Thursday, February 6, 2014

Entertaining Angels Unawares

I first met her, she sat with her head bowed in her room, silent with hair around her face. I knelt before her to dish capsules opened into pudding to help her mood. She stared blankly.
She had a model's body. She wore stylish clothes. One day, someone put her hair back in a pony tail. Her chic exposed.
"Peg, you look stylin' today," I remarked.
A smile, that is all. But it was enough to encourage me.
A few weeks later, a new hair cut on this thick white hair. She wore black frame glasses. She appeared to be metropolitan, in our small valley. I talked more to her. They pushed her into the dining room. She ate at a table, silently. Then she talked when I spoke to her.
I felt drawn to her and sought her out. I complimented her clothes, her hair. Her head didn't bow as much. Others noticed she talked more.
Almost as suddenly, she took ill. In days, she passed on. That happens sometimes when you are ninety seven. I looked at her obituary and the photo with it. She looked old in the seventies or late sixties photo, older than she appeared in the last months of her life. I glimpsed at the former lady and would not have guessed that life. Her family I knew and wondered if that is why she drew me in. I didn't know that before reading the article.
So it is. We may entertain angels unawares. Hebrews in the New Testament states that. Practice hospitality. Practice kindness. You never know who that person may be.

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