by Peter Twitchell
Looking back to my youth I remember my Dad making a snow angel on the ice at the sandbar above our fish camp and property across the river from Bethel.
It was early November and Dad set his whitefish net under the ice and safely secured it. When he was done he looked at me and told me, “Look.” He lay on his back on the ice in the fresh snow and moved his arms up and down his leg sideways.
I looked at it and it looked like an angel.
He asked me, “What do you see?” Then he told me now you know how to make a snow angel.
I was seven years old and did not know that I could make an angel in the snow. I thought it was very creative and later when I had my own children I would make one for them 21 years later.
Today as I enter my elderhood, I believe that there is a higher frame in our lives, a higher life and that is our Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth
And how can I not believe this when he lives in my heart?
I believe that Almighty Creator God is everything that is good in our lives and we can share that with the world. Like my Dad and my Mother my Grandmother and Grandfather before me I believe that there are angels.
I wish to reflect on what Mother Teresa wrote in her book: “When we have nothing to give let us give Him, Almighty Creator God the Lord of heaven and earth, our nothingness.”
She further says, “Let all of us remain empty as possible, so that God can fill us.
When I was an alcohol counselor beginning in 1996 to 2016 I would tell my clients about the “Ego,” which is all negative in our lives unless you use a part of it for survival purposes.
I encouraged them to let their personal anger toward themselves, toward others, and even toward Creator God, “Let that go!” and then replace our resentments, envy, jealousy and make room to put love and forgiveness in its place.
Many of the Elders who I worked with I know have never returned to incarceration. They remained home taking care of their families and loved ones and some have passed on to higher life of being.
John 15:4 says “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide with me.”
