Entertaining Angels
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One of my hide-outs in the Philippines is Tablas Island; we were there last week to be immersed in beauty, rowing a banca (small fishing boat) towards blazing sunsets in the evenings and morning prayers floating in the crystal clear Sibuyan Sea as dawn broke.
Standing in the sea up to my waist, a small creature approached encircling my legs eager to take a bite. I let him try and then shooed him away and began to write as I realised it was time to relate this story; one of the sailor Webb Chiles’s survival stories I had logged earlier this year.
His boat sank off the coast of Fort Lauderdale 33 years ago at 3 o’clock in the morning and he was left floating in the ocean, in the darkness, waiting patiently for the sea to take him; all desire of survival spent. As he waited he felt something on his left thigh; it was a small fish taking a nibble. This small and seemingly insignificant creature catalysed an attempt for him to swim for shore.
For several hours then he swam, battling fatigue, thirst and waves, until he saw a light.
An anchored trawler was nearby and he shouted for help and was brought aboard. He had travelled more than a hundred miles north by then to Sebastian inlet, swept along by the gulfstream. An astonishing rescue story in itself but the outcome was far more extraordinary when you think about it.
What a gift! To receive an extension of life beyond that moment; in those 30 plus years since then he met the love of his life, circumnavigated the globe a couple of times, wrote books and had a great many of the joys, sorrows and adventures that make for life that could so easily have been missed or lost.
It’s not the ocean that is benevolent though, but the One who watches over it and us, who knows the day and the hour of our departure and holds the rudder of our life’s journey (gently), continually wooing us with the offer of the ocean of His mercy and the intimacy and union that flows from that to our eternal destiny beyond this mortal coil.
He sent Jonah a whale that taxied him back to shore! The rest of us may have to sail, row or swim!
A quote from St Faustina's Diary 'Divine Mercy in my Soul'
Jesus: Be not afraid of your Savior; O sinful soul. I make the first move to come to you, for I know that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to me. Child, do not run away from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you. How dear your soul is to Me! I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart (Diary, 1485).
