Each morning I am awed to step out into the darkness before dawn.  Angels greet me at the door as I step out of our house.  They are in all of the yards of the neighborhood and in the streets.

It is quite wondrous to look down the block and see the small Methodist church with lights in the shape of the star of Bethlehem above it.  As I begin my drive to work I am reminded of hope for all that can be in a moment, an hour, a day.

There is great hope in this world at this season.  Like many other people, there was a time in my life when my faith began to flag.  I didn’t lose faith in God, but in seeing the point of continuing life.  I had lost the sense of hope.  The wonder that has always held me in thrall when I look at a black night brilliant with stars had slipped its mooring.

The angels brought hope back to me.  They helped me to hear the message through other people that regardless of what I thought, there is great good in this world.  I was surrounded by good and love and reasons to believe that life is well worth living.

Today I was gifted again.  I was given the joy of speaking with a man about twenty years my senior who is full of the joys of life.  We spoke about people, places and things we both know.  He reminded me of some of the wonders of other places we had both known and the wonders of where we are.

A gift of the angels and a great gift of Christmas is recognizing the wonder in where we are now.  Now.  I can be firmly rooted in the past or the future or I can choose to be here, at this place and time.  I can live in the moment.

I can choose to see stars in the heavens and lights in others’ eyes.  I can choose to see the warmth in good hearts.  We can love and be loved and see the brilliance in it all.

It is marvelous to be able to give something up and find hope in greater yet to be.  I gave up my boyhood desire for a horse and to be a cowboy when I realized that other things were more important to me.  Even with a headful of grey hair I can watch an old cowboy movie and reminisce about the boy who wanted to be a cowboy.

I listened to my angels.  They told me that other men could do that work better.  I am needed in other places doing other things.  What a gift!

Listening to the angels interferes with television and computers and all the other electronic toys we now possess.  Looking up at the stars in the black sable night interferes with staring at video screens.  Smelling the smoke from a neighbor’s fireplace hang in the air, hearing the distant traffic, seeing the ambulance come to carry an elderly neighbor to dialysis all hang in the background behind the bright lights of the angels all around and the stars in the sky.

The world is the tiniest speck of Creation.  Every day Creation is born anew in a fire of believing and hoping in the goodness of the created.  What a surprising place to be.