Ten Ways to Be an Angel

Since 1993, when the Rev. Jayne Howard Feldman founded Be an Angel Day, people across the country have taken time to bless a loved one, friend, or stranger with acts of kindness. As Beliefnet reader "Angel Love" of Port Orange, FL. says, "Consider what you would like someone to do for you, and instead, do it for them."

At the heart of being someone's angel is to have an abundant amount of warmth, creative resourcefulness, and a determination to spread some heaven on earth.

1. Invest in Someone

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. --Khalil Gibran

Donate to a charity or provide financial support (whether temporary or ongoing) to someone who needs a money miracle. When your heart nudges you to offer a check or cash, listen to it! Don't only give to get something in return.

Heavenly Hint
I always donate money if I know there is a need: - A co-worker whose husband was battling cancer - The Red Cross to help Katrina survivors - A friend who was unemployed for months --Marsha Boyette, Russellville, AZ

2. Adopt a Soldier or Sailor

There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. --Mother Teresa

Remind soldiers and sailors of home by sending letters and care packages filled with fun, practical, and personal items like postcards of their hometown, their favorite gum, or recent family photos printed on playing cards. Send what they may not be able to find overseas.

Heavenly Hint
Join the military-approved organization, Soldiers' Angels. If you are good with knitting and or your hands, there are blankets, mitts, and foot coverings to be sewn for injured soldiers.
--Laurie-Jean Gombar, Old Orchard Beach, ME

3. Lend an Earful of Love

The first duty of love is to listen.
--Paul Tillich

Remember to be patient and just listen when a friend needs you. Don't be eager to offer advice or be quick with your opinions. Instead, remember that sometimes listening can speak more than talking.

Heavenly Hint
When I hold my tongue and put aside criticism and judgment, my 12-year-old daughter easily pours out her thoughts and feelings to me. After I listen to her--really listen--she rewards me with a grateful look full of love at being understood. This then leaves the door open for me to empathize and make a gentle suggestion or two. It's so much nicer when we lighten each others' loads.
--Joan Wright-Lee, East Granby, CT

4. Save Our Pets

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Homeless pets need love and help in finding food and shelter. Get involved with your local ASPCA or adopt a pet from an animal shelter or from a friend who can no longer take care of it. Sandra M. Williams of Swansboro, NC also suggests, "Feed your friends' animals while they are on vacation."

Heavenly Hint
For the last four years, I have found homes for over 45 abandoned animals. After Katrina, I was also called to New Orleans and was privileged to provide safety for God's creatures--from dogs and cats to iguanas and chickens. After providing medical care and food, I love to see homeless animals become part of someone's loving family.
--Kelle Davis

5. Lighten Up a Hospital

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. --Leo Tolstoy

Want to provide for someone ill and in need of more than medical care? Join a group that organizes visits for patients in hospitals, such as St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, or visit someone you know who is ill. Instead of flowers and balloons, offer prayer sessions, a jigsaw puzzle, or favorite CDs.

Heavenly Hint
Chemoangels.com is a wonderful organization that provides snail mail support and encouragement for people with cancer. One of the most rewarding and healing things I have ever done is to reach out to a complete stranger and send my love and encouragement.
--Lori Fecteau, Madison Heights, MI

6. Be a Kindred Spirit

We are not put on this earth for ourselves, but are placed here for each other. If you are there always for others, then in time of need, someone will be there for you. --Jeff Warner

Slowly break out of your comfort zone by offering coffee to a coworker or asking a neighbor to join your book club. A new best friend may be waiting in the cubicle next to you or in the next pew at your house of worship.

Heavenly Hint
I became fast friends with a coworker, who was a loner, when I started to put little treats in her office mailbox: a package of cookies one day, a bookmark the next, a pretty pen after that, etc. Even though we no longer work at the same place or live in the same state, we are kindred spirits. I love her like a sister!
--Charlotte Waller, Boonville, IN

7. Sign Up for a Prison Pen Pal

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy, and mutual valuing. --Rollo May

Want to put your stationery and stamps to good use? Rediscover snail mail by writing to men and women in prisons. Proceed with caution and join a safe, established organization such as Prison Fellowship or Jewish Prisoner Services International that provides friendship and help to inmates.

Heavenly Hint
I run a pen pals website for prisoners who don't have Internet access and who suffer from loneliness after losing contact with their families and friends over the years. My own husband has a life sentence, and I see first hand what he goes through. Pick a person who you wouldn't mind writing to—you wouldn't believe the difference a piece of mail can make.
--Nova Saulli, Hillsborough, NJ

8. Tuck Away an 'Anyday' Gift

Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily.
--Sally Koch

Gifts don't have to be big (or for a holiday) in order to elicit a brilliant smile. See a bookmark or a box of tea that reminds you of someone? Buy the item and give it to that person—just because.

Heavenly Hint
One day, when I was completely overwhelmed with new job responsibilities, I came home to find a small package at my door. The corporate secretary at my job had sent me a dish shaped like a ladybug; the gift was precious because I collect ladybug items. For someone with incredible stress in her own life to think of me made me feel very special.
--Amanda Redding, Mount Pleasant, S

9. Start a Blessing Chain

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
--Leo Buscaglia

"Pay it forward" by being part of a domino effect of cascading kindnesses. As an old adage reminds us, "a little goes a long way." Offer someone a blessing and tell them to pass it on.

Heavenly Hint
I was still reeling from shock after my partner's intensive surgery. Wiping away tears, I was about to pay for food at the cafeteria when the cashier smiled gently at me and said, "The lady ahead of you paid for your meal." When I caught up to "the lady," she also smiled gently at me and said, "I just want you to have a good day." I was immediately flooded with awe. A few days later, with newborn hope, I was inspired to pass on the gesture.
--Karen St. John, Indianapolis, IN

10. Surround Someone With Wings

Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

It might be awkward to hug a stranger. Still, any form of gentle touch, especially hugs, has the potential to promote a calmer, less anxious society. Of course, you wouldn't bear-hug the person next to you in a movie theater, but you could try giving him or her a "mental" hug by radiating positive energy in that direction.

Heavenly Hint
When I'm in a restaurant, I like to pick someone out. Then, I imagine myself unfolding wings from my back and wrapping them around the person to give them a hug. It is always heartwarming to see the person turn around, looking for someone.
--Doreen Singer, Regina, Sk, Canada

Making the Right Decision

Deciding the best choice is made easier with help from above.
By Jackie Clements-Marenda

Reprinted from Angels on Earth, a Guideposts publication.

Don't let them do it," my Uncle Eddie begged, clutching my arm. "I'd rather die than be trapped in a wheelchair!"

"You'll get an artificial leg, and with some therapy you'll be able to walk again, maybe even dance a jig or two," I told him gently, covering his hand with mine. "There's no other choice."

"I'm too old to adjust," he insisted. "Please, Jacquelyn." He pinned me with those deep-blue Irish eyes that had watched over me through my turbulent teenage years. My dad, his brother, died when I was 11, and Uncle Eddie had given up his easygoing bachelor life to be a father figure to me. Could I deny him now?

Just an hour later I sat in a conference room opposite his doctor. A consent form lay between us.

"You're his only blood relative and we need your signature. He'll die if we don't take the leg."

I can't do this, I thought. I was only 21; married and expecting my first child. It should have been a joyous time, but my uncle developed gangrene in both legs, a complication from diabetes. The doctor said one leg had to be amputated from the knee down. To make matters worse, Uncle Eddie had suffered a stroke, leaving him too disoriented to make the decision himself.

Yet in a moment of coherence, he had made his wishes clear. Now I had to decide what was best for him as he had always done for me. I couldn't imagine life without him, but if I. truly loved him, how could I sentence him to a life he insisted he could not bear?

"I'll give you a few minutes alone," the doctor said, rising.

"Help me, God. I don't know what to do," I whispered as the door shut. "You must sign the form," said a voice from behind me. "It's the right thing to do." I turned to find a young nurse standing there. I hadn't heard her come in. "Your uncle will survive the surgery. He'll adjust."

"You don't know Uncle Eddie...." I shook my head, sighing.

"I do know him," she said, "and his stubbornness will be his greatest asset during recovery." I found myself staring intently into her eyes. Her absolute certainty silenced my doubts. I signed the form.

When I looked up, the nurse had left. I gave the form to the receptionist and asked which way the nurse had gone.

"No one left or entered the room besides the doctor and you," she said.

"You must have seen her," I insisted. "A young Asian woman?"

"No, I'm sure there's no one by that description working here."

I knew what I had seen. And I also knew I had made the right choice; my uncle came to realize that too. He lived three more happy years, taking walks daily and playing with his new grandniece. I smile when I think of him decorating heaven with shamrocks for Saint Patrick's Day and dancing a lively Irish jig with a certain young nurse who helped me make the hardest decision of my life.

The Healing

When you've just lost a child, how can healing begin?
By Sandy Jones

The shock of events of the past 30 hours overwhelmed Jim all at once. His body felt numb, and while the world was moving along, he felt removed from it.

Jim and his wife, Connie, had just lost their beautiful four-month-old son. Preliminary diagnosis: SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome.

Thirty hours ago Jim had driven to the baby-sitter's home to pick up Joshua. It was a routine trip, like the one he made five days every week...until he arrived, and little Joshua could not be awakened from his nap. The next few hours were a blur. Wailing sirens, swift-moving paramedics, critical-care doctors and reassuring nurses, holding hands and praying. A decision to life-flight Joshua to Children's Hospital 60 miles away...but all in vain. Twelve hours later, the doctors had exhausted all attempts at revival. There was no brain activity. The decision was to turn off life-support. Little Joshua was gone. Yes, they wanted all of Joshua's usable organs to be readied for donation. That was not a difficult decision for Jim and Connie, a loving and giving couple.

The next morning dawned. More decisions and arrangements. Telephone calls and funeral plans. At one point Jim realized he needed a haircut, but being new to the community, he didn't have his own regular barber yet. Jim's brother volunteered to call his hairdresser and get Jim an appointment. The schedule was full, but after a few words of explanation, the salon owner said, "Just send him right over and we'll take care of him."

Jim was exhausted as he settled into the chair. He had had little sleep. He began to reflect on the past hours, trying desperately to make some sense of it all. Why had Joshua, their firstborn, the child they had waited so long for, been taken so soon...he had barely begun his life... The question kept coming, and the pain in Jim's heart just enveloped him. He thought about the words spoken by the hospital chaplain. "We don't fully understand what part we have in God's plan. Perhaps Joshua had already completed his mission on earth." Those words didn't ease the bitterness that was creeping in.

The hairdresser expressed her sympathy, and Jim found himself telling her all about the events of the last 30 hours. Somehow it helped to tell the story. Maybe if he told it enough times, he would gain some understanding.

As Jim mentioned the organ donations, he looked at his watch and remembered what was happening 60 miles away...where he had said good-bye to his beloved Joshua a few short hours earlier. "They are transplanting one of his heart valves right now."

The hairdresser stopped and stood motionless. Finally she spoke, but her voice quivered and it was only a whisper. "You're not going to believe this...but about an hour ago the customer sitting in this chair wanted me to hurry so she could get to Children's Hospital. She left here so full of joy...her prayers had been answered. Today her baby granddaughter is receiving a desperately needed transplant...a heart valve."

Jim's healing began.

Reprinted courtesy of "Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul."

When We Fall, It's to a Place of Grace

A young boy miraculously survives a fall and restores his rescuer's faith, too David Waters

(C) 2000 The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company.

It was the day after Thanksgiving. The Stigler family of Memphis was taking a holiday break at Fall Creek Falls State Park. Susan Stigler was standing on the observation deck overlooking the falls, holding a video camera. She didn't want to miss a moment.

Her husband and two teenage sons were about to jump off a cliff. Susan wasn't worried. They'd done it before. They weren't really jumping. They were rappelling down the side using special ropes and devices.

Her eldest son, Jon, 17, went first. She watched him through the viewfinder as he slid smoothly down the rope 220 feet from the top of the cliff to the rocky floor below.

Jared, 15, was next. She kept the camera on him and she waited for him to leap. He seemed to be hung up for a second or two. Then he jumped and began to slide down the rope. It seemed to Susan that he was going awfully fast. It looked like he was dropping, not sliding 22 stories. She kept waiting for him to slow down. He never did. Jared knew he was dropping too fast. He reached behind him to grab the rope and slow his descent. But he wasn't wearing the right gloves. The rope burned his hand. Instinctively, he let go.

Then he hit the ground. He bounced and flipped over. Susan gasped. Jared wasn't moving. She thought he was gone. She thought she had just filmed his death. "Thank you, Lord, for these past 15 years with Jared," she said to herself. Then he moved.

The Stiglers weren't the only family at the falls that day. Connie Walker of Murfreesboro, Tenn., was there with her family and her sister's. They had been sitting at the bottom of the falls enjoying the view. But it was cold, and the adults were ready to go back up to the inn. The kids wanted to stay. Some people were getting ready to slide down the side of the cliff next to the falls. They stayed and watched one.

"Just one more," Connie's son said.
"One more," said Connie, who was past ready to go. She still wasn't feeling well, physically or otherwise. The car wreck she'd had months before had shaken the kids but had nearly broken her. She'd hurt her neck and back. She was having trouble with the physical aspects of her job. Her doctors kept telling her she was going to have to quit.

She was discouraged about her situation, and more than a bit peeved at God about it. How could she quit? They needed the paychecks. Besides, she loved her work. God put her in that job to help people. Now she had to stop? Connie kept going over it all in her mind as she watched a distant figure prepare to jump off the cliff several hundred feet away.

The jumper seemed to have trouble getting started. Then he dropped like a stone, hit the ground, bounced and flipped. Connie and her family watched in silence and in horror as the stranger lay motionless on rocks below the falls.

"Mom!" Connie's little boy yelled. "Do something!"

Susan saw Jared move. Then she saw other people moving toward him. Glenn, Jared's dad, was rappelling down a rope from the top of the cliff. A friend who had been holding Jared's rope from the bottom was still holding on, trying to keep Jared from moving. A few other people Susan didn't know were slowly making their way around the falls, over slippery rocks, to the spot where Jared lay.

"Please, Lord," Susan said, helplessly high above the scene, "please send someone who knows what to do."

Connie and her sister knew what to do. They were nurses. When they got to Jared, they expected to find a pile of bones and organs. Instead, they found a boy who somehow was alive and in one piece.

Jared was bleeding from his mouth and nose, but not too badly. He was in much pain, but awake and relatively alert. His feet and ankles were twisted and swelling, but he didn't seem to have any broken bones. Still, there was no telling what sort of internal damage he had. He fell 22 stories onto rocks. He was lying at the bottom of a remote canyon. And the two nurses at Jared's feet had no medical equipment or supplies. They worked with Jared's father to keep Jared still, warm, and awake. They made splints for his ankles with their hands and kept his legs elevated with their arms for more than an hour.

While they held Jared in place, someone else held them in place on the slippery, sloping rocks. Connie kept checking Jared's pupils and pulse. Every time his heart would race or crawl, she would pray. "God, you can't let this happen to this boy," she'd say.

Emergency crews finally arrived and took Jared to the hospital. But surgeons never operated. There was no need. Jared was fine. He had a cracked heel bone, a dislocated ankle, torn tendons and ligaments. That was all. Emergency room doctors worked his bones back into place with their hands. His injured ankle wasn't getting enough blood for a while, but the blood soon returned.

He still uses a brace, but only when he plays sports.
"I feel fine. I feel blessed," said Jared, a junior at Cordova High.
"That boy is a walking miracle," said Connie, who now has a picture of Jared on her refrigerator and a fresh perspective.

Jared has healed. So has Connie.
"What happened that day revived my spirits," she said. "I'm not going to worry about my situation. I know God is in control. I had to quit being a recovery room nurse, but I know there are lots of ways I can help people."

Susan has watched the video of Jared's accident a hundred times.
"People have asked how do I stand to watch it," she said. "But in a strange way I find it very comforting. I know there are unseen hands in the video. I have no doubt God and his angels were intervening that day. I can't see them but I know they are there."

Jared's family will celebrate his 17th birthday today. They celebrate Thanksgiving every day.

David Waters' column, Faith Matters, is featured regularly in The Commercial Appeal Newspaper in Memphis, Tenn.

The Great Haylift

The drought was catastrophic. What could anyone do?
By Bonnie Silver

I hadn't been paying attention to the national news that July because it was haying time on our small Michigan farm. My husband, Ron, and I raised a dozen Hereford cattle, and I worried about Ron being stuck outside in the heat when I went to my cashier's job at our local grocery store that Saturday afternoon. As I lay down for a short rest before my shift, I started to pray that Ron wouldn't overdo it. Before I could finish, three words burst into my mind: hay...drought...south. It was the oddest thing. More like a command, really. And with it came such enormous pressure on my body that, for a moment, even breathing became difficult. Finally, I sat up, tears in my eyes. Why was I crying?

I walked into the kitchen. Ron was having a cup of coffee. I asked, "What do the words hay...drought...south mean to you?" He told me there was a terrible drought in the South. Fields were parched, and farmers were losing their cattle because the animals didn't have any hay or feed.

I knew how I'd feel if our cattle were dying. "Ron," I said, "that explains my message." I described the cryptic words and the urgency that had overcome me.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Ron asked.

I had no idea. I didn't know anybody important. I was just a farmwife and a part-time cashier. God, I implored, find someone else to help those farmers.

But later that day when I was chatting with folks at my checkout counter, I kept thinking, hay...drought...south. The words wouldn't leave my mind.

At church on Sunday, I reminded God that the drought in the South wasn't really something I could do anything about. Yes, we had some hay to spare, but how could we move it down south? By Monday morning, when the urging just wouldn't go away, I made a few calls to put the matter to rest. I spoke to some other local farmers. Sure, they'd be glad to donate hay, but there was no way they could send it to the ravaged areas. As for our state's ag department, they hadn't organized a thing. "See, Father," I said, "if they aren't going to do anything, how can I? Please, find someone else."

Hay...drought...south.

By noon, I did the only thing I could think of. On the highway, I'd often seen trucks from Steelcase, a huge office furniture manufacturer in Grand Rapids. Maybe they would ship hay. If I made this one call I could be done with it. After all, who'd take me seriously? I looked up Steelcase's number in the phone book and dialed. Almost immediately, I was connected with a woman in public relations. To my amazement, she gave me the CEO's private number. Before I lost my nerve, I called and reached his secretary.

"What would you like to speak to him about?" she asked. "If I told you, dear," I said, "you'd round-file me as a nut."

Minutes later, the CEO of Steelcase, a company with thousands of employees, called me back. I told my story, concluding by saying, "Michigan farmers want to donate hay to the South, but they can't get it there."

"How many trucks would you need, Mrs. Silver?" he asked.

"Twenty," I said without a pause. Where did that number come from?

"Expect a call from Mr. Marlotti. He should be able to help you."

Half an hour later, when Mr. Marlotti did call, telling me that he was instructed to give me whatever I needed, I hooted into the phone. At that moment, I realized this was much bigger than me. All I could do was follow.

OK, God, I prayed, you win. I'll do what you want, but you have to help me along the way.

He did. That day I got a hold of Bill Penn, director of the U.S. Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Department in Lansing. He promised to send a rep to our house to meet with the Steelcase people and folks from the state ag department so we could coordinate shipments of hay to the South. Meanwhile, someone from Bill's office set up a 1-800 telephone number to our house. The "Michigan Haylift" was under way.

When the media got hold of the story, broadcasters and newspapers announced, "Call 1-800-Hay-Farm to donate or help ship hay." All those people ended up calling me.

Twenty-four hours a day, the phone in our kitchen rang. We even had an extra line added. People would try to dump hay in our front yard. Reporters interviewed me at the checkout counter at work. Finally, my supervisor suggested I take some time off. "I want you to devote yourself to the hay project," he said. Amen, I thought.

Sometimes, I didn't know how I'd manage. One day, I was sitting in my kitchen when the phone rang. "We've got 500 bales of hay over here in the Thumb." (Michigan is shaped like a mitten, and the eastern peninsula is referred to as the Thumb.)

"Hang on," I replied, checking the map. "We'll get to you." Then I prayed, God, send me someone who can pick up 500 bales of hay, 150 miles away, and get them to the first convoy of semis going south.

I hadn't even hung up when the other line rang. "I've got an empty truck," a man said.

"How can I help?"

"I know just where you're needed!" Things like that kept happening.

On July 24, Bill Penn called from Lansing. "We need you here for a meeting with all the government departments who are involved. I want them to hear from you about what's happening."

I panicked. There was no way I could appear at a meeting in the capital. "I can't," I said. "I can't leave these phones. I can't drive in big cities, and I can't leave the farm."

"You have to be here," Bill insisted. "I'll send a driver to pick you up." How could I argue with that?

When I walked into the conference room in Lansing, I thought I was going to hyperventilate. The table seemed as long as a football field, and around it sat representatives of the state's ag and transportation departments, the governor's office, the state police. They all looked so official.

"Mrs. Silver," Bill Penn said to me, "would you tell these gentlemen about what you're doing?"

I looked at all those suits, said a quick prayer, and spoke. As clearly as I could, I explained about the thousands of farmers donating hay and people volunteering trucks, and how urgent it was to get the cattle feed to the drought-stricken farmers in the South. I told them that I had cattle and knew how terrible I'd feel if I couldn't feed them. At the end of my speech, a young man from our U.S. senator's office stood up.

"Bonnie," he said, "we've talked to Conrail. You've got as many railcars as you need."

The Lord was working in so many people's lives. The Michigan Haylift was growing by leaps and bounds.

With the railroad involved, we had a more efficient way to ship hay to the South. Drivers picked up hay from farms and delivered them to the 16 rail sites that were set up. Then volunteers loaded the hay onto railcars for the trip south.

One August night, after I collapsed into bed, Ron asked me how much longer I could keep up my part of the organizing, answering phones, talking to reporters, giving out information.

"Until the job's finished," I said.

"When will that be?"

"I don't know," I answered wearily.

In mid-August, I went to Grand Rapids to see firsthand what was going on. High school football teams, youth-corps volunteers, prisoners on work detail, all kinds of people were taking the hay from trucks and putting it into railcars. It was brutal work, especially in the heat, but no one slowed down. Good thing McDonald's, Burger King, and Pepsi donated massive amounts of food and beverages to keep everyone going.

We started getting reports from grateful farmers down south whose cattle were getting fed again. We were delivering hay into seven states--over 10.5 million pounds--and not one dollar had exchanged hands. All the labor, fuel, transportation, and feed were donated.

Then one morning in September, a TV reporter came to do an update on the story. I tried to answer her questions, but my words just wouldn't come out right. "Excuse me," I said, "you'll have to talk to my husband."

After the TV crew left, I smiled at Ron. "I guess it's time."

"What's time?" he asked.

"You wondered how I'd know when I was finished. Well, all these months, God's given me the strength to do things I would've never been able to do on my own. But today I can't. I think that's his way of telling me I'm done.

Drought conditions eased and the project did wind down after that. Our phones stopped ringing, we took out the extra line, people stopped bringing hay to our farm, and I returned to my job at the grocery store. Only one blessing remained, and that was meeting some of the folks who'd been on the receiving end.

On a rainy Thanksgiving weekend--how fitting that it rained--we joined hundreds of others under a big tent outside Greenville, S.C. A choir sang, a minister led us in prayer, and a proclamation from the governor was read. "Thank you, Bonnie," people said, "we're so grateful for what you did."

The real thanks belonged to the Lord, for whom I was only a reluctant servant. But he gives us what we need to do his will. That's what I learned. He gave me willingness when I was unwilling, words when I was tongue-tied, stamina when I was weak. How else would a farmwife and part-time cashier ever have been able to help start the Great Michigan Haylift?

Since this story happened in 1987, Bonnie and Ron have turned part of their acreage into a wildlife preserve. Their love of farming and of animals is as strong as ever--as is their belief in the difference one person + God can make.

Miracle of a Mother's Love

Her daughter would die if she wasn't found. Brad and Sherry Steiger

Reprinted from 'Miracles of a Mother's Love' by Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger. Copyright c 2002 by Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger.

A successful businesswoman in the Washington, D.C. area told us an extraordinary story of how she had managed to locate her missing daughter and bring her to the hospital just in time to save her from overdosing on drugs.

"Janet had been going through a rebellious period. She had been experimenting with recreational drugs in a very reckless manner," Ava Johanneson said. "We had had one violent quarrel after another over her irresponsible lifestyle, and one night Janet just left the house and disappeared."

Three months went by, and the frantic mother had no idea where her eighteen-year-old daughter had vanished to.

"I had not heard one word from her," Ava said.

"The police had been unable to find a single clue to her whereabouts. I didn't even know if she was alive or dead. It was a terrible, heartbreaking situation for a mother to be in."

Ava telephoned her ex-husband on the West Coast, hoping that Janet might have gone there to try the California lifestyle, but he had had no word from their daughter either.

"I can't tell you how miserable I felt," Ava said. If only I had known where Janet was, I would have telephoned her and begged her to come home so that we could work things out."

Ava is legally blind. Only by holding papers at a certain angle and moving them close to her thick-lensed eyeglasses can she read the numerous documents relevant to her prosperous manufacturing business.

One day as she sat in her office thinking things could not get much worse, Ava accidentally knocked her glasses off her desk--and subsequently stepped on them, smashing them as she searched for them. With a sinking feeling, she realized that her one remaining pair of glasses was in her dressing room at home.

"It was at that moment that the telephone rang," Ava said. "My secretary said it was someone who insisted on speaking only to me. I answered and heard only one word--'Momma'--and the line went dead. I knew that it was my Janet and that she was very ill and needed me at once!"

At first it seemed like cruel fate. She had not heard from Janet in months, and now only a one-word telephone call. Where was she? Was she calling from a faraway city?

No. Ava felt in her mother's heart that the call had come from the city. But where?

And then an incredible miracle occurred. Ava suddenly had a clear mental image of a row of shoddy apartment buildings bordering the city's slum area. As she focused on the remarkable photograph in her mind, she suddenly knew that she could find the very room from which her daughter had telephoned.

After all these months of anxiety, sleepless nights, worrying about Janet, Ava, now knew where she was--but she had just smashed her glasses and couldn't see a thing without them. How could she drive to her daughter's side in time to help her? It was useless to call for help--she would only waste time explaining how she knew where Janet was.

And then Ava experienced another miracle--she could see!

"I picked up a city map from my bookcase," she said. "After years and years of eyesight so bad I was declared legally blind, I could now read even the smallest print on the map. And then I knew exactly where Janet was. My eyes focused on one particular address. In my mind I could see an apartment, and I could clearly see my daughter lying unconscious beside the telephone."

Amazingly, Ava, who normally had great difficulty seeing well enough to drive even with her prescription eyeglasses, got into her automobile and drove unerringly through the large city to the exact address that she had envisioned. She could see everything clearly as though she had 20/20 vision. Not even the smallest lettering on sign posts presented the slightest difficulty. It was as if she once again possessed the sharp and clear vision of her childhood.

Once she determined that her daughter did, indeed, reside in an apartment at that address, she persuaded the superintendent to allow her access and to call an ambulance.

"I held Janet's head in my lap until the ambulance arrived," Ava said. "She was completely unconscious and had no awareness of my presence. Thank God, I was in time."

It was later apparent to investigators that Janet had accidentally overdosed on drugs, realized her error, then desperately reached out for her mother's unconditional love by attempting a telephone call for help before she lapsed into unconsciousness.

But what will never be explained is how Ava was able immediately to know the exact whereabouts of the daughter from whom she had received no communication at all for many months--and how, though legally blind, she was able to see perfectly well to drive through heavy traffic to an address that was previously unknown to her.

Then, as soon as the paramedics and police arrived and she was certain that Janet was safe and would be cared for by medical professionals, Ava's wonderfully perfect vision left her as suddenly as it had mysteriously come upon her. She knew that without her special prescription eyeglasses, it would once again be impossible for her to negotiate the city streets that she had just minutes before traveled so effortlessly, and she asked a police office to drive her home.

The only explanation possible to Ava and to Janet, who now works in her mother's business, is that sometimes a mother's love can work miracles.

The Voice in the Darkness

Having lost her parents as a child, Hanneke found herself drawn to a coma patient without relatives.
By Carin Klabbers

Reprinted from "Chicken Soup For the Nurse's Soul."

When I was nineteen-years-old, my friend Hanneke Boogaard was studying to become a nurse at Beatrix Hospital in The Netherlands. There, nursing students work during their study, the same as regular personnel. During her work on the night shift, Hanneke was strangely drawn to one patient in particular, a forty-year-old woman in a coma. Because Mrs. Groensma never had visitors, Hanneke remained at her bedside longer than the others. At first she tried not to admit it, since for her all patients should mean the same. But this woman fascinated her.

When Hanneke heard the patient had no living relatives, she spent even more time with her. She'd learned that people in comas could sometimes hear when they were spoken to. This woman had no one to do that for her, so Hanneke talked softly to her every night. Since she didn't know her, she didn't know what to talk about, so she told Mrs. Groensma all about herself. She explained how her parents had died in a car crash when she was young. For hours she shared her many memories of them. That's all she had to cling to now. How she wished she had a specific personal item to remember them by - the golden four-leaf clover locket her mother always wore. It was lost during the accident and never found, even though relatives searched the crash site and nearby ditch. Night after night, she talked and talked and grew more and more attached to Mrs. Groensma.

She would likely never come out of the coma, and she had no one in the world to care for her. Therefore, the time came for her to be transferred to a nursing home where she would eventually die. When Hanneke objected, she was heavily reprimanded for losing touch with her professional attitude and forbidden to contact the patient in the nursing home. Hanneke saw the logic of her supervisors but could not help thinking about Mrs. Groensma often.

Time went by and Hanneke became a nurse and found a job in the Beatrix hospital. One day at work she was instructing a patient when a lady, who was questioning another nurse, turned and deliberately walked towards her. It was Mrs. Groensma! They found an empty room where they could speak privately and Mrs. Groensma explained what she was doing there.

She recalled having been in a dark and lonely place, all alone, until the voice of what she thought must have been an angel started speaking, drawing her attention. Later when that voice stopped talking to her, she longed for the sound so much that she started struggling to get to the place where the voice had come from. She came out of coma and took a long time to recover. Meanwhile she had questioned the nursing home staff. They eventually told her they had instructions to keep away a certain nurse who had made the mistake of getting too attached to her.

As soon as Mrs. Groensma was able, she came to the hospital to find that nurse. When she heard Hanneke talk to the patient, she recognized the voice that had spoken to her during her coma.

Mrs. Groensma took Hanneke's hand. "I have something I want to give you to thank you. I found it fifteen years ago in a ditch and originally wanted to put pictures of my late husband and me in it and give it to my daughter. When she died I was all alone and wanted to throw it away, but I never came to it. I now want you to have it."

Mrs. Groensma handed Hanneke a small box. Inside, sparkling in the sunlight, lay a golden four-leaf clover locket. With a pounding heart Hanneke opened it to see her parents' photos.

Hanneke now wears the locket day and night and visits Mrs. Groensma whenever she wants.

And they talk and talk and grow more and more attached.

A Little Miracle in Passing

By Bob Perks

Someone once asked me how I could possibly say "I believe in you!" to perfect strangers. "You don't even know who they are. How could you possibly believe in them?" he said.

My reply, "Because I have a license to!" It's true and I have the only one. It came in handy on my recent trip to western Pennsylvania.

It takes me about five and one half hours to drive to Meadville, Pa. When I make the trip, I take along some of my books on tape that inspire me, as well as music that I can sing along with. But I also find satisfaction in long periods of quiet. It is then that I just think about my life and watch the beautiful countryside pass by.

I was in the middle of a very heavy conversation with God and when I came upon a large van with a trailer behind it.

"God, I really need to find more doors to open," I said. "I believe in my heart that you have bigger plans for me and although you have all the time in the world, at 51, my clock is ticking."

I believe I heard Him laugh at that one.

Then I looked up as I was passing that van. I often wonder where people are headed, what big moves they are making and say a quick prayer that they are happy.

"You see these people in next to me? They seem to be making a move. They have plans. They know what they want and where they are going. I need some help, here God!" I said.

Just as I got along side I looked down and saw a bumper sticker. It read, "With God, all things are possible!"

I couldn't believe it. It was like a sign to me that God was in charge and when the time was right I, too would see the direction my life was going.

"Thanks, God." I said.

As I came along side I saw a young couple in the van. For a split second our eyes connected and I waved. I then safely pulled ahead of them and watched as they faded out of view in my rear view mirror.

I popped in a Andrea Bocelli CD and played the song "The Prayer." I don't speak a word of Italian, but I sing along with him at the top of my lungs.

About thirty minutes down the road I took an exit so that I could fuel up the car and have a little lunch. Grabbing a sandwich to take with me, I headed to my car. Just as I was about to get in, the van I had passed pulled up. Looking at the couple again, I smiled. They got out and headed toward my car.

"Hello! It looks like you're making a big move," I said.

"Yes, we are," he said. "But you just made it a lot easier."

We introduced ourselves and he explained what he meant.

"This "big move" as you call it is indeed a life changing experience. We have given up a great deal to follow our dream. To tell you the truth we weren't sure it was the right thing to do. My wife and I were in the middle of a deep conversation and frankly, re-thinking our plans. She had just said to me, "If God wants us to do this, He will let us know somehow. Just then you passed us," he said.

"Yes, I remember. I saw your bumper sticker," I said.

"Well, He did it," she said.

"He did what?" I asked.

"God confirmed with us that this was the right thing to do," she said smiling. "Your license plate was His message to us...."IBLEVNU."

"We couldn't believe our eyes," she said. It was like a confirmation that we were doing the right thing."

We started laughing. Then I explained to them that I am a writer and a speaker and I told them my "I believe in You!" story.

"But, wait. You were the answer to my prayers, too," I said. "I was having this deep conversation with God when I passed you and saw your bumper sticker, "With God all things are possible!"

"So He confirmed with us that this was the right move," she said.

"And He renewed my "License to Believe!" I said.

You see, I told you. God sends people into my life as a gift.

He also sent me YOU!

"I believe in You!"

Bob Perks is a professional speaker, author, and vocalist. Visit him at www.BobPerks.com

A Hospital-Room Miracle

Divine intervention saved my grandson.
By Carol Gonzales

Almost ten years ago my grandson and my mother were rushed to the hospital the same day and the same time. They were both suffering from congestive heart failure and were dying. We found out that day that my grandson, who was only four months old, was missing a chamber of his heart and needed immediate surgery. The surgery took place a few days later, and my grandson was then put on a ventilator.

My mother, on the other hand, was holding on by the grace of God. The two of them held on to life with a force so strong that to this day still amazes me.

My grandson was fighting to live and my mother was not willing to let go. When it looked like neither one would make it, I went to my mother and asked her to go to the Father and ask him to save our baby. If there was nothing she could do here, perhaps she could talk to God for us.

That evening she passed, and the following morning my grandson was taken off the ventilator and lived. Cecilio is nine now and is a healthy boy after undergoing five open-heart surgeries.

Miracles--how could anyone not believe?

Escaping a Madman With God's Help

By Dan Millman and Doug Childers

Reprinted from "Divine Interventions."

The car, cruising down Monterey Boulevard, swerved suddenly onto the Highway 1 exit ramp and sped out of town into the night. The driver, Lee, a 40-year-old South Vietnamese soldier, turned to his lone female passenger, a 20-year-old foreign student from Beijing. "I have a gun," he said. "Do what I say or I'll kill you!"

Lee was a busboy in the Chinese restaurant where Jenny worked as a waitress. One of her co-workers always drove her home after work. But, Lee who had offered her a ride home tonight, had another plan. Jenny watched her abductor in terror as he turned to her, his face illuminated by the dashboard lights. His left eye gleamed crazily--his right eye was gone, a maimed slit of pink flesh, ruined in the war.

Lee spoke again, his voice harsh. "I'm going to rape you and dump you in a field. Obey me if you want to live."

Jenny had come to America seeking a new life. Now, on this dark night, it seemed the remainder of her life might be counted in minutes as Lee's car speed along the pitch-black highway.

"I don't want to die!" she murmured, her eyes filling with tears.

Desperately, Jenny searched for options, knowing she was no match for this experienced combat veteran. Looking down at her door, she considered leaping out of the car, but at this sped, the fall would surely kill her.

Seeing her gaze toward the door, Lee roared, "You can't open the door. It's automatic lock!"

Jenny had ridden in a few cars and didn't know whether to believe him or not. Then, oddly, a minor incident from a week before flashed through her mind. Jenny, still struggling with English, working two jobs, missing her family, and feeling out of place in America, must have let her sadness show in her face, because a young woman she was waiting on at the restaurant said to her before leaving, "You look really unhappy--you really ought to try praying. It works."

Jenny had found these do-gooder words irritating--she would have preferred a generous tip. What was the use of mumbling superstitious words to some imaginary God? In China, the Party had taught her that religious people were weak and fearful-mental cripples believing in fairy tales. She believed, like Marx, that religion was the opiate of the masses.

Now, abducted by a dangerous madman in a speeding car on a dark highway, about to be raped and possibly murdered, the idea of praying to a powerful being who might help her in this terrifying situation seemed compelling and perhaps her only remaining option. "Deciding to give prayer my first and maybe last try, I closed my eyes and prayed desperately, 'Dear God, if you exist, please help me!' I aimed my prayer like an arrow straight to God. To my surprise, I began to feel a calm strength entering me."

As Jenny prayed, the car suddenly lurched and the tires squealed. She opened her eyes to find that Lee had inexplicably swerved off the highway onto an entry ramp heading back into town. He turned onto a main thoroughfare and they drove through the city under bright streetlights in evening traffic. Though baffled, she continued praying, eyes open, searching the road, her mind crystal clear: "Please God, give me strength!"

As they approached an intersection, the light turned red. Incredibly, Lee pulled to a stop--right across the street from a police car with its blue and red lights fluttering. A policewoman stood on the roadside writing a ticket for the car she had pulled over.

Jenny knew this was her moment of truth. If God had helped her to this point, she must now help herself. Filled with strength, still praying, she grabbed her book bag and pulled on the door handle, not knowing if it would open. It did. Lee reached out and grabbed her arm, but she pulled away with all her might and ran across four lanes toward the policewoman, feeling stronger than ever before.

When the light changed, Lee's car pulled away with squealing tires. The police caught him half an hour later.

"This experience shook my belief system like an earthquake," Jenny says today, 12 years later. "I grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. I watched my family and country destroyed. I never saw God help anyone. My high school science curriculum included philosophical arguments for atheism: "The world is matter, and consciousness, only a by-product of matter, is extinguished at the moment of death. So-called miracles and supernatural powers are coincidences based on pseudo-science and superstition-peasant mentality.'

"But a divine power saved my life--I have no doubt of it. All my philosophical arguments blew away like dust in the wind. I began to understand that not everything can be scientifically explained and measured, reduced to atoms, chemical elements, and basic particles.

"This incident was a turning point in my life. Indirectly, it taught me that the most important things in life-kindness, love, faith, integrity--can't be found in a test tube. Yet, these qualities are real; they can move mountains or save lives. I wasn't surprised when my parents and friends called my experience luck and my belief in God an illusion. I only knew that I was about to die. And when I prayed, a power and a calmness came over me, my kidnapper turned off the highway, drove me back into town, and stopped in front of a police car.

"Now I know I'm watched over, that a divine power exists. And the more I align myself with this power by living with integrity and faith, the better my life becomes. It's almost.scientific."

My Doctor Was an Angel

After a difficult surgery, a woman is comforted by a heavenly physician.
By Joan Wester Anderson

It was May, 1995, and 44-year-old Denise lay in the recovery room at Yale University Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. She had been very ill with throat cancer for over a year. Radiation hadn't worked, and surgery had been her only option. Now her voice box and lymph nodes had been removed, to halt the disease's progress. But her chance for life seemed even less than the doctor had anticipated.

Now, as Denise slowly awakened, many people in white coats surrounded her. They seemed grim, and Denise was seized with a sudden terror. What was wrong? She looked up and noticed one very young doctor. He was looking down at her, his expression kind, and he seemed to glow. She must be dreaming...

When Denise got back to her room, her worried brother Ron was waiting. Although she could no longer speak, she gestured to Ron. "I wanted to see what they had cut and what they had done to me. Ron hesitated but handed me my compact." Denise gasped. Her head looked at least three times its normal size. Her throat had been cut past both ears and she couldn't raise her head. She began to sob. Ron ran for a doctor.

Instead, the young man Denise had seen in the recovery room came in. "It's all right," he told her soothingly. "Your head won't stay like this. The scar is bad, yes, but you're alive, and you're going to get better." He picked up her hand and held it. Peace seemed to flow through Denise. She fell asleep.

The next time Denise awakened, it was four a.m. When she rang for a nurse, the same doctor came in! He was smiling, and he spoke so softly she could barely hear him. "You're going to be all right. I want you to know that. I'm here. I'll never leave you," he said, leaning over her. This time Denise was awake enough to study him. His features seemed flawless. His hair was short and blond, cut in an old fashioned way with longish bangs and parted on the left. He had bright blue/green eyes. His hand was warm, soft, and strong. Again, Denise fell asleep with him telling her she would be fine. From that point on, every day at four a.m. she would wake up and he would be there, holding her hand and talking softly.

"The next time Ron came in to see me, I wrote to him on my tablet about this doctor," Denise says. "I wanted Ron to find out his name. I wanted to thank him for being so kind to stay with me when I was too afraid to be alone. I suggested Ron check the interns because I thought he must be an intern. What doctor would have this much time to spend with just one patient?"

Ron went out to talk to the nurses, but when he returned, he looked at her strangely. "You must have been dreaming," he said.

NO! Denise scribbled on the pad.

"He doesn't exist, Dee, I asked all the nurses. And they checked. No one has seen anyone like him. No one knows him, either."

Denise knew better than to argue with Ron. It was only later, when she got home, that she learned her brother had continued to look for the unknown doctor. Ron had stopped only when several nurses assured him that it wasn't at all unusual for a hospital patient to see her guardian angel.

Denise recovered from cancer, and she knows she suffered less because God allowed her angel to be very visible to her. "Maybe someday," she says, "I can tell him face to face once again, Thank you so much."

Copyrighted 2002. For more stories of God's goodness, check Joan's books on the website: www.joanwanderson.com.

A Triumph of Humanity

As model Petra Nemcova lay in a hospital bed after Thailand's deadly tsunami, she experienced the generosity of strangers.
By Petra Nemcova and Jane Scovell

On December 26, 2004, model Petra Nemcova was on a dream vacation with her boyfriend, photographer Simon Atlee, when a devastating tsunami hit, separating the two. Nemcova clung to a palm tree, in agony from a broken pelvis, and was finally rescued after eight hours. Little did she know she would never see Atlee again--his body would be found months later.

In this excerpt from her new book, "Love Always, Petra," (all proceeds will be donated to Give2Asia/ Happy Hands Fund) she talks about her experience in a Thai hospital.

I lay there for a long time until a young man came over and started talking to me. His name was Eylam and he was from Israel. Eylam had been on vacation with his girlfriend, Carma. The two of them were on a bus going to Khao Lak when the wave hit. They were lucky enough to break a window and swim out; most of the people in the bus weren't so lucky. He and his girlfriend were unhurt. They could have left but decided to stay and help the injured.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked me.

"Please...my legs, I can't move them. Please can you help? Can you hold them together?" I was always saying the same thing.

They took a sheet and tied it around my legs to keep them from separating. It made a difference. They wheeled me out of X-ray and then into a room where there were beds.

In the bed next to me was a Thai man. He had lots of tubes running in and out of his body. He spoke a little English and asked me what my name was and where I was from. Both of us were in great pain, but so thankful to be in a safe place. He told me that he had lost everything; he didn't know what had happened to his family. He feared the worst. I told him what had happened to Simon and me and that I was worried but certain that Simon was okay. After we talked for a while, he reached down and took off a chain from around his neck; on it was a small figure of the Buddha.

"Take this," he said, reaching over and putting the necklace on my bed. "He will protect you now."

I honestly believe this was the last material object that this man had, and he gave it to me. I took the necklace and told him that I would treasure it. I do. I cannot tell you how many times I witnessed little and big acts of generosity from complete strangers-many who lost so much themselves but put their own sorrows aside to help others. I know that for every deed of goodness I saw, there were thousands more, and not just in Asia. All over the world, people were reacting the same; they wanted to help. The tsunami was a horrid tragedy, but out of it came a triumph of humanity.

From the book LOVE ALWAYS, PETRA: A Story of Courage and the Discovery of Life's Hidden Gifts by Petra Nemcova with Jane Scovell.

Learning About Lovingkindness

Use metta meditation to open your heart, to yourself and to the world.
By Sharon Salzberg

From "Lovingkindness" by Sharon Salzberg. Copyright 1995 by Sharon Salzberg. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, Mass.

What unites us all as human beings is an urge for happiness, which at heart is a yearning for union, for overcoming our feelings of separateness. We want to feel our identity with something larger than our small selves. We long to be one with our own lives and with each other.

If we look at the root of even the most appalling violence in this world, somewhere we will find this urge to unite, to be happy. In some form it is there, even in the most distorted and odious disguises. We can touch that. We can connect to the difficult forces within ourselves, and to the different experiences in our lives.

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasure and its pains. We feel neither betrayed by pain nor overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation.

Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: Our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

In cultivating love, we remember one of the most powerful truths the Buddha taught--that the mind is naturally radiant and pure. It is because of visiting defilements that we suffer.

Our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

The word "defilement" is a common translation of the Pali word kilesa, which more literally translated means "torment of the mind." We know directly from our own experience that when certain states arise strongly within us, they have a tormenting quality--states like anger, fear, guilt, and greed. When they knock at the door and we invite them in, we lose touch with the fundamentally pure nature of our mind, and then we suffer.

By not identifying with these forces, we learn that these defilements or torments are only visitors. They do not reflect who we really are. The defilements, or the kilesas, inevitably arise because of how we have been conditioned. But this is no reason to judge ourselves harshly. Our challenge is to see them for what they are and to remember our true nature.

We can understand the inherent radiance and purity of our minds by understanding metta. Like the mind, metta is not distorted by what it encounters. Anger generated within ourselves or within others can be met with love; the love is not ruined by the anger.

Metta is its own support, and thus it is free of inherently unstable conditions. The loving mind can observe joy and peace in one moment, and then grief in the next moment, and it will not be shattered by the change. A mind filled with love can be likened to the sky with a variety of clouds moving through it--some light and fluffy, others ominous and threatening. No matter what the situation, the sky is not affected by the clouds. It is free.

The Buddha taught that the forces in the mind that bring suffering are able to temporarily hold down the positive forces such as love or wisdom, but they can never destroy them. The negative forces can never uproot the positive, whereas the positive forces can actually uproot the negative forces. Love can uproot fear or anger or guilt because it is a greater power.

Love can go anywhere. Nothing can obstruct it. "I Am That," a book of dialogues with Nisargadatta Maharaj, includes an exchange between Nisargadatta and a man who complained a great deal about his mother. The man felt that she had not been a very good mother and was not a good person. At one point, Nisargadatta advised him to love his mother. The man replied, "She wouldn't let me." Nisargadatta responded, "She couldn't stop you."

The Pali word metta has two root meanings. One is the word for "gentle." Metta is likened to a gentle rain that falls upon the earth. This rain does not select and choose--"I'll rain here, and I'll avoid that place over there." Rather, it simply falls without discrimination.

The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend.

The other root meaning for metta is "friend." To understand the power or the force of metta is to understand true friendship. The Buddha actually described at some length what he meant by being a good friend in the world. He talked about a good friend as someone who is constant in our times of happiness and also in our times of adversity or unhappiness. A friend will not forsake us when we are in trouble nor rejoice in our misfortune.

The practice of metta, uncovering the force of love that can uproot fear, anger, and guilt, begins with befriending ourselves. The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. According to the Buddha, "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." How few of us embrace ourselves in this way! With metta practice, we uncover the possibility of truly respecting ourselves. We discover, as Walt Whitman put it, "I am larger and better than I thought. I did not think I held so much goodness."

Seeing the goodness in someone does not imply ignoring the difficulty qualities or unskillful actions. Rather, we can fully acknowledge these difficulties, while at the same time we choose to focus on the positive. If we focus on the negative, we will naturally feel anger, resentment, or disappointment. If we focus on the positive, we will forge a connection to the person.

Looking at people and communicating that they can be loved and love in return gives them a tremendous gift. It is also a gift to ourselves. We see that we are one with the fabric of life. This is the power of metta: to teach ourselves and our world this inherent loveliness.

Sharon Salzberg is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass.

Secondhand Emotions: "Catching" a Bad Mood

by Charles Downey

Like an infectious disease, the negative emotions of one family member can have long-lasting effects on the mental and physical health of the rest of the family.

A Chicago meat packer comes home after a long day of tough physical labor in a smelly and otherwise disagreeable workplace. He arrives home in a black mood and sulks, ruining the moods of his wife and children as well. His wife feels caught in the middle, wondering what she can do to make the home atmosphere lighter. She flits back and forth between her most sensitive child, her daughter and her husband, trying to brighten the evening. But when dad is in one of his moods, the kids get depressed and think the tension in the air is somehow their fault. Sometimes, the kids get so blue that they can't concentrate or finish their homework.

An Insidious Poison

Like secondhand tobacco smoke, psychologists have shown that frequent exposure to negative emotions can have a toxic effect on the rest of the family members, sometimes even affecting their physical health. One study, for instance, found that the children who were repeatedly exposed to adults' negative emotions are at greater risk for heart disease and depression.

Study authors Reed W. Larson of the University of Illinois and David M. Almeida at the University of Arizona at Tucson say that the repeated daily experience of secondhand emotions can travel from one person to another in a family. This can even be a means by which parental distress, anger or depression leads to the same conditions in other family members, particularly children.

The Research

Professors Larsen and Almeida studied 450 families over three years. They peeked in on the activities, moods, and emotional lives of the study subjects through diaries and by calling to ask how they felt. Other families filled out questionnaires about the effect of secondhand emotions in their lives.

"The most consistent finding was that negative emotions can create a chain reaction of distress that moves through a family, affecting everybody's behavior and eventually, their well-being," says Dr. Almeida, a professor of family studies and human development. "These emotional spillovers also appear to follow the order of power in a family, from fathers to mothers to children."

On days when work has been especially rough, for example, our meat packer sneaks off to the race track, where he sometimes wins. When he comes home with winnings, the mood of the entire family is upbeat and happy. But an upbeat mood is quickly reversed if he loses money at the track.

The study also revealed that an emotion can be transformed from one person to another in its transmission. For instance, scorn in one person may induce shame in another; anger in a powerful person can create anxiety in a less powerful family member.

The study of emotional transmission, printed in the February 1999 issue of the Journal of Marriage and the Family along with three other studies, revealed that negative emotions like anger, depression, and anxiety are more likely to be transmitted within a family than are positive emotions. Contagious joy within families seems to be a rare thing indeed.

Communicating About Emotions Helps

"If couples or family members can just communicate the reason why they are in a bad mood, others at home are less likely to catch that negative emotion," says Dr. Larson, a psychologist and professor of human development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "But if dad just bottles up his feelings and snaps at the children when he comes home, they're far more likely to think his dour mood is due to something they've done, and then they become even more depressed."

If the head of the family is a woman, negative moods will also flow downhill and affect the other family members. Geraldine Downey, PhD, a Columbia University professor, studied single mothers in chronic pain and compared them to similar mothers in good health. She too found that negative emotions are easily transmitted to others in the family. But when children fully understand that their mother's bad mood is in response to a painful medical condition, they don't blame her mood on themselves.

In cases where there is clear justification for ill temper, family members tend to relax more and the toxic emotions are less likely to be transmitted. In one family studied, the husband was experiencing the rigors of the New York Bar Exam and was generally uptight and on edge. However, his wife didn't feel intimidated by or responsible for his dour mood because she knew what was causing it.

Techniques for Sparing Your Family

Families can not allow issues to disintegrate to the point where a parent comes home every evening in a lousy mood, throws things, slams doors, and yells at others. "All our research has shown that highly distressed parents have highly distressed children," says Dr. Almeida.

"The healthy thing to do is to decompress before coming home," says Dr. Almeida. "If the commute is a major headache, maybe an uptight dad could do yoga or some other workout before driving home and facing more stress in traffic. The second technique is to just tell everybody at home why you had a bad day." This gives them a chance to empathize and help you.

With many of today's families headed by two working parents, both of whom may have stressful jobs, it might be helpful to just say, "There was a big snafu at work, I'm a bit grumpy now and if you can cut me some slack, I'd really appreciate it." Some families have a routine where each parent is granted 20 minutes of 'quiet time' before rejoining the family. This includes stay-at-home parents, whose stress is often no less than his or her working spouse.

Researchers say that talking openly about stressors also teaches children that not every day is a happy day, and that sometimes people are grouchy. This is also a good time to teach them that they will have to deal with people who are not always pleasant.

While females are more likely than males to communicate about their good or bad moods, says Dr. Almeida, there are ways you can help draw men out. Start by instituting a regular family dinner hour so it's easier for everybody to talk and catch up on the day's events. "If father seems to be infecting everybody else with a bad mood, ask gently 'Why are you so upset?'," says Dr. Almeida. "Or, failing that, politely suggest he take a walk."

RESOURCES:

Coping.org
http://www.coping.org/anger/workout.htm

FamilyDoctor.org
http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/articles/589.html

CANADIAN RESOURCES:

AboutKidsHealth
http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/

The Child, Youth and Family Health Network
http://www.reseaudesanteenfant.ca/

References

Larson RW, Almeida DM. Second-hand emotions: emotional transmission in families. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 1999 Feb.

A Night of Wonders

In this Irish folktale, a woman with no material wealth finds a blessing when a supernatural creature takes her for a ride.
Retold by Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi

Mary McPhee lived in a tiny stone house in a remote part of the country with nothing but her cat and her memories to keep her company. Her parents had died many years before, and she remained in that little cabin, following a routine that had not changed since she was a girl. Lonesomeness was a familiar part of her life, and she put it in its proper place with the thought, “There’s plenty who are worse off than the likes of me.” She blessed the sun when it shone and praised the rain for making the grass grow. In her heart, Mary kept alive a flicker of hope that something wonderful was waiting for her just around the corner. It might take awhile to find, but she was convinced that it was there; it was just a matter of looking in the right place.

Mary seldom had two coins to rub together. She ran errands and did extra chores for nearby farmwives, occasionally receiving a penny or two for her labors. More often than not, she simply earned a plate of cabbage and boiled potatoes or a slice of buttered bread and a cup of tea. She made do and was grateful for the food and whatever else might come her way.

One day, a young boy appeared at Mary’s door with a plea for help. His youngest brother and sister were sick with the croup and his mother needed help with the washing and cooking of the meals. “Will you come, Mary McPhee?” he asked in a solemn voice.

“Of course I will,” she answered, reaching up to grab her shawl from the peg by the door.

It had been a long, troubled walk for the child and as they returned to his home, he revealed his worries to Mary. “Mary, are you not afraid walking this lonely stretch of road at night by yourself?”

“Afraid? No, I’ve walked this road all my life. What is there to be frightened of?” Mary replied.

“Why, Mary McPhee, surely you’ve heard of the pooka. He travels these roads at night, playing tricks on folks and causing all sorts of devilment.”

“Oh, that old black horse—he’s nothing to be afraid of. His tricks are harmless. All he does is turn himself into a pile of straw that can’t be lifted or spoil the berries or bewitch a cow and get it to kick over a milk pail. Why would I be afraid of nonsense like that?”

“Mary McPhee, have you not heard the other stories? How he knocks people into ditches, scares them with his fiery blue eyes, bruises them with his great big hooves, and takes them away on wild night rides!”

“Ah, he only abuses them that’s afraid of him. I’m not a bit afraid. In fact, I’d welcome a ride through the countryside. It would be a grand adventure the likes of which I’ve never had!”

“Oh, Mary, don’t say such things. You never know who is listening,” cautioned the boy. When Mary heard the child’s innocent reproach, she gave a hoot and the sound of her laughter tinkled across the fields and up into the air.

Mary spent the remainder of the day working. She washed the clothes, hung them on the line, and, as they dried, she started the stew simmering and baked the bread. After she served the other children their supper, Mary cleaned up the dishes and brought in the clothes as the sun sidled its way out of the reddened sky. The woman finally tucked her children into bed for the night, then sat down with Mary to enjoy a welcome bowl of mutton stew. As the two women ate their meal, Mary felt weariness creep into her worn body. She sipped the last of her tea, wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, and bade the woman good-night. “Will you be all right, Mary?” asked the woman. “It’s late and it’s a long walk back to your place.”

“Don’t worry about me,” said Mary. “There’s a full moon out to light my path. I’ll be just fine." Mary moseyed along, feeling the weight of her tired feet and enjoying the peacefulness of the evening. The moon cast a silvery sheen over the landscape and caused lacy shadows to fall across the fields. “Just lovely,” muttered Mary to herself, and then she stumbled over something in the road. Looking down, Mary saw an old, black pot. “Well now, that’s an odd thing to find abandoned in the middle of the road,” she remarked. “But you never know, it might come in handy. I’ll just take it along with me and see what comes of it.”

She bent down to lift the pot by its handle and saw that it was filled with gold coins. “Goodness gracious,” she exclaimed, standing bolt upright in shock. She circled the pot several times, observing it from all angles to make sure that it was real and when it didn’t disappear, she thought to herself, “It would be foolish to leave it here. Why, it’s just sitting here, waiting for me to take it home. "However, the pot was too heavy to carry, so Mary tied her shawl around it and began to drag it down the road.

As Mary lugged the pot behind her, she imagined the things she could do with her newfound riches, her ruminations moving from the practical to the fantastic, until she chuckled to herself and muttered, "Mary McPhee, you’re putting on airs. What would the likes of you be doing in a castle with servants?”

After a while, Mary had to stop and catch her breath because hauling the pot was hard work. Turning around, she gave a cry of surprise for she discovered that her pot of gold had turned into a huge lump of shining silver. “Well, will you look at that!” she exclaimed. “It is indeed a strange night. A lump of silver may not be a pot of gold, but it’s more convenient and easier to keep safe.” She adjusted the shawl, took a deep breath, and continued down the road, pulling the treasure behind her.

The lump of silver weighed almost as much as the pot of gold, and soon Mary had to stop again to rest. She turned around and this time saw that the lump of silver had become a great lump of iron. “The moonlight must be playing tricks on my poor, tired eyes. Nevertheless, a lump of iron is more than I had when I woke up this morning." With a smile on her face, she took hold of the shawl and made her way back to her cottage.

When Mary got home, she reached down to pick up the lump of iron and, in the moonlight, saw that it had become an ordinary stone. With a laugh, she declared, “Luck has been with me this whole night. The lump of iron is nothing more than a stone, but isn’t that exactly what I need to prop open my front door.”

Mary untied the shawl, lifted it off the stone, and wrapped it around her shoulders. The stone began to shiver and shake and Mary watched in amazement as it bounced and jumped about, sprouting four legs, a long neck, and a tail, until it became a fine black horse with eyes the color of blue flames. It switched its silken tail, shook its powerful head, and pawed the ground with its mighty front hoof. “That pot of gold befuddled my brains,” said Mary, shaking her head. “I should have known that such peculiar antics were the workings of none other than the pooka himself!”

The pooka bent its head until its fiery eyes were level with Mary’s face. In a gravelly human voice it asked, “Would you like to go for a ride, Mary McPhee?”

Without hesitation, Mary replied, “Indeed, I would.” The horse bent its neck and Mary hitched up her skirt, grabbed hold of the horse’s long mane, and pulled herself onto its back. The pooka gave a mighty leap and sprang into the air. They raced along, the pooka’s hooves barely touching the earth as they bounded across the fields and flew over the hills. The pins that held Mary’s hair bound came loose and her long tresses streamed out behind her. “Look at me,” she hollered out with glee. “I’m flying!”

The pooka came to an abrupt halt at a spot where two roads crossed and stomped the ground with its hoof. All of a sudden, a thin gray cloud of mist began to float over the surrounding fields. It glimmered in the moonlight, swirling higher and closer, thickening as it twirled, until it was so dense that Mary could not see her own hand in front of her face. Then slowly, the silvery haze faded away and revealed a fine, big house with a delicate blue light spilling out of its open door. “Go on in, Mary McPhee,” said the horse, bowing its head to the ground. Mary slipped off the pooka’s back and made a quick attempt to straighten her disheveled hair and clothes. Warily, she stepped into the patch of light, placed her hand on the doorframe, and peered inside.

Mary’s eyes widened in astonishment as she gazed at the spectacle arrayed before her. Hundreds of blue-white flames hovered in the air, casting a pearly sheen over the most beautiful people Mary had ever seen. Their dazzling blue eyes twinkled as they chattered and laughed, the sound of their voices rippling through the room like a spring rain. Every one of them had white hair and alabaster skin, but none wore the signs of age. Music drifted up from the earth below, a delicate, haunting melody that silenced the conversation. As Mary stood in the doorway, the people began to dance, moving around the room with the fragile agility of moths fluttering through the night.

A man wearing a waistcoat of dove-gray feathers walked toward Mary and extended an elegant hand. “Would you care to dance, Mary McPhee?” he asked. Mary nodded her head and placed her workworn fingers in his translucent palm. She seemed to float across the floor as he led her to the center of the room. All traces of fatigue departed from Mary’s body as she danced like a feather on the wind, allowing the music to seep into her bones and carry her around the room. Mary danced all night long. Outside, morning approached through the open door and in the face of its soft light, the blue-white flames weakened. The alabaster people slowly dissolved, the edges of their bodies blurring until they completely vanished from sight. The music wafted away and Mary found herself standing in the middle of an empty field as dawn brightened the horizon.

The pooka stood next to her and in a hoarse whisper gently announced, “I think it’s time to go home, Mary McPhee.” With a few powerful strides, the pooka carried Mary back to her humble cottage and deposited her next to her front door.

“Good-night, Mary McPhee,” said the pooka.

“Thank you,” answered Mary. “It has been a grand evening.”

“Indeed, it has,” declared the pooka. “Now you’ve got a story to tell, Mary McPhee, and you can remind your neighbors that the pooka is more than tricks and treachery.” The pooka kicked up his heels, gave a loud whinny, and galloped down the road. Mary watched until the great black horse was just a speck in the distance, then she went inside.

Mary put on the kettle and brewed herself a cup of strong tea. She sat in her chair, sipping her tea and related the night’s adventures to her ginger-colored cat curled up on her lap. “Oh, puss,” she said, “it was a night of wonders. I will remember it all my born days. I would never trade it for anything, not for a lump of iron, or a hunk of shining silver, not even for a pot full of golden coins.”

An old Scottish proverb says, “Were it not for hope, the heart would break.” An attitude of hopefulness can allow us to respond openly to the possibilities that life offers. Hope entails clear vision; we are conscious of the problems in the world and see the obstacles in our daily lives. We do not blithely suppose that all will be well. In times of hardship, we look backward at our collective history, examine our spirituality, listen to the stories of our ancestors, and see that we can triumph over difficulty. The memory of the past offers a promise for the future and we are able to declare our confidence in the goodness of this world.

This recognition of the underlying goodness of things helps us view others sympathetically and enables us to be open to the world around us. Hope encourages us to see things differently and imagine creative solutions to our problems We are willing to set aside our fears, take risks, and work to bring about changes in our environment.

Excerpt is from Wisdom in the Telling: Finding Inspiration and Grace in Traditional Folktales and Myths Retold (c) 2006 by Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi (Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths Publishing).