Angel in a Rocker

The beeps and buzzes and dings and whirs of the appropriately hygienic neonatal intensive care room don’t seem to wake the new life inside. Beyond the plate glass that guards them, the oaken rockers look through the window, inordinately oversize sentinels of these infantly tiny beings in the warming beds of that room. Yet they also seem too small to hold the large angel that rocked one slowly to and fro that day. I could see him out there, beyond the glass. I couldn’t hear him over the din and bustle of where I was. Where we were.

She, who had just become she only a few days earlier, was securely tucked in her new womb of glass bed and soft blankets, dim radiant light from above. He, the angel unaware, has a tiny book open in his hand and he’s bowed into it as he rocks gently. The pocket Bibles the Gideons hand out to students and soldiers. I know he’s praying.

He’s praying for Lindsay. Lindsay who is one of the newest members of God’s family, Lindsay who is trying to get her bearings in this bewildering world of beeps and dings, trying to be comfortable with a head circumference as round as a 1 year old, trying to bear the leads and wires and IV’s which have invaded her tiny body. And David, this angel with the narrow chin, wide jowl, and thin beard, rocking his prayer, is praying for me as well.

My newborn is headed for brain surgery on this third day of her life. “What happens if we decide to not implant the shunt?,” I had naively asked the surgeon. He had pulled from his desk drawer a length of the thin plastic tubing which would run under the skin from my baby’s new brain down into her abdomen letting drain the excess cerebrospinal fluid to absorb harmlessly into her body.

“Her head will continue to expand as fluid builds up. She probably won’t survive very long without it,” he answered with the blunt voice that they must teach in medical school. Or maybe it just comes naturally to some. Confident, experienced, accurate, honest, decisive. I am so much more ready for the soothing pastoral voice of hope and possibility, peace and embrace. For me, though, the bluntness of this other angel made the decision all the more obvious.

Just three days before, another angel had glided he and I south on US 1 toward this new life that had just entered mine. Mom stayed where Lindsay had been born, the baby went by ambulance from there to the children’s hospital with the McDonald’s in the lobby, where she would have the best care the world could offer and where dad would get his fill of French fries and Diet Coke over the next few weeks. Mom and Linds were taken care of, but I still needed to get there. This angel, also bearded, also a fellow graduate sojourner, also a prayer-filled messenger from God had his car ready. Kevin prayed as we drove; Kevin with his Texas drawl and gentle manner. We talked, I’m sure, but God-only-knows about what.

The ancients have reminded us to not “neglect to show hospitality to strangers,” since by doing so many have “entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13:2) Take Abraham, for one, in the noonday heat near those huge Mamre oaks who ran to greet the three who came his way without knowing for sure who they were or why they were there. “Hey, wait, I’ll get you some water,” he offers, and so angels are entertained unawares. (Genesis 18)

The doctor-angel was new to me, but the others of my angels were by no means strangers and they were most probably unaware that they were angels. No white robes or feathered wings or golden halos. No Glory-to-God-in-the-Highests or trumpet fanfares. Those two were just once-strangers who had become angelic-friends over the few years that led to this place in our lives, two of that greater band of angels hovering over us those days before, during, and after Lindsay’s birth.

At birth, I had no idea if she would survive. And since I hadn’t a clue, I had begun asking what would happen if she hadn’t. Where does my baby’s body go? How do parents go on living? From whence does my help come?

The angel behind the wheel on Day 1 reassured me that I need not be worried. On Day 2, she had her first seizure and the angel on the telephone from that hygienic room let me know that Linds—and I—were not alone. On Day 3, she now faced surgery where that blunt-message angel would invade her tiny body, come near her fragile brain, and pass through her newly developed insides, slipping into her abdomen that life prolonging thread. And the rocker angel’s presence reassured me that I need not be anxious.

To whom are you an angel? To whom are you the one who calms and reassures, who brings the good-enough-news to make a difference? And who are the angels in your life? Those who cry with you and help you lay your burden down?

Lindsay has led me to many angels in her now 29 years of days and she without words has entertained angels unawares who surround her with messages from beyond. Lindsay has angeled many too, with her gift of silent welcome and quiet determination, she who has no words has a spirit about her that shakes the world and changes lives.

So also do we angel the world around us unawares. To he who struggles with not knowing what’s around the corner. To she who wonders what to do with the new life in her arms. To they who are frustrated, shunned, shamed, abandoned. You are the angel in the rocker, the angel behind the wheel, the angel with sometimes blunt news, the angel who expects no hospitality, the angel that hovers with presence and assurance.

In the midst of the beeps and buzzes and dings and whirs of the world, receive your angels unawares, and be them as well.

© Copyright 2016 
James F. McIntire
All rights reserved.