Strange Brew: The Mothman Mystery

I like nothing better than to discuss and trade theories on crypto-zoology, UFOs, and all aspects of the unexplained with other curious minds. One of my new co-workers is a sharp, eccentric, funny guy who, like yours truly, is interested in the weird and the arcane. The other day at lunch, he and I were mulling over tales of a number of strange phenomena and our discussions harkened me back to some of the better books I have read on this type of subject. There exists for me, no tastier food for thought.

One of the weirdest, most unexplainable (in ordinary terms)cases of strange sightings, is the puzzle of West Virginia's Mothman. The late paranormal investigator, John A. Keel wrote the ultimate account of the happenings, a classic documentary of weirdness, from which a major motion picture was eventually developed: The Mothman Prophecies.

This book chronicles decades of sightings of a seven foot tall, brownish-gray being with leathery, bat-like wings and blazing, red eyes, reported by average folk in and around the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. As if being terrorized by a giant, demonic bat-man wasn't enough, at around the same time, these simple, church-going, working-class people also experienced multiple UFO sightings, as well as visits from the notorious "Men-In-Black", those odd-looking, humanoid types in rumpled, ill-fitting, three-piece suits, well known to those familiar with UFO lore, who ring the doorbell after you report that you've seen something strange. Various and sundry giant birds, Sasquatch creatures and other bizarre things also popped up along the dark roads of West Virginia in those days and still do from time to time.

To my mind, the best and most thought-provoking thing about Keel's master-work, with its exhaustive research and scrupulous regard for detail, is the theory he puts forth to "explain" this unexplainable wave of weirdness that has held a community in its' grip for decades.

Rather than being distinct, separate, strange phenomena, Mr. Keel seemed to think that all this weirdness is, in fact, the same thing...or at least, it emanates from the same source. He stopped short of postulating exactly what he thinks it is, or who (or what, exactly) is behind it all, but he hinted that it may be the fault of a lapse of the veil that separates the dimensions. He suggested that we are not being visited by the denizens of far-flung galaxies, in other words; they are here among us already, and always have been, along with big-foot, wolfmen, ghosts and yes, mothmen...we just don't perceive them except under special conditions. Those conditions were surely present in the hills of West Virginia in the late nineteen sixties, and in many other places throughout our world, before and since.

Having read extensively on spirituality, metaphysics, and a bit about quantum physics, I have come to understand that our visible, material world is far from the only "reality" that there is. I find these accounts fascinating and I never tire of hearing or reading about them; one person can hallucinate, one person might be crazy, drunk or lying, but dozens of otherwise reliable, sane and honest people seeing the same something that can't possibly be real? How is that possible?

John A. Keel passed from this reality on July 3rd of last year, but he leaves a legacy of intelligent, matter-of-fact investigations into the unknown, along with his paranormal classic, The Mothman Prophecies.

Office Politickin'

It's been two weeks already at the new job. What a whirlwind!

Yet again, it seems that the most challenging part of this new assignment won't be the work at all, but negotiating the office politics. A dozen different personalities, a dozen separate egos, a dozen diverse, personal agendas to navigate around. Ah, but it keeps life interesting.

Because of hard lessons learned at my last two jobs, I made a decision weeks ago, before I even started in this new position, to keep a strong boundary wall up between myself and my new co-workers. I'm pretty determined to keep my inner life and my work life completely separate.

At my last job, I quickly made friends with a woman who was a few years my junior and seemed to be in about the same place in life as me. We had a lot in common and I quickly became fond of her. All too soon, I found out that she had betrayed my confidences and used me as a pawn to further her own agenda with others in the company. I vowed that the next time I had a fresh start, I would do things differently, and so here I am.

I am usually an open book. I try very hard to be "authentic"; what you see is pretty much what you get with me. I detest gossip and I don't engage in it, or repeat it if I hear it. I am generally very real and I try to say just what is on my mind, although I tend to err on the side of kindness and discretion.

But now I find myself choosing my words carefully and guarding my facial expressions so as not to completely give myself away. I'm willing to pass up new friendships in the interest of protecting myself and keeping my work life on an even and predictable keel. I am being careful not to share much about my personal life. I am trying to keep my opinions to myself,and maintain neutrality in arguments that may arise from day to day, keeping everything very much on the surface. I think that in the long run, it will prove to be the best policy.

My goal is to be able to stay above the fray, for better or worse, unaffected by the tide of feelings that, for me, always accompanies office politics. Although this means that I probably won't have deep, meaningful friendships at my new workplace, sadly, I guess it is just the price one has to pay to keep the work life sane.

Moments of Lightness

I've been having difficulty putting together a post these past few weeks. I have resisted writing because I know that whatever I write now will be tainted by the darkness that is nipping at the edges of my life. The winter has taken it's toll on me. That, combined with three deaths now, in the past month.
Three wakes, three burials, the light of three lives now missing from this world, and as always, the cold and darkness of a northern January are weighing heavily on me.

Though we speak or exchange emails about once a week, I never really recovered from the loss of the relationship I once had with my daughter that happened as she approached adulthood. This grief is a constant pain that I bear, but never more so than in this dark season.

I know that my fascination with television shows like Forensic Files and Paranormal State probably contributes to my dark moods. It seems that these dark subjects are the only things that capture my interest in these gray days.
I've been reluctant to post something depressing or excessively negative; it feels self-indulgent and I know it doesn't do anyone any good. Who wants to read things that bring you down? So I decided to write instead about the moments of lightness that sustain me as I struggle to navigate this dark sea.

I thought I should write about the smell of the crysanthemums that decorate our church, and how the light looks as it filters through the stained glass above the altar. Or, the way the winter sun feels on my back when I walk the side streets of our town on weekend afternoons.

I have my husband, who is my best friend, to rely on. I have the knowledge that my children are healthy and employed.

Although they are growing old and their siblings are dying now, I still have both my parents.
I have all my brothers and my sister, their wives and husbands, my brothers and sisters in law, and their children, my nieces and nephews, who provide laughter, camaraderie and support.

There are the mourning doves that forage at the edge of the woods behind the barn, taking flight with a whistling flurry of wings when I appear. And the troupe of house sparrows that occupy the forsythia hedge next to our garage; how their gentle chirping lifts my spirits in the early mornings, as I walk Rigby out to the back yard.

Speaking of Rigby, I have only to see her smiling, brown, button eyes or hear her contented sigh as she snuggles next to me for a nap, to feel comforted.
Her sweet face and precious spirit is a constant and powerful source of grace in my life. Although they now require a lot of medical attention, my aging cats still have the ability to give and receive an enormous amount of affection.

I have the rising and setting of the sun, the colors of deep rose and amber and lavender mingling on the horizon, and the crescent moon, like a Cheshire cat grin, hanging in the western sky at night. I have the constellation Orion, moving from the south to the west, holding his bow, foretelling the coming of spring, making a promise.

I have coffee in the morning, hot, dark and rich, and cool green tea at night.

And tomorrow, I have a new job to start. For better or worse, it will be a new experience; God willing, it will prove to be a new source of satisfaction and fulfillment.

photo courtesey of J.Choate, 2008

It's been a long December...

Wow, it's amazing how much time has slipped by since my last post! I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I don't do well in winter as a rule, and this one has been marked by two deaths in the extended family, to make it even more depressing than usual.
Now that the bustle of the holidays is over, I find myself looking at the clock each afternoon and longing for the night, so I can snuggle down and hibernate in my bed.
Things are about to be shaken up, though, because I FINALLY heard from the state about that job I interviewed for back in August. They offered me the position, and I have accepted it.

I will be reporting to a new job in a new office in just a few short weeks.
I am excited and a bit apprehensive. While I look forward to the shorter commute, the change of scenery and new experiences, I will miss the familiarity of this place I have worked for the past eight years. The new job is only a two-year position, but I will have the opportunity to apply for other state jobs that may become available. I had to take the risk of trying something new, but I hope I haven't made a big mistake. Only time will tell.

One of my resolutions for the new year is to get back to posting on a regular basis. I am also way behind on reading all my favorite blogs, and it is time for me to catch up. I hope you all had a lovely holiday season, and all the best in 2010!

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Our Son and Ben Franklin

In 1982 my first child was born; a son. Being only 26 years old and having no experience as a parent, I was nonetheless completely undaunted. I was extremely confident in my ability to raise a child. I looked around me at all kinds of people with kids and was sure I could do as good a job, if not better than they had.

Some early milestones came late for our boy. He crawled and walked behind schedule, but I wasn’t too concerned. It was plain to see that he was a bright, happy boy and apparently healthy in every way. When he finally decided to speak it wasn’t one word, it was a sentence. As I unlocked the car door one afternoon, he looked up at me and asked, “Go bye-bye in da car now?” much to my astonishment.

One day my sister took him up on her lap to read to him. She had just bought him a new book, and as she turned the pages, she asked him if he would like to read it himself. She nearly fainted when he opened his little mouth and began to read out loud. He was a little over two years old. I’d always gone slowly and run my finger under the words as I had read to him, and I was aware that he knew many “sight words”, because he would point to signs and say, “Bus!” or “Stop!” or “Open!” as I pushed him around the neighborhood in his stroller, but that was the first moment that I realized he could actually read.

The first two years of his life were pretty happy and otherwise unremarkable. When he was just over three years old, we thought we’d better get him into nursery school to nurture his budding intellect and give him the opportunity to socialize with other children. That’s when the difficulties started. While the other children were coloring and playing with blocks, my son was writing full sentences on the posters that decorated the classroom walls, or hiding under a table, refusing to come out.

Our son was no longer the happy, rosy-cheeked boy he’d been. We had never had any problems with him at home, but once he got to school, it seemed he just could not behave. He hated school and had difficulty making friends. He had started to cry and pull back as we approached the door of the school each morning. He would beg me not to make him go in. It was a struggle just to get him inside the building every morning, and then the teachers would usually end up calling me after a few hours, asking me to come and get him because he was running in circles around the room and they couldn’t get him to stop. One day he was able to sneak out of school just before I was due to pick him up. He managed to make it twenty or so yards down the sidewalk next to a busy street before I spotted him.

At the urging of the nursery school staff, we brought him to Boston Children’s Hospital for evaluation. The teachers weren’t sure what was wrong, but they couldn’t handle him and thought perhaps the Child Development Lab at Children’s could get to the bottom of it. So began the long years of going from doctor to counselor and back again in an endless loop of expense and frustration. His I.Q. was tested and found to be just below what is considered genius level. They told us our son was gifted and all his problems, no doubt sprung from that fact. We took him to an eminent neurologist who came to the same conclusion. A child psychiatrist (the first of many) decided he had Attention Deficit Disorder. Another was sure he suffered from clinical depression. They prescribed medicines that seemed to make everything worse instead of better. Somehow, I knew that none of these opinions were correct.

Finally, when he was eighteen and in his senior year in high school, a doctor told me that our son had a form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome. I was skeptical, because I had heard so many wrong diagnoses in the past, but he wrote down the name of a book by Tony Attwood, and told me to look for it. I found it in a book store that evening and read it from cover to cover. I saw my son described on every page. It was a relief to know that we weren’t crazy – something really was different about our boy, but it was unbelievably frustrating to know that if we had gotten a correct diagnosis years ago, we might have been able to get him some appropriate schooling that would have helped him cope and adjust to it.

Asperger’s syndrome is a condition that is on the autism spectrum. Some of the hallmarks of Asperger’s are the inability to make eye-contact or read facial cues, which causes social awkwardness, and the tendency to focus intensely on one field of interest to the exclusion of most everything else. Many have repetitive habits such as rocking back and forth when standing or sitting still. Aspies tend to be very literal, sometimes having difficulty understanding figures of speech and sarcasm. If you were to jokingly say: “I’ll kill you!” to a person with Asperger’s, it might make them fear for their life. Aspies have to learn things that neuro-typical people know instinctually, such as how to interpret body language. Many with Asperger’s have strong natural aptitudes in music, art or math and some are considered savants. It is now strongly suspected that Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin and Vincent Van Gogh all had Asperger’s syndrome.

My son is a talented artist and also excelled in math when he was in school. He struggled through the harrowing social mine field of high school, and attended art college for one year, and a technical school afterwards, eventually earning a degree in computer-aided drafting, but at least partly because of his difficulty in navigating the interview process, he has been unable to find a job in his field. He pays his bills with a part-time job at a convenience store and by doing freelance and commission art work. Last year, he decided to go to Japan by himself, much to our horror. He went and spent ten days in Tokyo, finding his way around the city by himself and having a great vacation. I thank God that he got home safely. He currently still lives with Mac and me, but yearns to have a place of his own. He has 3 friends, two of whom he met in kindergarten, but they are scattered around the country, so he spends his free time by himself.

Our son is not comfortable with the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome and refuses to be defined by it. He thinks of himself as different, but not in any way deficient. In truth, there are more than a few doctors and other experts who now believe that neurological functioning is really a continuum and we are all spaced out along it, with the more typical people closer to one end, and those known as Aspies closer to the other. Maybe Asperger’s is really just a difference, not a disorder.

When he was a toddler, reading books and doing math, everyone was sure he would be an incredible success. All agreed that his talent and intellect would insure a bright future. It is still my hope that someday soon, someone will look beyond the eccentricities that hold him back and give him the chance he needs to shine his light on the world.

Something to be Thankful for

In the spring of 1621, two natives were hunting near the beach at Patuxet in Massachusetts, now known as Plymouth. Samoset was a Wabanake and Squanto, a Wampanoag. The area was the site of Squanto’s former village, but his people had been ravaged by disease brought over from Europe by slave traders and the tribe had been wiped out.
Both Squanto and Samoset spoke English. They met originally in England where they had both traveled with explorers. In 1620 they had returned together to find only bones in the ruins of what had been Squanto’s village. The two men had since gone to live with another group of Wampanoags nearby.
Imagine their surprise that spring afternoon when they came upon a bedraggled group of English settlers living in Squanto’s former village. The first word alleged to be said by Squanto as he walked in to his occupied village and approached the strangers was, “Welcome.”

The English interlopers were in tough shape and would not have survived much longer. But Squanto decided to stay with them for several months, teaching them how to cultivate the plants they found in the new world, including corn which became their staple. He taught them how to tap the maple trees for sap. He gave them meat and furs, and taught them the medicinal value of some of the native plants as well. They learned to dig clams and other shellfish, and to use plants and animals from the sea as fertilizer for their crops.

By harvest time, the immigrants had much to be thankful for; they had been yanked back from the brink of disaster by the Indians. They now enjoyed sufficient food and new homes that the Indians had helped them build. Captain Miles Standish invited Squanto, Samoset, their leader Massasoit and their families to a celebratory feast of thanks. The Wampanoag men arrived with over ninety people in tow, as well as an abundance of food to contribute. The ensuing feast lasted for three days, and was a celebration of peace and friendship between the Wampanoag people and the English settlers.

The Pilgrims had escaped religious intolerance in their homeland and made a new life in the freedom of the new world with the help of the Wampanoags. Unfortunately, they forgot the hard lessons learned and began to impose their own religious prejudices on the natives. How terrible and sad that less than fifty years later, the settlers took up arms against their benefactors in King Phillip’s War. Squanto could not have imagined that his kindness to the Pilgrims would be the beginning of the end for the native peoples of North America.

As we celebrate all that we have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, spare a thought for Squanto and the Wampanoag people. Without their help, the pilgrims would have perished and become a historical footnote, rather than the founders of a great nation.

In The Throes of Indian Summer

Here in the northeast we are experiencing that rare weather pattern better known as “Indian summer.” There are many definitions of what constitutes true Indian summer, but what isn’t in dispute is that it is lovely and warm, comes in October or November, lasts for at least a few days, and follows a hard, or killing frost. Some variations say that it must precede the first snow, with temperatures of at least 70 degrees Fahrenheit, but I never depend on such stringent criteria to define my Indian summer. If the sun is out and the late autumn days are balmy and still, or stirred only by a slight breeze from the southwest, it is Indian summer for me.

This year, it came after the first snow, which happened a few weeks ago on a cold and miserable Sunday. That was a nasty day of big, wet flakes mixed with sleet and a cold rain. It coated the grass in slush, but dissipated by the following morning. It unfortunately coincided with me having to drive into the city an hour away to pick up seven arrivals from the corporate headquarters on the west coast who were flying in to Logan airport…bad timing, to be sure. At least I earned time-and-a-half wages for my efforts and was able to take a company car.

That day was like a distant memory this past Sunday, as the frost melted off the grass by mid-morning, and we reveled in the hazy warmth of a low sun and a warm, sweet breeze that stirred the mostly bare trees. Even now, a few days later, though the sun is weaker, it is still weirdly mild outside and I love it.

But it got me to thinking: where does the term “Indian summer” come from? I did a little research and found that its true origins may be lost in time. But there are some things we do know. In most parts of the northern hemisphere, there is a name for the warm weather that follows the hard frost. In Bulgaria, for example, it is known as the “Gypsy summer” or sometimes, “Gypsy Christmas” presumably because it makes outdoor living more bearable for those wandering folk. In Germany it’s known as the “Web summer”, because a certain type of spider weaves webs on the grass and Hungarians know it as the “Crone’s summer”, which refers to the medieval association with Halloween and witchcraft.

The oldest written reference to the term Indian summer was apparently in a letter written by a Frenchman, St. John de Crevecouer, in 1778. He describes, “…an interval of calm and warmth which is called the Indian Summer; its characteristics are a tranquil atmosphere and general smokiness”, referring to the common occurrence of haze in the warm meadows. But where do Indians fit it to the picture? Although no one seems to know for certain, it is suspected that many native peoples here in the United States had a habit of setting fire to the grasslands during this time of year. The smoke mingled with the haze, allowing them to be better able to sneak up on their prey when hunting. Other sources contend that northern tribes saw the warmth of the dry winds as a gift from the gods of the southwest desert; a reprisal of summer, just before the winter.

On Sunday, Mac and I took Rigby down to the shore with the thought of walking her up and down the sand, but it was so nice on the beach, we set up chairs near the surf and read for a few hours. It was like medicine for the soul.

I hate to see this beautiful weather leave, because I know it is likely our last reprieve before winter’s icy grip enfolds us. But for today, it is wonderful.

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On All Hallows Eve

Samhain is fast approaching. All Hallow’s eve, the feast that heralds the “dark-half”of the year. The bright season of summer has died, and we mourn as we face the approaching winter.

The autumn sun sets in streaks of gold and violet. Clouds trimmed in charcoal gray fall like a heavy curtain on the day. Herds of small, frightened creatures streak across the road in front of your car, stopping your heart for a second until you realize... they're only dead leaves whipped into a panic by the moaning wind. Clouds of blackbirds amass, streaming southward in undulating flight. Vines of bittersweet festoon bare branches with their garlands of red and yellow. Shadow beings move in and out of the treeline at the edges of the fields. The dying vegetation, the cinnamon smell of decaying leaves, and the bare tree branches like dead fingers, suggest that perhaps the author, Ray Bradbury was right: “Something wicked this way comes!”

Christian tradition marks All Saints Day, then a few days later, All Souls, a day of remembrance of those who have passed from this world. The harvest is in, the growing season ended, the leaves have died and fallen, leaving the trees bare. Long thought of as the season of death in many cultures, for the Celtic people, it marked the end of the grass, thus, the end of the grazing time, and so, the beginning of the slaughter. The people made great fires called bone-fires (bonfires) and burned the bones of the cattle on them. It is the harbinger of the Celtic New Year, the end and the beginning.

This is the time when the veil that separates the worlds is drawn back, and the inhabitants of the spirit plane and the faerie realm might move freely between them.

Once, long ago, I was a young girl balancing on the tightrope between the worlds of child and adult. I was almost too old for trick–or-treat; just old enough to be let out on Halloween night for a hour or two without adult supervision.
Giddy with freedom, I ran to meet two friends in the big field at the end of our street. On this All Hallow’s Eve, it represented a scary, yet safe enough place to greet whatever spirits might roam the night, as free as I was.

This field was a big part of my childhood. From preschool days, to high school, I wandered through it, my knees brushed by the amber grass. It was the staging area for neighborhood games of war, freeze tag and red rover. I also liked to sit there alone sometimes, thinking and watching the clouds form familiar shapes in the sky.
Tonight my two friends and I would go there to challenge whatever spirits might rise up to prowl the night.

Karyn and Pam were already there waiting for me in the darkness as I ran through the vacant lot and burst into the field. We passed around a cigarette, thrilling to the fact that we were almost grown, and out with no adults on the darkest night of the year, a night when evil might be lurking all around us. We spent some time gossiping as young teens will, and laughing loudly at our own jokes while the stars came out, and the night breeze ruffled the long grass around us. We plotted our route around the nearby housing development. Candy was for babies, but we would roam the neighborhood anyway, checking out the costumes and looking for our school mates.

Suddenly, there was a sound a few dozen yards away at the edge of the woods. Someone or something was moving through the leaves and into the field. I was suddenly frightened, not only of ghosts, but of some person with bad intentions. My parents had hammered it into me that there were adults that would harm a child, if they got the chance.
"It's nothing," said Karyn,"probably just some kids..." As I watched, the grass started to move, slowly at first, then faster, as if something large and low to the ground was moving up the hill, in our direction!

I was confused at first, because although I could make out the dim horizon, the shapes of the trees and the long blades of grass moving, nothing appeared to be moving them. There was a whispery sound as the tufts of grass shook and swayed. It was as if some invisible person was walking quickly through them, straight toward us! One of my friends gasped and that was all it took. The three of us ran screaming from the field and didn't stop until we were about a quarter of a mile away, back on the relative safety of the dark street.
"What WAS that?" Pam asked incredulously as we stopped and tried to catch our breath.

As I think back on it, I guess it could have been a big raccoon or opossum making it's way up the hill, hidden by the grass. But I prefer to think that perhaps it was a visitor from a different reality; a Samhain spirit or an Elfin traveler that passed through the thin veil into the dimension of living humans on that dark and shadowy Halloween night.

So light your jack-o-lanterns to keep the evil spirits at bay, and guide the friendly ones home...it's almost All Hallows Eve.

See the geese...

I woke up today and found
frost perched on the town.
It hovered in a frozen sky
and gobbled summer down...
The warriors of winter
gave a cold, triumphant shout
All that stays is dying'
and all that lives is getting out
...See the geese in chevron flight
laughin' and a racin' on before the snow
They've got the urge for goin'
and they've got the wings to go
And they get the urge for goin'
when the meadow grass is turnin' brown
Summer time is fallin' down
and winter's closin' in.

-Joni Mitchell, "Urge for Goin'"

A few decades ago, Tom Rush of New Hampshire recorded my favorite version of this song, and for me it will always be the quintessential autumn song. It evokes all the melancholy feelings of watching nature sink down into hibernation for the winter. The wistful melody and beautifully spare musical arrangement complements the somber mood of the lyrics, setting the tone for late fall and early winter. It just makes you want to build a good fire, fill your mug with steaming hot coffee or tea, grab an old quilt and hunker down until spring. If you enjoy folk and progressive country rock, seek it out and give it a listen if you can find it.

Grace and Guidance

Unless you believe that your life is an accident, that somehow a series of chemical processes is wholly responsible for your existence, you may from time to time seek Divine guidance.

I was raised Catholic and for many years, lived by the dogma and man-made rules that I thought defined my religion. It was not what you would call a “living” faith; more like an unpleasant obligation to fulfill. I didn’t get much out of it, and as I looked around me I saw that no one else seemed to either.

Eventually, I felt driven to embark on my own spiritual quest. Through my participation in twelve step programs, meditation groups, and the study of other religions, I gradually attained an awareness of a spiritual life I knew I had been missing. I was enlightened by the teachings of Buddhism and other eastern traditions. I learned from the Pre–Christian Earth mother religions and Native American beliefs. My spiritual life was enriched and informed by the writings of Khalil Gibran, Eckhart Tolle and many others.

The result of this search was that it brought me full-circle, back to the beginning and my own faith of origin, but I began to discern that there was a vast difference between reciting prayers and responses by rote and simply showing up at Mass each week, and actually attempting to live the faith, which is what I believe we are called to do.

I began to perceive that my God was not an old man sitting up on a cloud somewhere, but was more like a wind, moving among us, surrounding us and blowing right through us here on Earth. My God works in miraculous ways, through human beings. My God is loving, forgiving and welcoming. My God is part of me, and speaks from within.

In past times of indecision or strife, I have found myself either in church, or in seclusion at home, searching through scriptures, pondering the New Testament and the psalms, looking for a sign post on my life’s journey…which way to go? Looking back over my life, I see now with aggravating clarity, the forks in the road where I chose poorly. Hind-sight is twenty-twenty, as they say. Those were times when I depended on my own weak sensibilities and flawed judgment to make my decisions. I have come to realize, however, that there have been a handful of times, when I was so distraught and depleted that I asked for Divine intervention. In effect, I asked God to show me what the right decision was, or simply to make something happen with the caveat: “Your will, not mine be done.” When I look back now on the results of those times of “letting go and letting God,” I see with mild astonishment how right the path I chose eventually turned out to be. This is one way that I have come to experience Grace.