Calling All Angels

There actually are more than a few gratifying things about being beat up. One of them is, you find out who your friends are!

No, sorry, I really do not mean to joke about this. I mean to express my gratitude and seriously affirm the abundance of the universe. I truly am "getting by with a little help from my friends." I have been lifted up, as by angels.

Here's what I would say about angels: Some of them have come from places I would hope and expect-- family, friends, people I know love me and whom I am privileged to love.

Some of my "angels" have come from within me: resources of intellect, emotion and spirit that I rely upon more than I know in everyday life, and rediscover when life is not so "everyday." Angels like my sense of humor. And my knowledge about and previous experience of PTSD... So when I'm in shock and numbed, I am; and when I'm shaking, and weepy, I am. And when I'm walking through the valleys of the Shadow that are ERs and doctors' offices, I am.

I am, I am able to be, because I am aware that I am accompanied.

Which brings me to the third sort of angels who've been called and who have come: those I didn't expect. As if to balance the Surprise of the One Who Would Harm have come the Surprises of the Many Who Would Heal. So: a neighbor brings dinner; someone I hardly know sends a card; people whom I wouldn't expect, call, or email; many offer to keep me in prayer.

All of this is more than gratifying, more than reassuring. This is a community of care I've discovered that I didn't even know I had, really, or better, that was part of my "assumptive world" yet not my presumptive world, if you know what I mean-- the tacit become tactile, the silent, speaking and speaking up!

I am more than grateful, because, at the moment, I need this widened awareness of the essential benevolence of the world. Nothing material was taken from me outside my garage, but still the motive was robbery: for what was taken from me was my sense that at least THAT part of the world was safe.

We all need to feel safe. I mean, yes, it does take courage to live and to go about living in this world. But some times it takes more courage than at others, and right now, at this time in my life, I needed to feel safe again. I needed to re-establish where I could be safe and whom I could be safe with.

The angels who came from without and within, the angels who might have been anticipated and those who were unanticipated, all served to make me feel safe again. My face and body would heal on their own, but the rift in my world could only heal with the help of these angels.

People have said to me: Take care! Be wary! Be cautious! Be alert! And yes, I am more aware of where I am and who is around me now than I was. But I also know that if I go into the world in too much fear, if I am jittery and apprehensive, if I am suspicious and distrustful, if I am short-tempered and reactive-- then the Assailant won.

So I will not live in fear and I will not let my basic trust be broken. I will walk in confidence and I will be unafraid.

How can I do that? Well, I got Angels watchin' over me!

You do, too! Blessings...