Watching those God Inc videos always makes me think of that song by Joan Osborne in which she wonders ‘What if God was one of us?‘ I always found that song interesting, because I’ve heard Christians talk about how they met some random person who they believed might have been an angel. One of heavens own workers walking among us to intervene in a situation for whatever holy reason.
Hearing stories like that made me start to look at strangers in a different way. I’m no expert in the employment and deployment of angels, but I sometimes walk past a homeless person begging on the street and think to myself, could that person be an angel? I wonder if that some kind of test, and if so did I just fail?
The problem with that line of thought is that I sometimes feel like I’m a terrible person because here are all these homeless angels and I’m just walking past them saying “sorry” when they ask me for change.
Sometimes I’ll stop when a homeless person asks me for change. I’ll give them a couple of bucks or something and chat with them for a minute or two, secretly trying to figure out if they’re an angel or not, looking for signs like especially bright eyes or an unusually good complexion.
In Portland this last Christmas a young guy asked me if I could spare some change. I stopped to go through my pockets as he explained that he needed to get ten dollars to buy a bus ticket so he could make it home to see his family for Christmas. I looked at him as he went on to say that so far he had got five bucks. Right then the thought came into my mind again. Is this guy actually an angel? I paused for a moment thinking that the bus ticket story was more than likely BS. But then, I though, what’s five bucks really, and it was Christmas.
I handed him a five dollar bill and told him to go get his bus. His eyes lit up and he thanked me excitedly in a way that made me feel like perhaps this time the bus ticket story might just be true.
As we went our separate ways I wondered if I looked back whether he would still be there. Angels have a habit of disappearing, or so I’m told. I didn’t look back though. Maybe he was an angel, or maybe he was just another street kid finding ways to get money from strangers. In truth I didn’t really want to know. I was happy to just believe that as unlikely as it might be, maybe I’d just helped out an angel.
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Long hours, little pay
[Video] Joan Osborne “What if God was one of us?”
Wrote the following comment on Feb 1, 2007 at 2:34 am
that’s a great story.
maybe i should start checking the complexions of homeless people… just in case they’re homeless?
Wrote the following comment on Feb 1, 2007 at 2:35 am
umm. wait. my little ba-dum-bum-chhh was completely thrown off since i didn’t say “angels”- oh well.
Wrote the following comment on Feb 1, 2007 at 4:03 am
I don’t know if God puts angels here to test us. I like to think he sends them to help. Maybe in that moment he was a homeless kid trying to get back home and you were his angel? Maybe angels aren’t among us, but within us.
Wrote the following comment on Feb 1, 2007 at 4:06 am
Maybe I was his angel. I like that.
Who knows, on a blog somewhere else on the web maybe he wrote a story about how an angel gave him 5 bucks just when he needed 5 bucks. Now there’s a thought. I like that Wookit.
Wrote the following comment on Feb 1, 2007 at 4:55 am
I once met a trucker at a gas station while he was cleaning his truck. He was older and not scarey in appearance…he smiled nicely. I talked to him about what we were doing (youth trip) and was just generally cheerful. I may have helped him with his truck.. I dont remember.
So after this, one of my youth leaders comes in and tells me I shouldnt give strangers my name.. and i said I didnt. It took a bit for him to believe me, but then he told me that the trucker had stopped him to talk to him in the convenience store. I said what did he say? My Youth leader wouldnt tell me…because he said he didnt want it to go to my head. I said ‘what! you must tell me!’ Finally he told me that the guy said my name was special… but that was all i could get out of my youth leader. SO I think he was an angel… or mad. Unfortunately, I’ll never know what all he said.
Wrote the following comment on Feb 2, 2007 at 5:56 pm
I wondered if the street guy I bought soup for the other day might have been an angel – until I ran into him the second time and he turned out to be very much a person. Who knows though? There may be some of them out there.