Greetings Dear Ones!

Do you believe in angels? I do. They are all around us, everywhere, in the form of beloved pets showing us Unconditional Love, as kind strangers miraculously showing up to help in moments of need, and in the form of sweet brides who allow their bridesmaids to wear flats to their weddings. There are devils too… but let’s not talk about politicians and lobbyists today! Sometimes, I picture them (the angels, that is, not the politicians and lobbyists) watching us from heaven like excited school children peering into a tank of stingrays at the New England aquarium: “Come here! Swim closer!” they beg, “We just want to touch you! We are safe! We love you so much!” But they cannot reach us if we don’t choose to let them. We need to Trust and swim a little closer. Free Will means we get the choice whether or not we surrender to being touched. It’s up to us to ask for help.

I’ve gotten very good at asking for help. There’s one sewing angel up there, whom I know personally, who’s particularly quick at fixing zippers. I talk to her frequently, especially when I have to replace one on a down coat… I’m pretty sure that some of the feathers I clean up later are from her wings.

According to a book called “Hiring the Heavens” by Jean Slatter, there is an entire temp agency of angelic beings just waiting to be of service to us mortals down here in the swamps of Vermont, currently struggling with “humaning.” They just hang out in the waiting room, watching us glide by in our frantic spirals of relentless ambition and perfectionism, waiting…. Since the only price is Faith (which is a bargain when one is in Panic), I recently “hired” a whole slew of them to take over all the challenges of my life. I hired an “auto angel” who is in charge of helping me find someone willing to replace the rusted out hatch on the back of my car and another to protect my vehicle from detection until I can get it to pass inspection. These two are working together very effectively: I have found a wonderful auto body shop that will issue me a certificate to show any police people who pull me over before the work is complete.

I hired one to help me write the blog this week, and another to help me fix the vacuum cleaner, which was shooting out clouds of dust from underneath the rug beater.

“I welcome Divine help and inspiration in the fixing of this machine,” I said, plunging ahead and removing all of the screws from the machine before I was divinely inspired to do any such a thing. My angel, who I can only assume is a relative of “Clarence” from “It’s a Wonderful Life” showed up a few seconds later, huffing and puffing because he has no wings yet. I already had the screws out on the floor and accidentally had kicked one under the couch.

“Just open the hatch at the bottom that is there to help you access the clogs,” he said, wheezing. “The screws don’t need to come out. The engineers designed it that way.”

“Oops! Oh… damn…I didn’t see that,” I said.

“I can’t believe you just said damn to an angel,” hissed Prudence, mortified.

“Just clear out all that matted dog hair and dust and you should be good to go,” said Clarence’s cousin. The Blog angel was standing nearby, smiling wryly. The vacuum cleaner, with no screws to hold it all together, fell apart.

“I can’t remember how this thing went together,” I cried, starting to sweat. The number of pieces seemed to be multiplying before my eyes. “Quick! Can we hire a team of engineers to come help?”

A team of angelic engineers instantly appeared. Apparently, Heaven is full of these earnest, thoughtful, practical people who do their best to make The Uncomplicated more complicated for the sake of Efficiency. They are extremely Good People. Unfortunately, they were not especially adept at translating their thoughts to me so I just muddled about until I was furious and bellowed for the benevolent Hermit of Hermit Hollow to come add his human thumbs to the mix. Rebuilding a dismantled vacuum cleaner requires at least two additional digits per rattling piece that won’t stay put.

“Don’t you think you should try it, to see if it’s sucking properly before you screw it back together?” whispered the Blog angel with wicked innocence.

The Hermit and I agreed. We had already misplaced the screws anyway.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” said the Clarence’s wingless cousin confidently. “The channel is clear. Go ahead and put the screws in…”

“Shhhhh….” said the Blog angel, “Just watch. This is going to be good. She needs a topic…”

So I turned on the vacuum cleaner. It sucked alright.

It sucked up all the screws.

“You’re welcome,” said the Blog Angel. “Now you don’t have to scribble on and on about daffy brides who play phone tag with you four times about how much it would cost to alter a gown and when you tell them to make an appointment, they call back to say ‘should I bring the gown with me when I come in?’ Trust me, this is way funnier.

Indeed...

A sense of humor is divine. I don’t mind being used for a joke if it lightens the load on anyone’s wings and especially if I now know precisely where the missing screws are. A clean carpet would just be a total bonus.

I adore playful co-creation.

For weeks, I have been working on a friend’s wedding outfit. I say “outfit” because I was only responsible for the top half of her dress. She’d purchased a gorgeous white silk skirt from Anthropologie that had a small train and all she needed was a blouse. She had “an idea” in her head—an idea not available in any store. Yesterday, after more than thirty hours of sketching, shopping, talking, cutting, pinning, stitching, refitting, restitching… we completed that idea. Together with an entire sweatshop of angels, we shaped silk around ether, with twenty tiny buttons marching up the back and neck and sleeves to hold it in place, and Created a one-of-a-kind match to the skirt. It’s JUST RIGHT. I Love it! And so does the bride.

The bride had Faith, I had Hope (with big dashes of panic), but the greatest of these was Love, which triumphed in the end. As we worked out the glitches and snags (I redid the neck three times!), I fell in love again and again with that Joy that never grows stale—the process of adding Skill to vision that enables any artist humbly to take part in a Miracle. To co-create is to willingly and bravely inhabit a world of Uncertainty. Sometimes the skill is weak; sometimes the vision. Sometimes the combination is everything you dreamed it could be, a miraculous WIN.

Is it not so with ANY relationship? …especially Marriage itself?

“You must be used to this, no?” asks the bride, as I practice buttonholes on scraps before attempting to do twenty of them on the real blouse we have spent hours constructing. I look at her in panic.

“I love these machines but I always ask the angels to help keep potential gremlins at bay! It takes a serious amount of Good Luck to execute a plan. I’ll breath again when it’s over…” I gulp as we begin the count-down of potential disasters: twenty, nineteen, eighteen… It is completely within the realm of possibility that [a politician or lobbyist] will suddenly cause the greasy wheels of Fate to chew a small black hole of snaggled Despair in the pristine silk I hold so tenderly in my hands. Un-dared-for Joy begins to swell with each tiny victory. Smooth, sleek buttonholes are definitely a sign the gods are with you. The relief at the ends is nearly unbearable.

I can’t do my work without this holy trinity of Hope, Skill, and Luck. Hope, as we all know, springs eternal. There’s no shortage of that. And I work daily on Skill. I’m grateful for my technical ability and the grace that endless hours of repetition have added to my thimbled fingers. But Luck…. Luck is the always-invited guest who never RSVP’s. So I never cease to be amazed, nay, Shocked when something turns out As Planned. Creativity is a bold and audacious journey to somewhere Unknown. Sometimes you create precious heirlooms to be treasured; sometimes you just destroy medium-sized household appliances.

Again, how like a Marriage itself?

I wish this Dear Bride, and all my dear brides, and especially YOU, Dear Mender—all the joys of this Creative Journey. There is nothing quite so Magnificent as being able—occasionally, intentionally, profoundly, humbly—to make something Beautiful, perhaps even Good, with evenly-spaced, functioning buttons. For the rest, well, there’s laughter and a chance to try again. Luckily, there are angels for hire!

Keep at it, Dear Ones. We are “the hands” Love needs—to Mend, to Create, to hold each other up through the tough times. “All you have to do is Believe,” says the swamp-dwelling witch with the wild hair, dusty carpets, and poopy shoes she leaves at the door.

I love you SEW much!

Yours aye,

Nancy