Poosey Digest: Surrounded by angels

Greetings from Poosey.

In Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address he made an effort to soothe the hatred in the South and appease the anger of the North when he said, “…we are not enemies, but friends …though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection….” Then he appealed to what he called “The better angels of our nature.”

In what seems like an unending season of crisis, terrorism, war, economic uncertainty, and a changing world order, we would do well to remember how we are all blessed whenever the better angels of our nature come fluttering down …in this case nearly a half mile beneath the earth’s surface. Like receiving an unexpected gift from a long-lost uncle, we …the world …once gathered around our television sets and computers to watch the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners (this tragedy occurred in October, 2010).

From the first note scribbled onto a probe, “We are fine in the shelter, the 33 of us,” to the lifting of the final rescue worker from the shaft, our little planet spent 69 days hoping and praying that the better angels would win out.

As one miner put it, “I was with God and the devil. And I reached out for God.”

The miners spent their first 17 days not knowing when or whether anyone would find them. We’ve all read the reports of how they immediately organized their days into a regimen of three eight-hour shifts for work, relaxation, and sleep, how some jogged through the tunnels for exercise, and others led their fellow workers in singing and wrote journals. One miner said, “I buried 40 years of my life down thee, and I’m gong to live a lot longer to be a new person.” The better angels were working overtime.

Of course, there was the predictable silliness to accompany any event getting that much attention. CNN did its giddy schoolgirl reporting, offers both strange and wonderful came in from around the world from lawyers, agents, and book publishers, and there is no doubt a made-for-TV movie already in the works. But the gist of what happened …33 men living a world away from us grabbed our attention and held our hearts. A much-fractioned world waited and hoped as one. The better angels were winning.

Perhaps we in the U.S. had the greatest need for this angelic display as we sat bombarded by the nastiest pre-election blitz of blather in recent years. For once you could almost stand to listen to the news, tolerating the political ads by knowing that 15 more minutes another miner would be raised to the surface. Angel time.

Let’s be honest… when things seem to be going terribly bad, we are tempted to question our own goodness. When the bullying in the schoolyard matures to full-blown nastiness in politics, religion, and culture, we might ask ourselves if there’s enough simple goodness in us to survive this mess. Then an angel in the form of a U.S. mining engineer arrives to advise the rescue efforts.  A drill operator from Denver appears on the scene along with a team from Pennsylvania …then groups from Peru, Canada and Australia. Whoosh… another angel scatters the dust of the Chilean desert. NASA helps devise a capsule to bring the trapped men to the surface and the space agency’s dieticians begin planning a nutrition regime for the miners. Ears well tuned to spiritual matters must have heard the flutter in the air over the San Jose Mine.

Theologians have longed been puzzled about how the virile, butt-kicking angels from the scriptures have somehow morphed into the Precious Moments cherubs that fly their naked little bums around the edges of Hallmark cards. It seems that at least in Chile the angels wear hard hats, hug fearful wives, and drink tequila.

Lincoln’s “better angels” were not dead, just on hiatus I guess. Not looking a thing like the bed-sheeted seraphs stumbling around the back edges of church Nativity scenes, they came in the form burly drillers, white-coated lab technicians, hopeful  grandmothers, and a world on its knees. Their messages were welcomed by a worry-torn world… “Drill here” and “Send down the broadcast of a soccer game” and “Keep the men active” and “Pray for each other.” And, perhaps most importantly, “Don’t give up on yourself or your fellow man. You’re surrounded by angels.” It’s as true now as it was back then.

You ever ’round Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.