Angels Abound

Do you believe in angels? The author of today’s psalm not only believes in angels, but promises their presence when we need them the most. The psalmist proclaims that the angels have been commanded by God to guard us and guide us even if we should step on a venomous snake or battle a lion.

When Jesus went into the desert, angels ministered to him, according to Matthew and Mark’s account of this story. Angels guarded and guided Jesus and protected him even in an encounter with Satan. We hear this story of Jesus going into the desert because it is a paradigm for the season of Lent. To enter into Lent is to give up more than a bar of chocolate; it is to go into the wilderness of a desert, to risk our deepest fears and to trust God’s angels to be at our side. Being in a desert is hard. It means leaving behind everything we know to be safe and secure. It means facing the unknown. The desert can be lonely, empty, dry and devoid of structure and certainty, which is why most of us avoid it. Yet, the desert is often where angels reveal themselves.

I am in Italy teaching English in local schools for a few months. Italy is not a desert, but being in a different country with strangers who speak a different language is a desert-like experience. It can be lonely and empty, bereft of the familiar and filled with uncertainty. Yet, in the past five weeks, angels have revealed themselves in every disguise.

Two weeks ago, I lost a substantial amount of money in a coin-operated machine at a self-service laundromat. I was the only person in the place at the time and there was little to no Wi-Fi. I called the phone number listed on the machine and I tried to explain to the man on the other end of the phone what happened in my broken Italian but had no luck. I felt sad and frustrated. There were five minutes left until my clothes were finished when a woman walked into the laundromat and cordially said, “Buongiorno.” I explained my situation to her and on her own phone she called the man back and spoke to his wife, then she handed the phone to me and the woman promised she would refund my money the next day and she did. I told the woman at the laundromat that she was my angel, and she smiled from ear to ear.

Three weeks ago, my tour partner’s computer, an Apple MacBook, died. Fixing a computer can be a challenge in the United States, let alone in a foreign country, and Apple computers come with rules—you can’t have an Apple computer opened by someone other than an official Apple Repair technician. We were in Lodi, a small town about 22 miles outside of Milan. My tour partner Skye was broke at the time and was not able to access funds that had been put into her account. Needless to say, Skye was devastated. We were sitting in a café when I tried to help access her funds through my phone, but in order to do that I had to change sim cards and I needed a very small pin. That led me across the street to a computer store where I noticed the Apple logo on the window—it was an official Apple repair shop! We brought her computer to the young man at the store and a day later he diagnosed the problem as a display backlight issue. He told her that he was unable to fix it but said that the computer might be eligible for a free repair. (As it turns out, Apple discovered many of their MacBook Pros sold between 2016 and 2018 were affected by the same issue.) We picked the computer up from the young man, who not only was honest about the repair, but took the time to clean the computer—all at no

cost. We brought the computer to an official Apple retail store near Milan and three days later, Skye had her computer back—and fixed free of charge. The young man at the computer shop in Lodi could have made hundreds of dollars in an attempt to repair the computer but chose to be honest. He was an angel when Skye needed one the most.

A month ago I was in Barcelona on a Saturday and wanted to visit La Sagrada Familia, a Basilica built by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. I walked up to the ticket office but there were no tickets available for Saturday or Sunday and I was leaving Monday morning. At that moment, a couple walked up and asked if I needed a ticket because they had extra and they refused to take any money for it. Thanks to those angels, I was able to tour the famous temple and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site for free.

Days after I arrived in Italy, a cousin in New York with whom I was close passed away. I was overcome with grief and guilt at not being able to be present for his funeral. A young man I barely knew reached out to me with compassion and consolation. He was my angel during this time of grieving. Believe it or not, his name is Gabriel.

These are the stories of only a few of the angels I have encountered thus far in this desert experience. While the desert can be lonely and empty, it can also be a place of surprise and encounter. God calls us to such a place this Lent—where predictability yields to possibility, where safety gives way to risk, where fear resolves to trust.