Boo! Angels and Where They Find Us

Spirituality Column #259
October 25, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Boo! Angels and Where They Find Us
By Bob Walters

“You’re going to love this story!” a Christian co-worker recently exclaimed.

I knew immediately this was a Kingdom faith story. A non-Christian would have said, “You’re not going to believe this, but …”

Anyway, my co-worker’s brother Mike (also a believer), slipped and fell – hard – the day before outside a busy gas/convenience store in a small northeastern Indiana town. Mike was numb from the neck down, tingly all over, and unable to move. A friend comforted Mike, told him to lie still, and dialed 9-1-1. A crowd gathered.

Amid the confusion, seemingly out of nowhere, a woman appeared. Telling Mike’s friend she was a nurse, she knelt down, stroked Mike’s hand and quietly, clearly assured him, “You’ll be all right.” Then she walked away.

Everyone’s attention was focused on Mike. The “nurse” came and went without being recognized. Immediately after she left, Mike’s feelings began to return. When the paramedics arrived, Mike was fine.

Certainly, it’s possible the injury was less severe than initially thought. And having been around sports injuries and charitable paralysis foundations, I know “stingers” can come and go quickly.

Or not. A small town and nobody recognized the nurse? She left before the ambulance arrived? (Most nurses would stay.) Mike’s paralysis disappeared just like she did? Gotta’ be a God thing; an angel moment.

My wife and I had a similar “close encounter” this summer when our right-rear tire exploded on northbound I-465 nearing the I-69 high-speed connecting ramp in heavy traffic at 10:30 on a Saturday night. Driving in the middle “thru” lane with no sane way to get to either shoulder, we were forced into the most dangerous place imaginable – that striped, “V” shaped no-man’s land in front of the ramp-split crash/runoff zone.

Needing not to stay there, we crept a hundred yards down the I-69 ramp (not the way home), still situated horribly: on the narrow left shoulder with a disintegrated right-rear tire exposed to whizzing traffic scant feet away. We had a flashlight and a spare tire, but no jack, tire iron or lug wrench (long story).

Suddenly, the way I like to tell it, “Jesus showed up.” A slight, scruff-bearded man in dirty work clothes stopped his old, rusted compact car, backed up the ramp’s left shoulder, dug through his cluttered trunk for loose tools and scattered sockets, grabbed his jack, and changed our tire crouching perilous inches from the speeding ramp traffic. ‘Said he usually drove a tow truck – in Noblesville. With my profuse, astonished thanks and $30 he didn’t ask for (all I had on me), he drove off.

I just love that story.

Walters (email rlwcom@aol.com) encourages people to tell angel stories this Halloween instead of ghost stories.

Christ-free Christmas in the Cards

Current! In Carmel - #7 – Christmas Cards
Spirituality column – Dec. 26, 2006

Christ-free Christmas in the Cards
By Bob Walters

“It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.” —Calvin Coolidge

If you think the reverse of this statement would rightly be, “when men don’t worship, they don’t grow,” you might agree that where the Christmas holiday season is concerned, our mates across the pond have Scrooged themselves.

From Albert Mohler’s Dec. 18 Christian blog, via Jeff Jacoby writing Dec. 13 in the Boston Globe, reporting on a Dec. 8 column in London’s Telegraph, describing a recent survey and report issued by British employment law councilors Peninsula, we learn that 99 percent of “Holiday” cards in the UK not only don’t mention Christmas, angels or Jesus, they don’t even refer to the holiday traditions – Christmas trees, Santa Claus, etc. No Peace on Earth. No Silent Night.

Further, the survey informs, nine of 10 British firms don’t have Christmas parties for fear of being sued by their offended employees. One in 15 Brits attends church.

They can’t be afraid of losing God. He’s already gone.

Christmas-less England. The soon-to-be land of “Winterval.” Prince Charles, a couple years ago, mused that the British royal moniker “Defender of The Faith” should instead be “Defender of Faith” to remove the offending “The Faith,” referring to Christianity. This in a country where the monarch is head of the Christian church.

I wonder what his mum thinks.

Let’s not play Pharisee and Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) and somehow congratulate our American piety. We all have great reason for humility, but we mustn’t miss this very teachable and scary moment.

The good news on this side of the Atlantic is that most people in the U.S. – 80-85 percent – whether they go to church or not, think they are Christians ... and that's a very positive thing. Any believing, practicing, church-going Christian should nurture all those de-facto Christians and all the rest of our neighbors. We too often condemn them rather than needlessly and indiscriminately love them, as we would have them love us.

That might sound familiar (Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12).

Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims in a country of 60.5 million, just 2.6 percent, aren’t the problem. It is the Seculars, the post-modern “right and wrong is a matter of opinion” crowd, that destroys Christianity. Don’t think it isn’t happening in America, and don’t blame believers of other faiths. Christmas is up to you: resolve to be a better Christian.

Now, those Christmas cards still hanging in your house? Those are all from people who, to one degree or another, love you.

Do them the honor of making a New Year’s resolution to grow in 2007.

Walters, a Carmel resident, has never been to England but he kinda likes the Beatles. Contact him at rlwcom@aol.com.