As the holidays approach, I’m finding myself reveling in my good luck! My wallet is full enough, my family and I are healthy enough, the weather is holding, and peace seems to be vibrating through every bit of my world.
Yes, there are the elections coming up, the horrible massacre that occurred here in Pittsburgh at a synagogue recently, and the constant needs of the poor and hungry, the homeless and the sick right in my own neighborhood. It can be so overwhelming, I could find myself crying in the corner… except for one little thing. Well, I guess several things.
I have always believed and had faith that things will be as they’re meant to be. I’ve always believed that finding joy spreads joy, that carrying happiness in a secret jar held tight to my heart would help others find joy, too. That we’re all meant to locate the trigger inside our souls that bring the goodness of this world to those struggling all around us.
I’ve struggled. We’ve all been there. Perhaps not homeless, but terrified we might not meet the rent next month. Perhaps not dying, but fighting cancer as hard as we can. Maybe feeling completely alone, only to be reminded that a bigger world is snuggled right up against us.
If I had millions I’d love to help everyone! So many are without funds for the holidays, without the ability to purchase small gifts for their children, or a turkey for dinner. I help where I can, volunteer, support, and help serve holiday meals to those in need at a local church.
And here’s what I discover every year, every moment, with every wish that blooms in my soul. A smile goes really, really far. A prayer goes even further. A buck is as helpful as a ten-dollar bill to a hungry homeless person. I once watched a driver take a coat off his own back and give it to a beggar at a red light. Warmth comes in many forms, but I think we all need to be gentle with ourselves, as well as those we seek to help.
Angel wings can be so heavy, they can break us and that wound seeps into the true joy of the holidays head. For years I and a group of like-minded people collected food, clothing, and money for those starving and suffering on the Rose Bud Reservation near Mission South Dakota. We packed boxes, cleaned and folded donated clothing, shopped for gifts and wrapped them in motel rooms along the way. The drive was always treacherous, as winter comes early on the plains, and getting home in time for Christmas was always a challenge. What I learned was much, much bigger than the time, work, and money donated.
At each home we delivered gifts of holiday happiness, the hospitality was deep, indigenous, cultural, and someone always made a pot of coffee for us. A simple pot of coffee. However, most of these lovely Lakota women we digging coffee grinds from the bottom of the tin. They were offering their last bit of coffee to me! I soon changed my idea from gratitude for a hot mug, to making sure that hot mug was not a hardship to our hosts. Before they could even turn on the faucet to fill the coffee pot, I handed them several small bags of coffee, the kind they sell in a single pot size at the grocery store for a buck each. The kind that helped them all relax and smile, and joyfully pour mugs for us all. A buck. Three bucks per household. It was a simple gift that made everyone less burdened and more joyous. It really is the little things that make the biggest difference!
The lessons of wing-wearing do-gooders are big. No matter who we are or what we have, we can’t help everyone, no matter how much we might want to. But we can smile. We can observe and see what really takes the load off those who are struggling. We can make our hearts bigger than our heavy wings and sing a song for a lonely person, dance with a sad person, giggle with a homeless child, take the jacket off our own back for a freezing beggar. We can do these things. We’ve been blessed with enough to lighten even the heaviest load. And it’s so worth it because it really does keep those wings especially white.
What special thing do you do to lighten someone’s load?
Welcome to ANGEL MOMENTS. My views are in this blog, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on angels, how they influence your life, and how you experience the amazing blessing.
Eighteen-year-old orphan Gracie wants a normal life, but a shocking set of unexpected wings and a deadly war change everything.
Watch for The Orphans, book one of The Lost Race trilogy. Coming November 2018!
Do you believe in ghosts? Do you imagine that those who have passed can communicate with you? That the ones you loved so much can pop into your thoughts regularly to make you laugh, or cry, or remember that particular ingredient in the recipe you’re struggling with?
Yep, Grandma. That’s who keeps me on my toes. See, this grandma isn’t like most grandmas. This one is my mom’s mom. Dad’s mom was a sweet, tiny, Italian-speaking rustic woman wearing an apron and feeding us fried meatballs on a fork for breakfast. She was what I imagine to be the normal kind of grandma.
Grandma drove a shiny Cadillac that was updated every five years. She had beautiful clothes and jewelry, and fantastic taste in, well, everything. She was quick to teach me to enjoy trends, but always seek out the classics when shopping for clothing. She knew her hairdresser’s birthday and the names of her dry cleaner’s kids. She loved to play bridge and often held elegant, seasonally-themed card parties with her lady friends.
And those minks? Well, two of them have found their way into my own closet. It’s been many, many years since either of them have been treated kindly. They just hang and sort of sadly lament in the darkness. Ahh the life they led. The travel, the entertainment, the enjoyment—Marti Gras in New Orleans, Havana Cuba just before the fall, Las Vegas. They have Grandma’s memories, like living DNA, twisted into every single tuft and stitch.
Light as air and delicate, but boy does this thing show it’s yin/yang.
Pretty little thing! I’m totally fascinated with the shape of those delicate wings.
Hey you two! Why can’t we all just be nice? These guys look like they come from a cartoon.
Oh! Fun wings. Wouldn’t you just love to be up there?
Don’t we all know and love a few of these winged things? The best kind of Fae there is.
And of course, there are the winged things we don’t like so much at all.
There’s always the fiery rebirth of the phoenix to consider. Powerful.
You had to know I’d drag in the dragon, with those freaky fleshy wings.
Ohhh, tiny, beautiful! Humming a song and being what he is. A spectacular gift of nature.
I’m so partial to these kind of wings. Holy. Majestic. Fluttering a breeze everywhere we go.
Okay, it could happen. Someday. I do like bacon. Speedy pork delivery, anyone?
Among my earliest memories are hot afternoons, listening to Bob Prince call the Pittsburgh Pirate game over the old radio my dad would drag out onto the porch, tripping Mom repeatedly in the kitchen with the stretched-out cord. The crackling sound of Prince’s voice and the raspy-whisperish quality of KDKA AM made it all incredibly beautiful, like summer music, cricket chirps and popping corn sounds drifting from the kitchen screen door, soft sunsets and the sound of cheering from down the block when the Bucs did something wonderful. It was later in the1960s, post Mazeroski’s World Series win and sliding into the Clemente era. I was ten-years old and hooked. Fifty-five years later, I still am.
I never got to sit in Forbes Field before it was torn down, but Three Rivers Stadium was my place of baseball worship. Win or lose, close or in the dumps, I was there, glued to the radio, television, or in my double-header seven-hour stadium seat, smiling ear-to-ear. To me, baseball is magic, it’s cerebral, intelligent, brutal, selfish, caring, athletic, and soul fulfilling. If I was born a man, I would probably still be in the minors, a geriatric rookie struggling to make it to the show. I love baseball that much. Even when, and especially when, the Pirates are not doing so well.
I’m especially sad to hear the negativity in the Pittsburgh Pirate announcer’s words these days. When did it become okay for paid announcers to cheer on the competition instead of look for something, anything, good to say about the team that pays them? When did it become fine to complain, and groan, and moan? I’m all for balanced reporting and calling the play as they see it, but do we really need the drawn out repetitive statements six innings later. So, it was an error, move on already.
See I have a baseball theory. I honestly believe that God loves baseball so much that he doesn’t interfere, he just watches and enjoys the game. So that’s what I do. It’s a game. It’s beautifully orchestrated technique and mayhem. And it’s a mess of amazing plays, and errors and screw ups, from the top to the A leagues but hey, it’s baseball!
The main thing to always remember this summer and every summer is … that there really are angels in the outfield.
I haven’t blogged for a while. I’ve been off kilter, perhaps out of beat, overly concerned, or maybe even frightened about what’s becoming of My America.
If it’s okay with the world, I will do everything I can to hold on to My America. I will pray and call upon my higher angels to make us all safe—Americans and the people of the whole world—since we are all feeling this un-American upheaval. I will hold My America in my heart with love and prayerful hopes that My America is still here after the unsettling confusion of the times. I am afraid and I do not want to lose My America.
Who loves to cook? Oh lord, I absolutely LOVE cooking. Even when we plan a vacation, I make sure the kitchen in the house we rent is well appointed and ready for me to cook as many meals as my fellow vacationers will allow. I plan the menu months in advance. I bring the items that may not be available – grill pan, citrus zester, professional knives – and my goal is to nourish and entertain. It’s kind of my calling. It wasn’t always that way, though.
I went to culinary school in my forties and discovered that we really do eat with our eyes and nose as much as our taste buds. Before that I cooked the way my mom and dad cooked—hearty Italian food made with lots of love, calories, fats, and carbs. However, it was a Native American medicine man who taught me the true power of feeding and nourishing people’s bellies and souls. What he did was transcend cooking into a heavenly art, something simple yet gratifying that can’t be conveyed through recipes or culinary techniques. It’s all about the prayer, and how the work is the prayer. Let me write that again … The work IS the prayer. I believe that this is especially true in the kitchen.
The first time I encountered a Kitchen Witch it wasn’t the cute hanging figure that was so popular in the seventies. Remember those? I received three of them for my bridal shower. They were darling, but the real kitchen witch is my mother. She’s not a mean or nasty witch, warts at all, but a cooking wizard white witch who instinctively understood what I’d learn later at a Native American’s knee. Mom’s hands are holy. They kneaded mountains of dough, loading her magic into the bread with each tender touch. Those fingers chop and slice, layer and bake, decorate and graciously hand over each tidbit of perfection. Whether it was Italian chicken wedding soup from heaven, or tender, luscious orange cookies, everyone tasting her cooking knows it comes from a place bigger than her heart. It comes from her soul.
I’ve met Kitchen Angels several times in my life. They are those amazing people who unblinkingly volunteer to cook at church events, prepare sandwiches at the local Meals on Wheels, carry food from paid functions to help the Food Bank, and generously trudge through the snow to take an ailing neighbor a pot of soup. These are the real Kitchen Angels, working tirelessly to feed and nourish those who need it most.
Here in America, we all know when to turn our clocks forward and back in the spring and fall. Spring forward…fall back…be sure to set the alarm correctly or waking will be confusing. That’s all well and good, keeps the daylight as long as possible in the winter and saves energy in the summer. It keeps things interesting.
Angels. These celestial beings have played many different roles throughout history, all reflecting the time and mindset of society. The oldest bible stories tell of warriors and messengers. In the early 1900s images treated angels the way they treated St. Nicholas. A distinctively distinguished old man reaching out to bring a little joy to poor children became the jolly Christmas elf. Angles became chubby cherubs fluttering around on tiny wings and looking cute. A far cry from fearsome warriors and an even further cry from the messengers we all hope for.
Where are our heads when it comes to angels these days? We’ve seen them in movies and on television as playful characters and vicious murderers, as distant lovers and desperate survivors. Artwork depicts angels with beautiful flowing hair wearing gowns and sporting massive snow white wings. Angels are shown crying and protecting, leading and following. They fight off the dark and guide the dead home. That’s a lot of jobs.
I personally have another theory. I believe very one of us has an angel or two all our own. We banter with them when making decisions, we negotiate when we want to do something we already know we shouldn’t, and we count on them to tell God what we desire and need and hope for. These companions sit close and are prepared for any situation, especially the ones we never see coming. For me, they stood, wings wrapped around me, as I listened to the breast cancer diagnosis. They told me jokes while I endured treatments. They soothed me through my fears and walked me to the other side of the disease. Beyond that, they have carried my dreams and hopes for my family and friends to God for me, interceding and most likely correcting my wishes to sound more like prayers. The angels beside me have opinions and I am trying my best to listen to them. They shield me from traffic accidents, household mishaps, and I try, I really try, to listen to them when I’m angry. Most times the words have already flown from my mouth before their advice registers, but I am trying. We all try.
It’s hard to deal with people, day in and day out. It’s difficult to keep the judgment behind and see only what’s in front of us. I’m a huge baseball fan. A failing pitcher takes me into a rant at times. “What is he doing? That batter has proven he will never swing at the low and inside pitch! Why is he pitching it?” There are a hundred reasons. He’s unable to throw the ball where he wants at the moment. The catcher is calling for that pitch. The manager intends for the pitcher to walk the batter. Lots and lots of reasons, all reasonable but my frustration seems to always win. The pitcher’s angel has it’s job and my angels have their job. I honestly do try, especially when I’m driving, watching sports, or dealing with the coming election. I imagine we were all born with patients. My poor guardian angels must deal with my inability to tap into that gift. They are the real champions in my life!
