The Man in the Watchtower

Some years ago, my sister wrote from Milwaukee to tell me that Lauren, the daughter of a friend of hers, was going to be interning for the summer in Washington and asked if I might look after her. The girl is a brilliant mathematician, and the program offered her housing, so she spent a very short time with us. But the following summer, after her freshman year in college where she was a classmate of my son's, she stayed with us while enrolled in another program at NSA.

I was struck by how often their stories involved the almost miraculous and certainly inexplicable intervention of a mysterious stranger at a point critical to the narrators' survival.

Well that's weird. I think I saw one such, a few years ago.
I was staying at a vacation home in the mountains, very secluded area, absolutely nobody for miles around. My host went out to cut some wood and I watched him from a second-floor window. Absolutely nothing out there but forest. He was chopping and probably didn't hear the huge branch crack off the top of the tree he was standing under. I figure a couple inches at most and he'd have been dead, but as it was he just got his wrist broken.
Before I even had a chance to react, out of nowhere some young man just wandered out of the woods, greeted my host, and after a moment went on his way. I asked later who on earth that was. "I have no idea. He just said are you ok, and mentioned it was a nice day."
He didn't even say anything about the tree branch, or look up; he just walked on into the woods. Nobody lives out there, nobody normally hikes out there, and normally I wouldn't have been there either. It really creeped me out; a person who just shouldn't be there at ANY time, happened to come along at THAT time.

Angels Among Us
“Alabama”
Becky Hobbs and Don Goodman

I was walking home from school,
on a cold winter day.
Took a short cut through the woods,
and I lost my way.
It was gettin’ late,
and I was scared and alone.
Then a kind old man
took my hand and led me home.
Mama couldn’t see him,
but he was standin’ there.
I knew in my heart
he was the answer to my prayers.

Ohhhh, I believe there are angels among us
Sent down to us from some where up above
They come to you and me in our darkest hours
To show us how to live,
To teach us how to give

To guide us with a light of love.

When life held troubled times
and had me down on my knees.
There’s always been someone
to come along and comfort me.
A kind word from a stranger
to lend a helping hand.
A phone call from a friend
just to say, “I understand”.

Ain’t it kinda funny
at the dark end of the road
someone lights the way with just
a single ray of hope.

Ohhhh, I believe there are angels among us
sent down to us from some where up above.
They come to you and me in our darkest hours
to show us how to live,
to teach us how to give,

To guide us with a light of love.

They wear so many faces,
Show up in the strangest places,
Grace us with their mercy
In our time of need

Ohhhh, I believe there are angels among us
sent down to us from some where up above.
They come to you and me in our darkest hours
to show us how to live,
to teach us how to give,

To guide us with a light of love.

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