Sometimes I like news, and other times I don’t.
News, as we first know it, is “newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.”
We can get news about anything.
“Hey, you are the new Publisher Clearinghouse Winner,” says the guy at the front door holding the bouquet of balloons.
OR.
“Hey, I just totaled your mailbox and rose bush,” says the guy holding the dented metal object that once held my incoming mail.
Yes. News can come in any way, shape, or form.
Then there is “the news” on TV. The broadcast form of information which lets us know what is going on in the world. Once again. Sometimes I like the news, and other times I don’t.
But with TV and print news, I tap into a wide array of sources.
Not long ago, I was reading some articles on the PBS news site and was delighted to see the following headline:
Nearly 7 in 10 U.S. adults believe in angels, AP-NORC poll finds
Are there really angels in our world? In our Universe?
Well. No one can prove or disprove this, as far as I know. An angel might be sitting next to me right now. One might be sitting next to you.
And. Here in America, 70% of the people think those angels just might be sitting there.
Thankfully, compared with the devil, angels carry more credence in America. Angels even get more credibility than hell, too. And, more than astrology and more than reincarnation.
All of this comes directly from a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Here is how things panned out through the survey.
People believe in:
Angels — 70%
Power of prayer — 70%
God — 79%
Satan — 56%
Astrology — 34%
Reincarnation — 34%
Physical things having spiritual energy (plants, rivers, rocks, crystals) — 42%
The article interviewed many experts in the spirit world, including Susan Garrett, an angel expert and New Testament professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky.
She said this concerning people’s understanding of angels.
“They’re very malleable,” Garrett said of angels. “You can have any one of a number of quite different worldviews in terms of your understanding of how the cosmos is arranged, whether there’s spirit beings, whether there’s life after death, whether there’s a God … and still find a place for angels in that worldview.”
Included in those world views?
Well. Of people with a religious affiliation of some sort, 84% believe in angels. And 16% say nope.
In the group of atheists, only 2% believe in angels.
Agnostics, are a little higher than atheists, at 25%.
And with people identifying as “nothing in particular,” about 50% believe in angels.
Angels mean different things to different people. For some, there is the idea that loved ones become heavenly angels after death. Other people don’t think humans can become angels. And other people believe that angels are separate beings, all of their own.
Of course, there is also the belief that every person has a guardian angel.
But on the news, we frequently hear from those people who have been in a horrible disaster. They often say that it was an angel who ultimately saved them from being killed or injured in an unexpected disaster. They look straight into the camera and tell the reporter that “an angel was watching over them.”
And who is to say they are wrong?
I always like to say that this is a mighty big Universe in which we reside. Mighty big. And we are tiny specks. So I always try to tread lightly when making assertions about what I know and do not know. Because I can almost certainly propose that what we know is infinitely smaller than what we don’t.
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I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
— Michelangelo
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I’ve had an angel on my shoulder my whole life.
— Barbara Hale
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I could not have made it this far had there not been angels along the way.
-– Della Reese
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It is in the news. Truly. In the news.
