By Kay Augustine
While there are many, many folks who are convinced there is a Supreme Divine Being/Creator God who intervenes in human affairs either by His plan (and to most He is gendered—that gender) or in response to prayer; and while the Roman Catholic Church has a very long list of people they declare to be saints only after certain miracles are verified to have been done by God in response to their prayer to Him; nevertheless, I have never been fully convinced of either of those beliefs—either that we live inside a Divine Plan or that God is gendered and answers prayer, either directly or through saints. Let me say clearly this does not mean I think I’m right and those who do believe this are wrong; it may well be just the reverse. It is simply what I, at the ripe old age of 90, have come to believe: that the Divine is a mystery. I like what a friend who worked among the Dine, aka Navaho people told me: Their name for God is Ultimate Mystery.
I have come, however, at this stage in my life, to wonder more and more about angels. Since childhood I’ve loved the song I learned from WHA radio in the only elementary school music instruction we had, “Evening Prayer” from Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel, asong about the fourteen guardian angels who keep watch while we sleep. I’ll be concluding this short piece with a poem called “Wondering about Angels.”
Additionally, as more and more of my contemporaries die, I find myself reconsidering the phrase “passed on,” a phrase I’ve long disliked hearing used as a euphemism for “died”: Maybe they really have “passed on” — to some sort of spirit world, a world inhabited by what we humans have long called angels.
So. Lately I find myself, in quiet moments, “tuning in” to those I have lost from this life, sometimes asking for their help or Light for myself or others. I can’t say I can point to any resulting miracles, but it is comforting to recall being in their living presence, comforting to invite that presence back into my life in this way.
One experience, in particular, explains why, as long as several years ago, I found myself
Wondering about Angels
In Memoriam: LeRoy Augustine
11/21/1934 – 11/08/2019
Annie Dillard, in “A Field of Silence”
saw them “whirling…their beauty
unspeakable.”
May Sarton called them “The
Beautiful Pauses,” said “Surprised by
angels, we are free for once
to move and rest in the sacred dance.”
In the Bible they appear in human form
with messages, and come in bands to
carry the departed home,
So this morning, as my guttering candle
sends beams through the head of my
glass singing angel, I’m wond’ring
about them. Remembering…
The morning of your memorial service, I
pick up your loose-leaf Memory Book, am
startled to hear briefly–so briefly–Snoopy’s
theme. You had loved Charlie Brown and
especially Snoopy, so in that notebook of
photos, mementos, birthday and Father’s Day
cards was one I had sent, a musical Snoopy,
dancing, playing his tune when the card was
opened; but it hadn’t been opened, and the
batt’ry had died months ago, so I wondered…
And seven days later, feeling almost pretty
in my red New York jacket, black Kango hat,
I lug my suitcase onto the bus, sit facing front.
Halfway downtown someone behind me
taps my shoulder, leans over to say, “I’m dyin’
to tell you, you wear that hat very well. I should
get one that stylish.” Startled again, I thank him,
impulsively take out my phone to record his
exact words.
At Water Street this courteous stranger
sees me struggling, takes my suitcase off the bus.
I thank him again, he heads south, and I turn
north to see the Green Line barreling toward the
stop. I hail it, clamber on, and take a side seat
facing East. A few blocks later a tall young man
across the aisle speaks up, pays me a compliment.
“That’s amazing,” I say. “You’re the second man
today to tell me I look nice.”
“That was me before,” he says.
I’m stunned. “But…the other one was older, wore
tweed…”
“I helped you off with your suitcase,” he says.
The young man sitting next to him is amused at
my embarrassment. My face must match my jacket.
Confused, I smile, lower my eyes, do not see the
tall young man get off the bus. But I wonder:
He’d had to have walked two long blocks
faster than the bus to board it again.
So this morning I’m wondering…
about angels.