A friend asked the other day if I still believe in angels and their intervention in our lives. It was an interesting question since I've always been convinced there's infinitely more to this phenomenon we call existence than eating, interacting, sleeping, electronic diversion and work.
I believe angelic influence (for lack of a different term) is around us continually, as is its counterpart, evil.
There's angelic presence in the spirits of those who caregive. This same presence exists in an act of kindness, or seemingly fortuitous timing, that assists another in need. From a supernatural view, it wouldn't surprise me that what we traditionally view as angelic apparitions appearing much as the radiant Lady of Lourdes, France, revealed herself to St. Bernadette multiple times, and another angelic presence to three children at Fatima, Portugal, as well as thousands of townsfolk at the nearby Cove Da Iria who witnessed physical manifestations involving the sun behaving in bizarre ways.
Following investigations into those appearances, the Catholic Church declared Lourdes and Fatima each as "worthy of belief."
I've written about the "Butterfly people" that children saw hovering protectively above them during the devastating May 2011 tornado in Joplin, Mo., that claimed 161 lives.
The Internet is filled with stories from those who contend they've experienced angelic beings. One NBC News report in 2012 features a photograph from a hospital's security camera showing a brilliant angelic form outside the room of a disabled girl named Chelsea whose grave condition immediately improved afterwards. Some hospital employees also reported seeing this blinding light.
Then there's the photograph seen by millions of a devastating car crash in 1988 involving then-58-year-old Rose Benvenuto of New York. She says the radiant angel she witnessed hovering beside her demolished car (and that a bystander supposedly captured in a photo) saved her life.
I don't have any idea how, or why, these seemingly protective forms of intense light appear to some yet not to others. Does our creator send them? I also have no idea if they perhaps originate with the spirits' loved ones who have passed but remain to watch over those they love.
I only know for certain that my life has been filled with beyond-coincidental experiences that can only be explained by some form of intervention beyond myself or my limited senses. I'm talking about the intangible plane on which thought, prayer, dreams, creativity and the profound mystery of consciousness exist.
When many of us examine formative or dramatic events in our own lives, we can identify those times when it seemed as if an angel intervened on our behalf. One lady told me years ago that she audibly heard the shout, "Stop!" as she began quickly pulling away from a stoplight. Two seconds later a dump truck that would have T-boned her ran the red light to come barreling through the intersection. Whose voice was that?
I've come to call them "GodNods," and a number of you have shared your remarkable personal stories with me over the years. Author Squire Rushnell wrote a book about the phenomenon called When God Winks: How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Life.
At this stage of my own physical existence I have to reiterate that, while some coincidences do occur over the course of our lifetimes, I also believe there are events constantly at work around us that we will never understand through science or analytical thought because they originate from beyond the limitations of time and space. And we too often don't give such interventions the due they deserve.
Leading the nation
I'm sure the good folks on both coasts and in the blighted urban sprawls up north and east were shocked and stunned to learn a corner of little ol' Arkansas led the nation in average weekly wage growth as 2014 drew to a close.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' fourth-quarter report on the 339 largest counties showed Benton County's was first with an average weekly wage that grew 9.9 percent to $24.90 an hour compared with the national average growth of 3.5 percent. Washington County average weekly wage increased 4.3 percent in that period to $22.40 an hour.
This quadrant in the Ozarks last year added 6,106 jobs in Benton County, ranking it the nation's ninth in job growth, while Washington County added 3,020 jobs.
OK, enough mind-numbing statistics, valued readers. We can take justifiable pride that this region of more than a half-million people clearly has become our state's economic engine and one of the country's top achievers economically.
And it has happened so quickly. I recall after arriving back home in 1995 that Fayetteville had 53,000 residents (now 79,000) and Bentonville was 16,229 (now well over 36,000). It's been amazing to watch this explosion in growth and prosperity occur in only two decades.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 06/21/2015