Angels On A Pin

The people living in a tiny city on a pin, thinking that theirs is the biggest city in the world but feeling lonesome, discover another city on another pin and rejoice that they are not alone. Whimsical words and art highlight this magical story. Full-color illustrations.

Billy Collins has emerged as the most beloved American poet since Robert Frost, garnering critical acclaim and broad popular appeal. Annie Proulx admits, "I have never before felt possessive about a poet, but I am fiercely glad that Billy Collins is ours." This special, limited edition celebrates Billy Collins's years as U.S. Poet Laureate. Questions About Angels--one of the books that helped establish and secure his reputation and popularity during the 1990s--is remarkable for its wry, inquisitive voice and its sheer imaginative range. Edward Hirsch selected this classic book for the National Poetry Series, and each of Collins's poems-from his meditation on forgetfulness to his musings on the behavior of angels-is an exploration of imaginative possibilities. Whether reading him for the first time or the fiftieth, this collector's edition is a must-have for anyone interested in the poet the New York Times calls simply "the real thing."

The empty Sky Room was an oval Victorian greenhouse restaurant atop Chicago’s about-to-be-destroyed 17-story Majestic Hotel. It was a penthouse covering three-fourths of the roof, which was surrounded by a safety parapet about three feet high, capped with glazed tile the green color of oxidized bronze. I expected that Willie would be waiting to leap out at me from behind one of the abandoned fake plants. All I heard over the storm was the murmuring of pigeons hiding in the chimney from the rain. I stood in the center of the room, figuring Willie must have secreted herself in her trench coat and hat against one of the ebony oak pilasters along the edge of the room. I waited for lightning to give away her position. It did. I saw her outside the glass walls through rivulets of rain, as sheet lightning illuminated the clouds over the lake, silhouetting Willie perched atop the parapet wall on the far corner of the building like some sort of gargoyle. The tails of her trench coat were flapping in the gale rising from Quincy Street. Her rain hat was gone and her drenched black curls were writhing on each side of her face. I ran to the door she’d left open and stepped toward her. She crouched like a swimmer on a starting block, staring at the bottom of the pool stories below... a very dark pool. A flashing traffic light jaundiced her face like some wild Hitchcock effect. She didn’t look at me, but down toward the blinking amber light. I stopped dead in my tracks, not sure what to do. She was perched only a few feet from where I stood. If I startled her, she could fall. I looked for a gentle way to get her attention. The low thunder from the sheet lightning over Lake Michigan growled in our faces. Suddenly a shock wave of light and heat, like a nuclear blast, erupted as lightning struck the boom of the demolition derrick. A gust of hot firey dragon breath belched from the crane. Willie bolted straight up, but she lost her footing on the parapet’s wet glazed cap. As she did, I leapt from the doorway and was able to catch hold of the tail of her trench coat just as her butt hit the edge and slipped over the side. I had the trench coat and the trench coat had Willie, but only by her arms. I was in a tug-of-war where both sides would win, or both sides would lose. Without thought, I collected all the material from her coat that I could and twisted it by ducking and pirouetting behind the parapet. This wrapped the makeshift hawser around my left forearm for a more-secure grip. I peered over the parapet where I could see the top of Willie’s head with her arms raised up above her like count Dracula about to turn into a bat and take flight. “Cross your arms!” I shouted, but there was no response.

Recently angels have made a remarkable comeback in the popular imagination; their real heyday, however, was the Middle Ages. From the great shrines dedicated to Michael the Archangel at Mont-St-Michel and Monte Garano to the elaborate metaphysical speculations of the great thirteenth-century scholastics, angels dominated the physical, temporal, and intellectual landscape of the medieval West. This book offers a full-scale study of angels and angelology in the Middle Ages. Seeking to discover how and why angels became so important in medieval society, David Keck considers a wide range of fascinating questions such as: Why do angels appear on baptismal fonts? How and why did angels become normative for certain members of the church? How did they become a required course of study? Did popular beliefs about angels diverge from the angelologies of the theologians? Why did some heretics claim to derive their authority from heavenly spirits? Keck spreads his net wide in the attempt to catch traces of angels and angelic beliefs in as many portions of the medieval world as possible. Metaphysics and mystery plays, prayers and pilgrimages, Cathars and cathedrals-all these and many more disparate sources taken together reveal a society deeply engaged with angels on all its levels and in some unlikely ways.

Can angels truly exist in the twenty-first century - a time when faith is challenged regularly? From Beliefnet, a multifaith website, comes this guide to angels tha gives answers to specific questions: what angels can and cannot do; why they appear when they do; what their purpose and nature is; whether we have guardian angels; whether it is possible to call angels in prayer or in times of need. This includes stories of modern angelic encounters and offers a guide to getting in touch with your own guardian angel and using that positive enrgy in daily life.

Some people say that I tried to pin the world together, one radiant angel pin at a time. What I was really trying to do was pin my own family back together, one earnest prayer at a time. At times of frustration and despair, I often leaf through the yellowed sheets of poems I authored a little over a decade ago. I still feel God's presence in the words. They were written back when I was caring for my busy family; making beds, preparing dinner, making doctors' appointments, shoveling the snow or polishing furniture. Most days, I was running to keep up with long strides of four active children and an ill husband. Now the four kids are in their 20's. I remember those busy days with such love and fondness. A Team of Angels? Where did the thought even come from? I began the Send a Team of Angels to Help Movement quite by accident in 1998. Or perhaps, it was by divine providence that I began giving the pins to shut-ins, lonely people in nursing homes, the homeless that I met in the City of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia that is, for those not familiar with the North East), and countless other folks who were overwhelmed like I was. People who would face turmoil and anxieties seemed to find me to request a Team of Angels pin, and I seemed to find them. During the months prior to my husband's accident, I penned poems. I sat in a monastery chapel or in my living room scribbling poems on napkins and scraps of paper. I kept a notebook in my car in case an inspirational thought popped into my mind while I was driving. I jotted my thoughts and worries down on the blue-lined pages and then rhymed the words into verses. Once, I even scribbled a verse in the sand while on the beach at the New Jersey shore and another time on a paper plate. My ideas for the poems sometimes came to me while watching my kids under the warm sunlight at sporting events, sitting in a doctor's office, perched on the edge of a pew in church, or while making a weekly shopping list for cheese, milk, ice cream and laundry detergent. I filled several Dollar Store notebooks with poems about seeking joy and help for my hurting heart. I didn't know much about the computer. So everything was done the old- fashioned way-by long-hand. I called them Team of Angels poems. I crafted a little trio-of-angels pin from safety pins, raffia and little gold charm angels purchased at a flea market. I attached the homemade-on-the-kitchen-table angel pins to pieces of cardboard bearing my first poem. Writing the poems and making hundreds of the little pins were my way of coping with the uncertainty of my own life at that time and seeking God's guidance. The verses of the poems were my connection to heaven-simple little prayers. The first poem was titled "A Team of Angels for the Overwhelmed," which aptly described my feelings. I added others such as "A Team of Angels for a Troubled Loved One," "A Team of Angels for Taking One Day at a Time," "A Team of Angels for Raising Good Kids," and "A Team of Angels to Protect My Loved Ones." The little verses expressed the confusion in my own life and the anguish of a frightened wife dealing with a husband suffering with depression. I wanted God to restore my husband to good health ASAP. The poems continued to come to me and by the end of the year, I had written 300 Team of Angels poems for all occasions and needs. I never had any intention of "Mom's Little Angel Pin Project" becoming a ministry or business. The fact that 125,000 Team of Angels pins have traveled worldwide is a surprise to others and mostly to me. I began giving cards of the Team of Angels pins and poems away in my community. I didn't know that months later the little Team of Angels that I gave to help others would become my lifeline and solace as well. My original idea was to create something similar to a Random Act of Kindness. My project was different because I gave away a tangible sign of comfort and caring- a winsome gold trio of angels. 125,000 0f them!

What are angels? What do they do? How can we work with them? In this lively overview of angels you will explore historical and scriptural accounts, traditions from around the world, and diverse contemporary views about angels. You will enjoy stories of angelic encounters with ordinary men and women like yourself. And you will discover what to expect when you invite your angel to act in your life. Everywhere people are seeking angels. It's as natural as breathing to do so. Like us, angels are part of something much bigger than what our eyes can see. So consider your interest in angels an invitation to a deeper understanding of your connection to all creation. Readers of this book will find ways to connect with their angels who will bring peace to their hearts and ease to their lives.