Sophy Burnham's Blog, page 6

A phenomenon so astonishing it might be a miracle. Is it really only in the eye of the beholder?

Rubies, Wisdom and the Feminine Principle

 

Perhaps because of my name and its derivation, wisdom (philo-sophy: the love of wisdom), I have a special relationship with wisdom.  I remember when I was a teenager that my prayer — with heart-yearning anguish — was “To Understand.”

“Understand what?” someone might have asked, had I opened the secret tablets of my heart.

“All of it!” I would have cried dramatically, “Who am I?”  “What is this Universe–and Why is it here, not there?” And these were only the simple questions. “Why do plants grow petals in odd numbers?” “What if something is faster than light?” And always, Einstein’s question:  “Is the Universe a friendly place?” And then one day, sometime in my middle years, I realized with a burst of joy that I would never understand everything–and what a gift! There’s always more!

Now I am an old lady, and I am supposed to have acquired some modicum of wisdom. Whatever I know is very small. But curiously it circumambulates Female energy, sex, fertility, creativity. And the fact that so generous is the Universe that it gives us . . . everything. For example, I’ve just been asked to write a blog for a special site:  Look it up:  faithshapes.com

The other day, I found myself putting on my ruby-and-diamond engagement ring from my long-ago marriage. Because the mind works by association, slipping it on my finger brought to mind the Book of Proverbs, where a ruby is the metaphor for Wisdom — and also for a virtuous Woman. Do you remember the proverb (31:10-31)? A good woman is more precious than rubies. She rises while it is still dark, cooks and cleans, feeds her family, buys and sells in the marketplace, acquires land that increases in value; plants vineyards, weaves, sews, dresses her children in red and purple, heals the sick, and is still awake working by candlelight late into the night. She is cheerful, kind, generous to the poor. Whew! It’s exhausting just thinking about her while her husband attends to his pipe and pals. (Actually he is being important at the city gates.)

The other famous ruby is found in the proverb on Wisdom (4:6-7), and again it pertains to a woman, for Wisdom herself is said to be female.

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,

and the one who searches understanding,

for… She is more precious than rubies,

and nothing you desire can compare with her.

It was Wisdom (Sophia) who told God to create the earth, divide day and night, and fill the universe with life.

The Lord by Wisdom founded the earth;

by understanding he established the heavens;

by his knowledge the deeps broke open,

and the clouds drop down the dew.

Yet his knowledge was worth nothing until she told him what to do. (Isn’t that the way of it?) Which is why the Holy Spirit in the Christian Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is considered female: Wisdom whispering invisibly in your ear. Google “Knowledge” and you find 1,100,000,000 results. Put in “Wisdom” and only about 252,000,000 crop up.

And what is wisdom?  One friend of mine defines it as Intelligence backed by Experience, and another announces, facetiously, that it’s good table manners (chew with your mouth closed), which is smarter than at first dismissal since anyone with that courtesy probably extends it to all other aspects of life.  Still a third says wisdom is Listening to your Intuition or Inner Voice, which surely obtains so long as your Inner Voice is filled with loving kindness. I distrust those intuitions that tell you to go kill your mother in law.

One friend says it’s Discernment–especially of when to shut up. Listen. And some people in these greedy times of ours would trade wisdom any day for a few handfuls of rubies.

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The Book of Proverbs describes wisdom with precision: To do good, and do it right now; to not betray or take advantage of the trusting neighbor; or argue, or be scornful, devious, cunning, contemptuous, brash, bragging, or violent; but upright, humble–and always, first and foremost, to put your trust in God that will care for you in every situation.

Maybe that’s all we need to know about wisdom: Discernment, Kindness. Good table manners. Awareness that the Universe is a caring place and on our side. Maybe wisdom is noticing how blessings pour down onto us — in bushels overflowing, because the Universe cannot help but give and give — and give us everything.  I’m reminded of Goethe’s wonderful quotation:

“The gods, the eternal ones give all things to their darlings — all joys, all sorrows, to their darlings, everything.”

Perhaps wisdom is the utter and total awareness of that single fertile and creative feminine verb: what IS.

 

 

 

 

 

The wisdom of a cat

Not long ago I gave a Psychic or Angel Reading to a woman who was grieving the death of her cat six months earlier. “Can you bring him back to talk to me?” she asked. I said I didn’t know. Sometimes a spirit of a loved one appears — but not always. Sometimes an angel appears — but not always.

Actually, I was afraid. I have on other occasions managed to “speak” to an animal (or rather have it speak to me), but in every case the animal was still alive.

Nonetheless, the spirit-cat, Bisou (it means “kiss” in French) appeared immediately. We could both “see” him slinking under the furniture furtively, cautious as only a cat can be, although you must understand that you are seeing with the heart, or with your spiritual eyes, a shape, an energy field. It’s like a shadow built of light, and if you try to probe it with the physical eye, the shadow disappears. And then came a conversation that left me in awe

His owner was in tears, her cat plainly visible to her —

“Why did you leave me?” she wept.  “Why did you go?”

Usually, when I give a Reading words appear in my head in English– or as a wordless “knowing,” the exigencies spooling out before me like a movie, in pictures.  In this case, faced with this owner’s grief, I felt the poor cat’s confusion, his utter inability even to understand the question, much less to respond, and what was most curious I lost all words. I went mute. Inarticulate, and all I knew was the animal’s desire to respond to his owner’s sorrow .

And then came an answer — one word hauled out, I believe, from the depths of love.  “IS.”

I was dumbfounded not only at the word but at the profundity of the response.  “Why did you die? Why did you have to leave me?”  She had asked in anguish.  And the cat’s answer, reduced to one simple word, “IS,” might have been translated like this:

“It’s the wrong question. There is no why. I had no choice. We’re born. We die. Things simply be.”

I’m in awe of the philosophical beauty of the verb To Be. I think it is the guide to happiness in life:  Accept what is. Accept what cannot be changed.  Accept your love for a cat. Accept his death, accept your grief, and remember with gratitude the times you had together. Accept everything — and what you can change, then change, but keep in mind it is only yourself you can change — or your mind. Some things cannot be changed.

I will add that the cat said one last thing before he faded out, and clearly:

“I won’t be jealous if you get another cat,” he said.

“What?” said his owner in surprise.

He repeated it: “I won’t be jealous if you get another cat.  It would be all right.”

And then he was gone.

Change what you have power to change. Accept the rest.

Later, the owner wrote to thank me for the reading, which, she  affirmed, had made her feel much better.

For myself, I am still considering the curious sensation of how becoming inarticulate, mute, in the face of her question, Why? And then that single huge word.  Is.

 

 

Morals: Blessings: Act

 

I remember my beloved mother-in-law telling me once–and I think she was in her seventies– that where she used to believe she understood things, held strong opinions of what was good and what was bad, the older she got, the less certain she became.

At the time it puzzled me. But I have noticed that often what I think a blessing produces such thorns I can hardly grasp it, while what I view as terrible turns out to wear a crown.  I’m thinking about this as I view with horror another Black child killed by police bullets, or migrant children pulled from parents, locked in cages, the anguish of parents searching for children who were forcibly stolen by Faceless Government — my government,  “by the people, for the people;” removed by elected officials, not some vengeful 14th century ruler (I’m thinking of one duke who took pleasure in sitting on the locked trunk in which his enemy pounded and screamed, as he starved to death).

In Medieval times every star and every month, every tree and day of the week, was governed by an angel. The angel for June is Muriel (of all odd names), who governs the sign of Cancer– and yet as I write this, on the day after the Solstice, her sweet springtime is already giving way to Verchiel’s July, with the blessings of corn and raspberries and verdant greens that soon will turn to the drought-ridden August browns of the angel Hamaliel.

Especially in dark times, I  remind myself that blessings pour upon us–blessings of unexpected joys, and curious coincidences, and time warps that work mysteriously in our favor, with daily demonstrations of kindness, tolerance, patience, equanimity, honor, goodness.  Not to mention simply happiness. That’s a blessing. William James the philosopher, remarks that the word sane (from Latin sano) means health — and health he defined as happiness. The sane person is happy. It comes from inside. Sanity, happiness, is distinguished by the absence of fear, the absence of hate.

Here’s the secret:  Do I want to be happy? Then I must watch my thoughts. Am I filled with gratitude, a sense of the adventures of life?  Am I fearful, boiling with anger, or gnawing on resentment, drinking the poison of my indignation and expecting someone else to die?

When I give in to fearful righteousness, and especially when I fall into depression, think myself powerless, then I am robbed of courage– and of happiness. Yes, I don’t know the outcome of any decision or situation — that this will bring good and that will bring bad– but still I must, high-hearted, and happy, ACT.

Another Black Angel: and Metanoia

A new friend, William Fisher, just wrote with this story of his black angel. In my experience, it is unusual for an angel to speak, but this one did, and I particularly note William’s final thoughts about this fact:

My black Angel came in late summer 2012, a year after my ugly divorce was final. My heart was dark due to the ex blocking all contact with the two stepchildren I had helped raise since birth and the personal financial disaster caused by the economy, the ex and the divorce. I believed in God, but just didn’t understand how this situation was God’s will of good for me and our four children.

Suddenly things changed, and the ex allowed my 14 year old stepdaughter Sarah to spend the weekend with me and the two children from our marriage. Sarah and my youngest daughter, (8 yr.) Victoria, spent the weekend doing whatever they wanted. For Sarah that meant a surfing lesson even though there was no surf that day.

Sarah’s questions, however, revived good memories, and a couple of weeks later I was sitting in a hot courtroom, when the breeze from an open window struck me in an overwhelming full-body rush whispering me that the surf was up and to go get my board. I drove out to the beach and found my intuition was right. Huge waves.

I went home, got my board and returned to the pier, where I waxed my board while I watched the tropical storm swell overhead. I was feeling anxious about going out, because of the size of the waves and my decades-long absence from surfing. I wasn’t sure I could even paddle out, much less catch and ride a wave without injury.

It was at this point that I felt the presence on my left. I looked up to see an African American surfer in his 30’s standing beside me looking at the surf with his long-board. I hadn’t heard him walk up–which is impossible, because our white quartz sand squeaks when you step on it. He glanced over at me and said I had a nice board before he added, in a praising, preachy kind of way, that it’s a beautiful and glorious day today.

This was the first time I had ever seen a black surfer on our beaches, and I’ve never heard any surfer eversay it’s a beautiful and GLORIOUS day, especially the way he said it. I murmured “Thanks” to his board compliment, and “Yes, it is” to the beauty of the day observation.

That’s when he looked at me with a “loving” expression, and in a caring unaccented tone of voice, he said, “You are going surfing, aren’t you?” It was if he felt my anxiety and wanted me to promise him–me, us–out loud, that I would go out. I said, “Yes I am” –at which all of my anxiety vanished. He looked at me with an approving smile. “Good,” he said, before he walked off, never to be seen again.

My first thought as he walked away was, “Was that Jesus in disguise telling me to go surfing?” I thought this was probably a little crazy, until I got hooked by a fisherman’s barb while paddling out and the thought of Jesus flashed through my mind for a second time, this time thinking of Jesus the fisher of men. Which connects to my last name, Fisher.

I was able to de-hook without injury and later caught a huge wave that I rode as well as I could have at the peak of my youthful days of surfing. My passion for surfing was rekindled to a blaze that day.

Ever since, I have been teaching my daughter Sarah how to surf, but more wonderful within a couple of weeks all of the kids (and step-kids) were given back to their dads by the judge when we discovered that the mom was neglecting them. The judge gave us complete authority to decide the conditions for contact–which almost never happens for dads in custody issues.

Returning to surfing has brought me closer to God and my kids and has emotionally and spiritually transformed my life, as I have explored the meaning of that day and its aftermath. Yet it all started with a surfing lesson to a teenager and with a black Angel who suddenly appeared, spoke some encouraging words at the exact time I needed to hear them, and disappeared, never to be seen again.

I have read that when Angels talk, it is always in short, direct, positive and encouraging words, and I believe the words and manner of my black Jesus Angel fit that pattern.

 

The Cat that Came Back from the Other Side

When a stranger asked me as a medium and psychic to contact her beloved cat who had died, I said I didn’t know if I could.  I’ve given hundreds of readings, and sometimes (but not always) an angel appears and sometimes (but not always) the spirit of someone who has died — but I’d never attempted such a thing with an animal, and especially with a cat, independent and self-reliant as they are. I was amazed and shocked at what happened, and what the cat had to say.

But before I tell what happened, let me explain what a “reading” is.  It’s called a psychic, intuitive or even an “angel” “reading,” for the information comes mysteriously and with great clarity from the spiritual dimension, and truly I believe through angels. It takes about an hour and covers your soul journey or purpose in life, and then your work, health and relationships, including those of others near to you.  I won’t go into how I learnt I had this gift, or how the Universe — God, angels– led me, against my will to a practice that I equated with Gypsy cons and charlatans.  But the more I used this gift in service to others, both in person and by phone, the more I came to trust these mysterious, often amazing, illuminations.

I ask for your birthday and all the names you have ever had, then go into prayer, praying for you and myself and for the insights to bring you what you need to hear, and suddenly I find myself speaking — spoken through, as it were.  I am surrounded by light,  and often when I stop after 15 or 20 minutes I’m told that all their questions were answered. The rest of the hour wanders over the person’s life, concerns and dreams.

Back to Cynthia:  When she came in person for her reading, she brought some of her cat’s toys for me to touch. I prayed. I opened the portals to the other world, and it took only a few moments before I noticed a cat slinking in the corners of the room — a spiritual cat, seen not with the physical eyes but with a kind of “knowing.”

He crept behind the furniture, hiding under it, shy, as happens with cautious cats, then sat licking his shoulder and watching his grief-stricken companion, who by then was weeping. The rest of the reading is private, except that from the anguish of her tears, she burst out, “Why? Why did you leave me?”

They say that the question “Why” is always directed at God.  In this case, the cat stepped back, surprised, and I, translating him– became mute, inarticulate. Struggling to express himself, came a wordless sensing:  “Understand.”

And then, to my surprise the single answer, “IS.”

“Is,” I repeated faithfully, while he stared at me with narrowed eyes.

“Is?” asked Cynthia in confusion.

“Not why,” I managed to stutter. “Is.”

Could any response be more philosophical, or theologically sound? This soft, comforting cat now pointing her toward the next chapter of her life.  I was struck by the pragmatic reality of his response. Later, he added that he would not be jealous if she got another cat.

The reading continued for another 40 minutes and for much of it her cat remained, sitting apart, observing, and just loving her.

And when it was over and  I had came back into my own body, when I closed the door as she left, I marvelled again at how mute I’d grown in translating this wordless animal, and marvelled also at the wisdom of a cat.

“Why?”  she’d asked.

“IS, ” came the wise response:  the centerpiece of wISe.

I felt humbled. I felt I’d just understood at some deep inchoate level the spiritual meaning of our lives.

 

(If you love cats, don’t forget my prize-winning novel LOVE, ALBA, the story of a love affair told by a cat.)

LOOKING FOR angels–videos–photos

I’ve deliberately been off the grid (so to speak) for the last months, but today I had a call inviting me to fly to Los Angeles to be part of a TV show on Angels and the Afterlife for the Travel Channel. THAT will be FUN!

They are actively looking for videos or photos of orbs, angels, and spirits. So, here I am sending out the word: Contact Thomasrexquinn@gmail.com if you have any photos or videos to share on TV. I’m sure you get credit.

Let me know if you sent any. I’d like to know.

Good luck, or as the wolves say in Kipling’s Jungle Books, “Good Hunting.”

Do prayers work?

 

Yesterday I woke up, turned on the radio, as usual, to hear to the news as I dressed, and was thrown into a pit of despair: the President wants to put guns into schools to prevent gun shootings; our statesmen are incapable of banning semi-automatic military weapons designed to slaughter as many people as possible in the fastest time; the truce in Syria fails; climate change, young Dreamers (DACA) without a country or home; diplomats absent or pushed aside in favor of threatened war with North Korea. . . .

It’s always been this way: arrogance, stupidity, greed, fear, violence, vengeance, loneliness– entire populations living on the brink of lost. I felt the energy sucked out of my body as I tried to remind myself that others held different points of view about guns, war, suffering – I could be wrong – my heart breaking for the children of Parkland Florida, or the shootings in Las Vegas, or Columbine, or Sandy Hook, or—or– or– because only the most dramatic shootings are reported, not the 96 living breathing people killed every day by a gun. The horror! Horror!

And then I began to pray. “ Oh God, help us, help this little world. Show us what to do.” (Write my Congressman? I don’t even HAVE one, living as I do unfranchised in the District of Columbia.) And then the doubts flew like bats beating at my brain: IS there a God? Where? Where is HE/SHE? Because my mind can doubt even in the face of what I’ve personally experienced–and still I doubt, lose faith, and flail helplessly in the face the suffering of this pretty little world.

In the end I fled to ride my horse. There is something healing about horse energy— horses know only love and grass and happiness in their herd, at seeing the people who care for them. And I thought again: Oh, to be a horse! (Or cat, aor dog!) To be cared for, stabled, fed good grain. . . .

And then this morning, everything changed.

This morning ,as I lay luxuriating in not having to get up yet and with no radio spouting its despairing news, my hand by accident pulled down a bedside book. I spent an hour reading Letters of a Modern Mystic by Frank C. Laubach (don’t you love the formality of the middle initial?)  Laubach (1884-1970) was a Christian missionary in the Philippines who developed a system to teach adult Moro tribe illiterates to read in only a few hours and then teach others. But it is in his efforts to hold God fast that affected me. We’re all familiar with Brother Lawrence’s 17th century tract, “Practicing the Presence of God.” I used to do all that, meditate an hour every day, pray. But I have become lazy. Now here came God’s reminder of what I need to do if I want unfathomable happiness –even in the face of suffering. Say what you will, I felt the book came as God’s answer to my prayer of the day before.

When I pull out a sentence from this luminous book, the words dissolve, the sparkle dissipates. It all goes flat.  So, think I with some amusement– here’s God answering my prayer of yesterday by bringing alive this story of one man’s struggle to push down doubt and fear — to be, that is to say, true to the pursuit of the love that abides beneath the surface.

“All I have said is mere words,” writes Frank Laubach, “until one sets out helping God right wrongs, helping God help the helpless, loving and talking it over with God. Then there comes a great sense of the close-up, warm, intimate heart of reality. God simply creeps in and you know He is here in your heart. He has become your friend by working along with you.”

Spirit is walking beside us. Sometimes you feel it as a Presence sitting with you in the car. Sometimes you sense it in a field of up-thrusting new Spring daffodils (who was it who said Beauty is God’s song of love?) And sometimes you find yourself led by invisible hands to brush and groom the mud off your horse and be healed by the simple act of loving another thing.

Laubach reminds us to pray for every person we meet, every person we pass on the street, those we know and those we don’t, to live, in other words, in a state of prayerful love. It takes less than a nanosecond to do. But to do it every minute of every day?   Oh, how can I? I forget so fast! I keep forgetting that love lies right inside of me, that it surrounds me even in the face of the stupidity, cupidity, greed, lust, fear and angry violence of this world. All I have to do is LOOK.

Now I discover that Dicks Sporting Goods will no longer sell semi-automatic military assault weapons, that Delta and various credit car companies are cancelling their discounts to NRA members. I’m not alone!  God is working through those beautiful teenagers who dared to travel to Tallahassee and somehow we’ll make things different. (Later in the day even the President calls for a comprehensive gun bill. YES!)

I don’t know if the world is better today than yesterday, but I today I am filled with hope. My prayer was answered, not the way I expected (they rarely are), or on my time-line (never), but even the idea of going to groom and ride my horse, I feel, was inspired by God in answer to the anguish in my heart, and to have this book come to my hand. . . why, I could laugh out loud with joy.

Now if only I can try to remember to turn to Spirit every minute of every day, while I’m writing, while I’m doing taxes, while I’m scared, while my heart leaps up at the beauty of the river, while I’m talking to you.

 

 

 

Knitting calm: 5 Rules of the Universe

It has been nearly a year since I posted anything, for sometimes silence in the face of all the clatter and clamor of our lives seems to be the greatest gift that anyone can give. But not long ago a letter arrived from a friend in Europe, struggling with tough times (like all of us), and what she wrote is so clear and calm that I marvel: Is this the meaning of Enlightenment? . . .

Dear Sophy,

“I’ve not been feeling great today, and praying a lot. At a certain point when the kids were playing, I sat knitting in the kitchen.  And it struck me that I am really missing a very important point: the divinity that is part of all of us.

The deepest mystery is right there inside us. We don’t have to search for it.  We just have to listen. There is nothing to push. Just be quiet, and it’s right there. Trust it, and it will unfold like a flower that catches you softly and gently when you jump, following your heart.

And we must never see our lives as ordinary or mundane. We all have the seed of the divine in our hearts. We all have the opportunity to cultivate it and let it grow. But we have the choice. It demands courage. A lot of us choose not to listen. And those who do, are ridiculed by the ones that do not see the divine in all living creatures.

I think God is telling me to keep calm and stop despairing.  Trust, and things will work out. Love, and good things will come. Share, and you will get tenfold of what you give. Walk on the path that you know in your heart is right, and you will find what you are looking for.

Because even if the divine did not exist, being as good as you possible can, and as true to your heart as life allows will always be right.  Pushing never works. Calm does.”

A-M

In my own life, I have discerned five Rules of the Universe (as I call the Divine):

 “Find, don’t seek” is one, and another:
“If you give it away, it will come back to you, greater, in larger measure.”
Put in the negative: “What you clutch, you have already lost.” Uncurl your fist, and you find you were holding only empty air, lost dreams.
And this Rule from great horsemen: “Throw your heart over the fence, the horse will follow.”  Be calm Wait until your Intuition tells you to move, but then throw your heart at it:   act .
For  the fifth Rule is this:  When you are ready, do not hesitate. Make a decision and the Universe will turn itself inside out to bring you, by the most astonishing coincidences, unexpected events and meetings, the desires of your heart.

But first we wait. In A Book of Angels, I quote The great 17th century mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, who wrote of  angels, whispering and singing to him all his life — communicating spiritually, by thoughts that flashed into his mind. He learned the angels look on all things as proceeding from God, and they repeated over and over that we poor beings should not worry about the future but only trust to Providence. For Providence will bring all things that we desire — not necessarily when we desire them, “but yet, if it be for their good, they obtain them afterward, when not thinking of them.“

Have you had that experience?  “Oh, I remember wanting that!” I think. “And look,  here it is! I’d totally forgotten about wanting it.”  I guess the moral is, you can have everything you want when you don’t care anymore. I’m still working on that Rule.

 

Letting Go

 

 

Last week I was in Barcelona with my daughter, my sister and her daughter. Oh, my gosh, we had so much fun. But on our second night, however,  a gypsy stole my cellphone in a fashion so clever that I am still in awe. There’s a spiritual aspect to the story, but first, let me tell what happened.

It was late at night. We had gone, all four of us, to market to buy food to cook for dinner in our rented quarters. We were jet lagged and tired, having walked five or six miles  that day. Outside the market a Rom or gypsy man approached, begging. He was ragged, dirty, and a little aggressive, and, startled, we hurried on. We walked two blocks back to the hotel, where we had rented the apartment, rang ourselves inside and climbed a flight of marble steps. My daughter was putting the key in the lock to our rooms when suddenly we found the man behind us —frightening, standing too close. No one had heard him climbing the stairs behind us. At the same time a second man ran up the stairs, bumped me so hard that I fell against the wall, and raced up the stairwell as if pursued. The Rom, meanwhile, with pleading, haggard looks was begging, pressing in up too close, assertive, aggressive. Shaken, we shut the door. It was only then that I realized my cellphone was gone.

For the next two days I scolded myself for my stupidity. Stupid! Stupid! But the more I thought about it and the more we talked, the clearer it became that nothing could have prevented the theft. How clever they were! The man running up had slipped it out of my bag when he pushed me, the other man diverting our attention. No one was hurt. The cellphone was blocked, my information safe. We were lucky he had not snatched the purse itself (passport, money, credit cards, cellphone) and dashed down the stairs to the street. We would never have been able to catch him. Moreover, he’d asked for money. We refused to give him any. Was the theft deserved for our frugality?

For two days I was consumed with anger and sense of violation, before remembering the story of St. Athanasiasius, the third century desert father, whose holy book was stolen from his cell. The thief took the valuable object to a dealer, who immediately approached the saint. “Isn’t this your book?” he asked. The answer came, “No, I gave it to a man who needed it more than I.”

I think in the story the thief became a holy hermit, but that’s not important. As a spiritual discipline I had a choice. I could ruin my vacation with anger and self-reproach, or I could forgive myself, bless the thief, freely offer him the phone (since he had it anyway) and be free. I chose the latter, and then discovered another grace  arising from the theft.

Without my phone, I could not check email, FB or daily political indignation, and neither could I take photographs. All around me people stared in slavery to their cellphones while eating, walking, talking. I, instead, had mine removed and with that loss received the gift of being utterly present, free to look, listen, feel, be.

I think of how often I abuse myself with scornful reproaches. I am in a position to buy a new phone, while he, perhaps, needed it to eat. What do I know? The work of angels is always to love, to give, to give away, give more. Turn everything to God, we’re told. Forgive. I can only add it’s the only way to happiness.