Angels Unaware. . .

Seldom do dreams stay with me,  and though there are many diverse opinions on the importance of dreams,  in early times they were taken as imperative directions.  This one has stayed with me every day for a week.  It was a dream of deaf children and it seemed it went on all night.

There is a young woman hired to work with the deaf children.  She is well spoken and extremely good at teaching.  She is patient and clear in methods.  She is persistent in getting the children to work at being understood.  She teaches  body watching, body language, lip reading and any intuitive impulses.  Emphasizes words forming in speech and eye contact.  She  teaches ways that the body can use muscles  to work organs for added functions.  Since ears do not hear, she knows that other parts of the body are called into use and do what the ears cannot.

Most people do not know this.  Most people do not know there are other ways to hear than by ears.  Other parts of the body can be called in to substitute for what the ears cannot do.  She is good.  And helps many children learn to speak where before they wandered the silences.  The group  is so impressed with her work and success with the children,  who learn to speak  well and clearly,  sometimes even the average person is not convinced the person is deaf.

At the awards evening she is praised  highly because of her  excellent work with everyone in tears.  She stands up to give her gratitude  for the awards and is so overwhelmed she starts crying and the words out of her mouth are MY FAWA TOL ME I WA NO DEF! spoken like a deaf person with imperfect diction.  My father told me I was not deaf!  And my heart just about stopped in the dream and I realized that she was deaf and spoke like a deaf person but when not under emotional stress was clear in speech.

I was weak, though lying in bed, with the knowledge that here she was teaching what she had been taught.  Her body took over for her ears and she was able to teach because she knew how.

The dream has stayed with me and so have the questions.  Does the story tell of the young woman’s deafness , of her inability to hear but because her belief in herself and love of her father and his faith in her abilities, was able to call upon her body to use its self to the utmost and have her other organs and body do what her ears could not?

I remembered the story of the blind woman who worked in an office building who was legally blind and ran a concession stand who commented on employees’ new clothes,  a blouse or a purse and the person who told me the story insisted that the woman could not be blind.  She was and I remember telling the person that there are other ways of seeing than with the eyes.  I did not know how,  but I was certain of what I was saying.  Now I am more certain.  My own experience with deficiencies has proved to me that the body wishes to accommodate us.

When the footwork is done,  when the desire and intent is real,  heartfelt,  because the heart does not respond to any but intent that is truthful,  the work begins to show results.  It may not be in one’s  lifetime,  but in lives long after us.   We are in the larger picture with names attached.     Not only are we our own keeper, but our brothers’ keeper also.  We are the angels unaware.