After reading our cover story on the rising fascination with angels [RELIGION, Dec. 27], readers wrote about their own meetings with heavenly messengers. Some related how angels assuaged fear in wartime.
Warren N. Saunders of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, tells of his experience as an anxious 19-year-old infantryman on his first patrol against the Japanese in the jungles of Bougainville during World War II. Writes Saunders: "When I stepped out upon the trail, I heard the unmistakable sound of choirs of voices singing. Somehow I knew that they were angels, and I felt a great peace." Saunders returned unscathed from three years of bitter fighting.
In tune with nature, John M. Perkins of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, finds that "angels are especially prevalent among people who honor the earth. It is no coincidence that angels are returning now that we are again aware of the divine powers in the air, land and water around us."
And then there are unexplained appearances that leave one baffled but believing. Joanne Piezonki of Lawrence, Kansas, reports an incident on a Baltimore, Maryland, bus. She stood near the driver awaiting her stop when she saw a "huge archangel in the rearview mirror. The bus driver asked, 'Who was that standing in back of you?' I turned to look and nothing was there. To this day, I believe in angels."
—TIME, January 17, 1994.
