Along with the "GodNods" we experience across our lifetimes, I've come to believe we also have angelic interventions.
The best example I can imagine involved a cell phone, of all things, which I suppose fits well in 2022 American culture.
Last week in a Branson pharmacy Jeanetta pulled out her phone to show a clerk the Internet coupon she'd received. In doing so, she inadvertently laid the phone on the checkout counter.
I'd been waiting in the car parked beside the front door. After leaving the store, she immediately realized she no longer had her phone.
Many can relate to that stomach-churning feeling when the hand-held lifeline we've come to depend upon (thus maintaining our collective addiction) turns up missing.
She hurried back inside, then returned to the car within a few minutes with a worried expression that bordered on terrified. Seems the phone she'd held just minutes earlier had vanished.
The clerk who had waited on her, an older lady in wire-rimmed spectacles, said she hadn't seen it since Jeanetta showed her the coupon.
In due diligence Jeanetta retraced her steps inside the store, although she realized the last time she'd seen it was while checking out. The search was in vain.
Back in the car, her hope of a few minutes earlier had become a resignation to reality. In 2022 America, a person's cell phone to a large extent has become an electronic representation of their life, and she was far from an exception.
Imagine all the saved phone numbers and addresses of family, friends and businesses her machine contained. Hundreds of irreplaceable photographs of family and friends taken in recent years took up megabytes of space along with access to what amounts to the Library of Congress for valuable information--all suddenly vanished.
We became convinced someone standing near her had noticed the phone lying overlooked on the counter as she left, quickly snatched it, turned it off immediately to avoid being caught, then simply walked away with the $600 phone. So what to do now?
We had another stop to make in town. I left my phone number with the clerk in case it turned up, yet I hated to leave, knowing that with our departure all hope of recovering her phone would be gone.
Using my phone at our next stop, a friend advised Jeanetta to notify police and ask if they could possibly track the phone, which she did. The dispatcher agreed to send an officer to the store to review the camera overlooking the checkout counter.
We headed back to the pharmacy and sat waiting for the officer as a possible glimmer of light emerged from this dark situation. Although not Catholic, I secretly said a prayer to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost items to whom I'd successfully turned in times past.
"Maybe a store camera did see what happened," she said in a low voice that reflected more hope than expectation.
By now, nearly an hour had elapsed. Deep down, neither of us believed she'd ever see her phone again.
Jeanetta's face brightened several minutes later as a police cruiser entered the parking lot. She walked over to the officer and was gone only short time before returning.
In her right hand she held what looked from a distance to be--her cell phone!
What form of Branson illusion was this?
Officer Rick Bright had indeed exited his cruiser holding the phone. "He pointed at it with a wide smile. I couldn't believe it," said Jeanetta. "How could he possibly have gotten it two blocks away?
"He explained how, while responding to the call, he'd spied the cell lying on the side of the street two blocks down the street from the place where I'd left it."
The phone's screen was peppered with a dozen chips, yet it still operated as usual. We sat in stunned amazement, trying to absorb how everything had to have fallen perfectly into place for her to be holding it again.
First she'd had to have called her friend on my phone who advised her to call the police, something Jeanetta hadn't considered but decided to do.
Secondly, the busy dispatcher could have easily blown off her concerns, saying there's nothing police could do.
Third, Officer Bright could have been indisposed at the time and chosen to ignore what seemed like a low-urgency request.
The police officer had to have been coming from the right direction to spy the phone on the street. He also had to be looking down to see what appeared to be a phone. He then had to have stopped to retrieve it before someone else did.
The only logical explanation behind this was someone had quickly picked up the phone and decided to dump it after leaving, tossing it into the road to avoid being located or caught.
Thankfully, I learned years ago to keep my mouth and criticisms to myself when such things occur, especially to those of us who've lived more than 70 years.
Meanwhile, we've come to know this as the Branson cell-phone miracle and yet another great lesson in why we never know when it's our turn to appeal to St. Anthony or our higher angels.
Now go out and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.