A busy lunch joint. Seated beside me is a man reading a newspaper. I glance at a sobering headline that reads: “Pandemic Rages On—Again.” The man with the paper sighs, and folds it closed.
Meanwhile, the television above the bar rolls shocking footage of a shooting. This is followed by reporters talking about more bad stuff. Then come pharmaceutical commercials by the dozen. Followed by legal commercials on how to sue the pants off pharmaceutical companies.
The waitress looks at the TV and says, “Lordy mighty, they never tell you anything good anymore, do they?”
She flips the channel. The TV shows a riot. She flips again. A televangelist in a silk suit is weeping. Flip, flip, flip. On the screen are two newsmen shouting at each other with spittle flying. She flips again. The news announcer says: “And now for more COVID updates…”
Mercifully, she turns the television off.
A man at the bar says, “Thank you.”
Another man raises a coffee mug. “Amen.”
The mood improves considerably. Pretty soon the waitress is playing music overhead. It’s George
Strait, singing about Amarillo. And color is being restored to the world. Thank you, George.
The waitress warms up my coffee and I’m feeling a lot better now.
It’s been a hard few weeks for my family. And certainly, I know the universe is full of cruddy current events—as seen on TV. But isn’t there anything good happening out there?
The answer is yes. And as it happens, I have one such item of good news to share. A few months ago, I met a man who told me about angels.
“Angels?” I asked skeptically.
“Yes, angels,” he said.
The man was white-haired. He looked like your favorite granddaddy. He spoke with a thick Georgia accent and wore enough plaid to cover a Plymouth.
“I was driving home late,” he began. “Crashed into a log truck.”
His wife held one of…