The Direction of Intention

The light plays on the water. I imagine it is the quick glimpse of a spirit, shimmering at the corner of my vision and then vanishing when I try to look directly at it. It was our last night in the village so we walked on the dock to wish it farewell. My imagination of spirits was not random; all day I’d been saying things like, “We have good angels,” or “That was more than serendipity.” Helping hands seemed to surround us.

I also imagine that the very real good angels in our everyday-lives do not like to be seen. That must be the reason they hover at the edges of sight. They prefer to stay out of the limelight. Service is its own reward. I learned this from a lesson I used to adore assigning to my students: be an angel for someone with the single strict caveat that their angel-ness needed to be a secret. “What does it mean to be an angel?” they’d ask in a panic. I’d shrug.

“Figure it out.” And they always did. Their angel experiences were electric, eye-opening. Dare I suggest life-changing? It is profound to intentionally focus goodness on another human being with no expectation of reciprocity – and discover that goodness itself is intensely fulfilling. Life is empty if self-serving. “Find a need and fill it,” Ann was fond of saying.

Hovering at the edge of sight.

We’d returned to the village to reclaim a piece of the past and, standing on the dock, I was suddenly overcome with the realization that the good angel might be – just might be – that long lost piece, that younger version, beckoning, “This way! I’m over here.” The older version and the younger, angels to each other, each responsible for guiding the other home. Dancing on the periphery of sight, reaching through time.

‘It feels different now,” she said and I smiled. Surrounded by warm memories of our days in the village, we stood still on the dock. The sailboats swayed in the harbor. The light played on the water.

“It feels like coming home.”

read Kerri’s blog about THE VILLAGE

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