Soul Talking

Just because someone isn't with you doesn't mean you can't talk to them.......right?

People have imaginary conversations all the time.  In the shower.  While shaving or putting on your make-up.  In the kitchen.  Taking a walk.  Jogging.

It's not weird.  At least, I don't think it's weird.  I think of it as collecting or organizing your thoughts to make sure you explain yourself exactly the way you want.  Or sometimes it's venting your emotions to the only person who might really get what you're feeling.

So what if the person is no longer here on Earth? 

It doesn't matter to me because I truly believe with all my heart that those people we have lost to Heaven or whatever you want to call it, can hear us talking to them.

Today is All Souls Day and I bet your loved ones can't wait for you start yakking away.  Go ahead and try it.  I bet it will make you feel better.  Usually I'm at home when I have my talks, but sometimes I'm in the car when I go on about what is happening in my life to my husband, my grandmother, and many other friends and relatives whose souls are peacefully resting in the great beyond.

 

I am not alone in my talking to departed loved ones.  Yesterday a great friend sent me the below story by Mary Schmich, a wonderful writer and columnist for The Chicago Tribune.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!!!!! 

This is a Week To Speak To Our Departed Souls

By Mary Schmich

Chicago Tribune

 

October 30, 2013

 

 

I talk to the dead.

 

Whenever I'm startled by the shapes and colors in the sky, I talk to my brother Bill, an artist who loved to paint the clouds.

 

Some days I talk to my friend Steve, usually along the lines of, "Where the bleep are you, Daley, when I and a whole lot of other people need to talk to you about the idiocy of politics?"

 

Every now and then, while having tea in one of the dainty china cups I inherited from my Aunt Mary Louise, I feel moved to say aloud, "I'm sorry I didn't come visit you more."

 

I often talk to my mother, just to say her name.

 

To some people this will seem kooky, though the rest of you understand. You talk to the dead too. And if there’s any week when we’re licensed--practically commanded--to commune with the dearly departed, this is it.

 

There’s Halloween (Oct. 31). All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1). All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2). And, spanning the first two days of November, there’s the celebration known as el Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

 

Each day, in its own way, prompts us to connect with lives that, to steal a poet's line, have slipped the surly bonds of Earth.

 

In our culture, Halloween is the one that makes the biggest bang. With its candy corn, Batman outfits, naughty nurse costumes, ghosts, goblins and periodontally challenged pumpkins, it's a day when pop culture meets the pseudo-occult.

 

I prefer the other days, not on religious grounds, though they're rooted in religion, but because they encourage a more genuine reflection on death and the relationships that we retain with people who are gone.

 

In many places, the days of saints and souls matter as much as or more than Halloween. From New Orleans to Mexico to France, they're the days for rituals that connect the living to the dead.

 

Clean up the family graves. Build a little altar to the deceased. Picnic in the cemetery. Pray that souls in purgatory be released. Party with a transcendental purpose.

 

As a kid, growing up Catholic, I was particularly fond of All Souls Day. It seemed less celebrity-driven than the day dedicated to the saints, more about the little people.

 

But that wasn't why I liked it. I liked it for the word "soul."

 

What was a soul? At the age of 7, I knew exactly.

 

A soul was a little dog bone planted in the center of a person's chest. When you were born, the dog bone was as white as snow and as smooth as polished stone. When you committed small sins (hitting your brothers, saying bad words), little stains like ink marks appeared on the white dog bone. A big sin (murder) turned the whole bone black.

 

Confession could clean the dog bone, but wherever it had been stained by sin it would remain forevermore rough and porous, like pumice.

 

I have no idea where the vision of the soul as a dog bone came from. From something a nun said? From the primal recess of my child's mind?

 

At any rate, on All Souls Day, I imagined all the dog bones of the departed rising, winged, from the Earth and fluttering free for a while, an image that has endeared the day to me ever since.

 

For Catholics and members of some other faiths, these days have specific, profound meanings. But even for people without those faiths, this week is a good excuse to pause, here in the first chill and fading light of autumn, to feel your connection with your departed people.

 

I no longer know what a soul looks like, but in the past few years as more of the souls I've loved have vanished from view, I have a keener sense of what one is, and that they're still here.

 

A trick of the mind? Could be. I just know that I feel those souls around me, and I like it, and I like the occasion of this week to think about it.

 

It's not all about the candy corn.

Baby Angels

I have written previously about angels and particularly about a book my aunt gave me titled, Angel Letters," by Sophy Burnham.  From time to time, I read this book because I find it comforting and it puts life into perspective for me.

 

There are a number of stories that I tend to re-read when I am stressed or confused about life and this short story is one in particular that always takes my breath away:

 

In April 1990 Sophy Burnham was being interviewed about her book on WOR-Radio in New York.  She was being interviewed by Gil Gross and as they took calls and discussed the subject of angels, Gross told the following story about a young couple who had one little girl and a new baby:

 

"The little girl wanted to be left alone with the baby, but the parents were afraid.  They had heard of jealous children hitting new siblings, and they didn't want the baby hurt.

 

     'No, no,' they said.  And, 'Not yet.'

    

And also: 'Why do you want to be with him?  What are you going to do?'

 

     'Nothing.  I just want to be with him.'

 

She begged for days.  She was so insistent that the parents finally agreed.  There was an intercom in the baby's room.  They decided that they could listen, and if the baby cried, if the little girl hit the baby, they could rush into the room and snatch the infant up.  So, the little girl went in, approached the crib.  Alone.  She came up to the newborn baby, and over the intercom they heard her whisper:

     'Tell me about God.  I'm forgetting.' "

Earth Angels

Many years ago, one of my aunts generously gave me a book about people's first-hand experiences with angels called Angel Letters by Sophy Burnham.

Burnham previously had written the bestseller, A Book of Angels, which was so popular that hundreds of people wrote to Burnham about their encounters with angels.  Burnham took these letters and with the permission of the writers, published their letters and used people's real names.

"Since finishing A Book of Angels I have come to a personal belief:  that we live surrounded by ghosts, by spirits, not only in our imagination, as metaphors of our past, but also in reality -- our departed loved ones watching us --  also surrounded by superior spiritual beings of great light and magnificance, manifestations of the divine, who want for us poor humans better things that we can possibly imagine," Burnham writes in Angel Letters.

"And I believe that if we leave them alone and present ourselves, like children, in total trust and love and humble gratitude, then they will pour their blessings on us overwhelmingly.  They play with us.  They look after us.  They heal us, touch us, comfort us with invisible warm handss they try to give us what we want."

Here is one of the moving letters from Burnham's book.  This one is written by Mrs. Renee E. Mastalli from Bethesda, Maryland:

"About a year after my beloved husband died, I sat in my living room feeling lost and lonely ot stop weeping.  Suddenly the room was filled with the scent of flowers -- overpowering.  It was in the middle of win.  Just then my phone rang, and it was a friend who wanted to come and visit.  I said that I wasn't very good company today but she came anyway.  As she walked in the door, she said, "the flowers?"  I said, "Millie do you smell them too?"  With that she asked me, "What was Tiller"  I said, "Gardenias."  She then replied, "He is with you and telling you ." With that the scent of flowers disappeared."

Maybe something happened in your life and you felt a spiritual presence.

Maybe it was your angel.

Angels & Faith

Faith is usually defined as having a confident belief in the truth of a person, idea or thing.  Faith is also defined as having a secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. 

Hmmmm....trusting acceptance.  For me that is always the part of faith that I am constantly working on.  I have been thinking a lot about faith these days and it's role in my life.  I don't know what the future will bring, but of course  I always hope and pray that it's going to be something good.

And if it's not something good, then I hope and pray that I will have the faith and strength to deal with it.

I have found that my faith has changed as my life has unfolded.  When my son was born, my faith in the future and in the world as a whole was off the charts.  He was a beautiful baby and everything about him worked as it should and my husband and I truly felt blessed as parents.

When my husband died,  I felt as though I was being severely tested and punished.  I couldn't see beyond the next 10 minutes and I had no idea what would happen the next day.  I wasn't even sure that that I wanted the next day to arrive.  I had no energy to build or plan a future.  It was all about surviving.

It was during this time that I re-acquainted myself with angels.  From childhood, I have always believed in the existence of angels and their power to inspire and protect us.  Maybe it has something to do with the Catholic notion of everyone having a guardian angel that God gives to you when you are born and your guardian angel watches over you until you die.

There have been times in my life when my guardian angel has worked overtime and I have definitely felt as though she has yanked me out of some dicey situations.  It's too bad she hasn't had the ability to sometimes put masking tape over my mouth because that would have been equally as helpful!  I am not alone in my faith about angels.  I asked a guy that I work with about angels and he quickly replied that he knows for sure that he has a couple of guardian angels dedicated to watching over him!

Joking aside, I do believe that God has a plan for all of us and that angels watch over us and do their best to keep us on the straight and narrow.

Have you ever felt the presence of an angel in your life?