“O bear me up, angels, across life shifting sand;
Lest I should stumble, Bear me up in your hands."
I come from a very Christian family. Every Sunday is another one of God’s days, and that is a constant expectation. There is no excuse for missing church, and I’ve been told that every moment, as is life itself, is a blessing regardless of the happiness or discomfort that moment holds. I suppose that constant bickering over following holy practices combined with the societal shift from religious values to flawless scientific fact has left me skeptical over the forces that hold society together. The same forces that religious leaders claim as miracles are viewed by some scientists as the workmanship of nature, both human and environmental, or as lucky coincidences. Many Christians are under the impression that all things happen for a reason as signs ordained my God. If so, maybe my experience with angels is supposed to be my reassurance of those values that were shoved into my head as a child.
July 1997, I was seven years old. My brother and I liked to play in my dad’s truck. Clad in batman costumes, we put on our seat belts and pressed every button and turned random knobs, or at least they seemed random at the time. It wouldn’t have been a problem if the tuck wasn’t an 89’ or if our house wasn’t on a hill, but one of those random knobs was the lock on the emergency brake. My dad, who was watching us, was distracted by the family next door, and when he realized the car was moving he wasn’t able to intervene nor strong enough to keep the car immobile. Sensing that something was wrong, I opened the door and tried unsuccessfully to pull away from my seatbelt. We raced down the driveway and I was thrown from the car. My right leg, gashed completely to the bone at knee level, had swung and hit the mailbox. I sat up in shock, unaware of the severity of my health. The first thing I remember thinking was how odd the mailbox looked, red, with pieces of white rock. After surgery, the doctor told my parents that I had gotten off easy. No major arteries were cut nor were any nerves severed. Surgery was quick and all they had to do was sew me up. Everyone at church was convinced that it was a miracle. On the mailbox, at the precise location of impact, is the sculpture of an angel, a winged man.
April 2000, three days before Easter, my Father and I were walking around unfinished parts of our neighborhood. It was a good walk, father-son bonding time, usually a good moment to smash windows that were deemed as building trash or to mess around poking things with a stick. I always enjoyed those lone walks with Him. The unpaved road we were traveling was on a hill and bordered by pine forests. Being a rather investigative boy, I edged towards the side of the road, which overlooked a small valley and a creek. That’s when it happened. Immediately the earth underneath me gave way. I had walked onto a cliff. As I slid down the hill, mindlessly scrambling for a weed or twig to hold onto, I stopped when my feet dug into a mound of soil. Looking up, unharmed, I shouted to my Father, and that’s when I first saw what I perceived as an angel, a single white cloud overhead with the appearance of a winged man.
For now I go along with what’s preached at church. If science doesn’t explain the whole world yet then this seems to suffice. I’m even one of the main leaders of our a cappella music service. Sometimes I start off the service with the song that the hymnal opens to first. This morning it turned to “Bear Me Up, Angels.”
Naomim. An Angel Passed by. Digital image. Mytelegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited,
11 June 2008. Web. 22 May 2011. http://my.telegraph.co.uk/naomim/naomim/4345261/An_angel_passed_by/
