderful story that was sent to me via e-mail some years back, penned by an unknown author. What you just read was my telling of the tale.
I wonder how many people the world over have had a traveler pass through their lives, a presence that seems to show up at the right place and time. This “stranger” might help a person through a rough patch. Then, just as mysteriously as that traveler appears, he or she is gone…
Sophie Burnham in her wonderful writing, A Book Of Angels published by Ballantine, suggests it may be more common than you think.
I have always liked a western that suggests some kind of presence from beyond is called forth by the strength of a single prayer. This nameless traveler was actually played a few times by Clint Eastwood. One role was in High Plains Drifter. A slain sheriff gets to come back to the town where the townspeople stood by and offered little or no help while he was being challenged. In that surreal film, he returns to get his revenge on the town.
And then there was Pale Rider. This is what one reviewer said about the film in Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever: “A mysterious nameless stranger rides into a small California gold rush town to find himself in the middle of a feud between a mining syndicate and a group of independent prospectors.” I think it was more the prayer of one of the people that brought this so-called “nameless stranger” to help the miners in their plight. Incidentally, he arrives in the guise of a preacher wearing a black shirt and white collar. An angel in black? Perhaps…
“What remains constant in every account of angels, from ancient days to the present, is that they are both messengers and companions to humans, sent from a realm beyond the earth. In every great book of belief and devotion, in the highest art forms known to us, angels appear and, in one way or another, help us, advise us, or amaze us.” An excerpt from the introduction to a book called Angels by Armand Eisen, published in 1993 by Andrews and McMeel, a Universal Press Syndicate Company in Kansas City, Missouri.
In the 2003 edition of The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, published by D. C. Thomson and Company, the author features a quote by the hymn writer, F. W. Faber. “Kind words are the music of the world. They have a power which seems to be beyond natural causes, as though they were some angel’s song which had lost its way and come to earth.”
I often wonder what gets sent back the other way…
“The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.” Laurence Sterne.
…If only it were that easy…
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Don Jackson
