Dear Reader:

Something strange is going on with me and feathers lately. Suddenly they are turning up everywhere…stepping out of my car and (bing!) there is one on the driveway when I step down, or hiding behind some books on a book shelf I am cleaning, or finding a Christmas ornament that apparently disappeared at Christmas and now has reappeared as a clear glass ornament with a beautiful white feather within.

What is going on? I looked up the meaning behind finding feathers and this is what I learned.

“Feathers appear when angels are near.” This line seems to be the most consistent interpretation in my on-going research. My feather-finding experiences, of late, started when I began walking with Vickie and Maggie most afternoons.. I would bend down to pat Maggie or untangle her lease and close by would be a feather…mostly white or ones with blue or gray stripes.

Then Monday night, actually early Tuesday morning, I woke up around 4:00 and was wide awake. So lying there in the dark I made up my mind that this was the day to start cleaning out the computer room with hundreds of books, packed to the hilt, on the shelves. (The last big room from this past summer’s major clean-out.)

Here are some of the bags and boxes I am giving Dr. Linda Karges-Bone at CSU to help her students entering the educational field.

It was while I was dusting and cleaning off shelves that suddenly a little feather would come floating down from the shelf. At first, I didn’t think much about it…but then it started happening over and over. (The only feathers I remember ever having while doing workshops were some I wore in an ”Indian Rain Dance’ I did with children in their social studies classes.) The falling feathers were a mystery to me.

And then I found this Christmas ornament with the feather inside on a book shelf. I dusted off my memory, as well as, the shelf and remembered receiving this ornament that contained a message with it.

The guardian angel feather symbolizes God’s care for his people through the presence of angels. It is written in Psalm 91:11 “For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

I have cleaned and cleared out two book cabinets and the computer desk…seven bags and two boxes of stuff removed, a few replaced, dusted and cleaned. The biggest chore is left…the closet of shelves where the vast majority of my books lie….Wish me luck! This project will take two to three days minimum.

*These two book cases were crammed with books and now…after…

My desk computer table and surrounding area had so many books stacked up that I was slowly getting swallowed up by them.

One of the most moving scenes in the movie  Forrest Gump is the beginning and the ending of the movie…when the feather circles Gump implying something new is about to happen in his life and in the closing the feather returns to heaven….the cycle has gone full circle. The Forrest Gump theme song is actually called the Feather Theme or the Feather Song...simple title to a most beautiful song.

Forrest Gump – Feather ending – YouTube

(*Forrest Gump opens and closes with the image of a white feather floating through the air. In the opening, it comes to rest in Forrest’s suitcase. At the end, it flies back up into the air, helping to symbolize the cycle that has now been completed—specifically, the cycle of life and death, and one of new beginnings.)

 Don’t we all love the thought that angels are around us looking after us and some are special ones. guardian angels, assigned to us for important occasions? My brother, Ben, wrote about this in his personal story about his Vietnam experience. He felt their presence on several occasions.

During one battle, he heard a voice telling him to leave the foxhole he was in immediately…(excerpt)

“In the midst of all this, something happened. Suddenly everything around ceased being so loud. I became very calm and felt a ‘presence’ close by. Everything going on around me looked as if it was in slow motion. I ‘heard’ a voice tell me to leave my current position immediately! The tone of the “voice’ was quiet but insistent.

(Seconds later his bomb crater exploded…destroyed by a round of mortars.)

That night Ben, once again, reflected on the “voice” he heard and commented:

“I spent the night thinking about what had transpired during the fight. Recalling the ‘Presence’ gave me a feeling of calmness. I remembered the Voice; it had no distinction. It was neither male nor female and as odd as this will read, the Voice was not “heard” in the usual sense. Instead, I felt the Voice rather than heard it. Was this the nearness of an angel?”

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So until tomorrow…May we all have “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Mollie called me about her friend, Amy, who goes in the hospital next week to start four days of intensive chemo. She asked me about socks, or a knit cap or what did I like. I told her all those ideas were great but our church makes “Prayer Shawls” (Susan Cadwell made and gave me one which I still treasure) and I told her I thought that would be really special.

So I went and picked out a purple one for Mollie since she had mentioned that lymphoma cancer (Amy’s type of cancer) is symbolized by purple. I hope it brings Amy comfort and fast healing to return to her family, husband, and two little adorable tykes.

*Anne and I went to lunch yesterday after meeting at the church to select a prayer shawl. We discussed how each of us have a problem that is going to take an “angel” to help us out.

My problem centered around the commode on the B&B side that has been overflowing when flushed…there was a lot of talk about having to replace the whole thing and rebuild the floor, etc. etc. etc. All I could think was “Not now…not right before the holidays.” But we managed to postpone the major renovation and fix the commode so it flushes properly…now I have to pray it lasts for quite awhile in order to save up for long-term renovations. But still…Whew…thanks Angel!

Then I received this email from Anne…and she had found an angel too at Advanced Auto Parts! Here is her dilemma and solution.

Well, I met yet another angel at Advanced Auto Parts at the end of Bacon’s Bridge Rd.  This angel’s name is Nikki and she showed me where I needed to disconnect the wires serving the lock on the gasoline door.

I cranked the knob and out popped the connection and I was able to open the gas tank door.  I showed her the gas cap and said it wasn’t fitting properly- could she possibly have a replacement? She said it wasn’t likely for a 1999 Mercedes station wagon but she’d check.

She looked it up on the computer and said she hadn’t EVER seen anything like that on the shelf but the computer indicated there was a match. She brought it out and said, “Go ahead and see if it fits, but it isn’t likely.”  It fit perfectly! $12.95, thank God! And I made it to the gas station ⛽️ before I ran out of gas!

Loving those angels!