Welcome Joan Wester Anderson to A Nun’s Life blog. Joan is a best-selling author and lecturer. According to her website, Joan “began her writing career in 1973 with a series of 
family humor articles for local newspapers and Catholic publications, and was a monthly columnist for two national magazines during the 1980s. She has published more than one thousand articles and short stories in a variety of publications.” Joan has been interviewed far and wide including by Oprah, Good Morning America, 20/20, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and Mother Angelica.
Joan is here at A Nun’s Life to chat with you about “angels and wonders” (also the title of her new book). I and a few others already have few questions for Joan to begin. Remember, this conversation is for you, so ask away!
Here’s how this works …
1) Ask your question(s) for Joan by writing a comment in the comment box below this post or any post today (all of the posts today will be part of the conversation with Joan).
2) Joan will be scanning all of these posts and comments and will respond to people’s questions. She’ll send me an email so that I can re-post the questions along with her responses in a new post. The most recent questions with responses will appear at the top of the blog. Joan’s responses will be in blue text.
3) If the questioner, Joan, or anyone else would like to further a particular conversation, they can click on that post and comment there.
4) Loyola Press, the publisher of Joan’s books (there are many), is raffling off a free autographed copy of her book Angels and Wonders – you are automatically entered in this drawing when you post a comment or question for Joan.
5) If you’d like to purchase a copy of Angels and Wonders, the publisher Loyola Press is offering you a 30% discount on the book. You can order at www.loyolabooks.com or by calling Loyola Press toll-free at 800-621-1008. Please use the code 2765 to save 30% on Angels and Wonders. This offer is good through October 5, 2008.
My gratitude goes to Joan Wester Anderson for joining us, to Loyola Press for sponsoring this, and to you readers and guests of A Nun’s Life for joining in!
Welcome, Joan Wester Anderson!
Joan: Hi, everyone! I hope this is the place where I write my comments (not too blog-savvy as yet!). I thought I would perhaps explain why and how I got interested in angels, and began writing books about them. It might help you get to know me, and vice versa.
I had five children and a handyman special house when I began writing for magazines. It was a way to add a second income and stay home with the kids at the same time. The “second income” was very modest and at times I wondered what a nice girl like me was doing in a place like this. I also wrote seven books through the years, on various topics, kids, humor etc. I never gave a thought to angels; in fact, I never even taught my kids the guardian angel prayer. Angels just weren’t on my radar. If you had Jesus, what else did you need?
Then to make a very awesome story short, my son Tim graduated from college and took a job in CT. (We live in suburban Chicago). That first Christmas he planned to drive home along with a couple friends. As Christmas approached, the weather became extremely dangerous, way below zero, storms etc. The boys broke down in the middle of the night in an Indiana cornfield, no lights, no people and the temperature 35 degrees below zero.
Suddenly there were lights streaming into the car. Headlights resting on their back bumper. It was a tow truck. They hadn’t seen it coming. It wasn’t there—and then it was. The driver was all bundled up; they couldn’t see his face, but he hitched them up, took them back to a house in Fort Wayne where they had previously dropped one of the boys, and when they got out of the car, the truck was gone and there were no tire tracks leading away from where they stood.
My son is an engineer, picky about details. His friend saw everything (or nothing) too. The story was so unbelievable that I didn’t know what to do with it. (This is a common reaction when an angel touches you). Finally, after some years of pondering, I started telling the story and people started telling me THEIR stories! I realized with my writer’s sense that this was the best untold story I’d ever heard. So I started interviewing etc, and a small publisher took a chance on the book, Where Angels Walk, it was published in 1992 as what I considered to be my last book, and it became a New York Times bestseller and has sold over a million copies. It is still in print some sixteen years later, along with many sequels. Little did I know that during the years when I struggled at home, God was training me for this job.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Personally, my own belief in angels is much more simple than the artistically rendered visions of light and magnificence that has personified them in the art, collectible and pop culture world. I believe in angels as the everyday presence of God and God’s approachability and unconditional love in one’s life (as well as the not so everyday awareness of being carried by God in times of difficulty and in times of pure joy. ) This is a message Joan so beautifully articulates in her writings. But I also understand as a Catholic that we love and treasure icons and human imagery. I have 3 questions for Joan (no expectations you would answer them all, but I wanted to put them out there):
What are your thoughts about the connection between angels and the Trinity (I usually think of angels as being sent by God Creator (or Father, if one prefers)?
Do you consider the intervention of particular saints “angelic”?
And what about the notion of the infamous “fallen angel?”
Thanks for your presence here today.
I’ve had a strong devotion to the Nine Choirs of Angels for many years. I pray the St. Michael Chaplet, the St. Michael exorcism Prayer and the Guardian Angel Prayer every day (about 38 years now). Many times the Angels have come to my assistance. They have helped me even with finding a parking space in crowded NYC! Of course I haven’t seen any Angels (some Saints have and even had conversations with them) but I know they are at my side. An example was one dark rainy night about 20 years ago, I had gone to the store to pick up some cold-cuts for our kids school lunch’s. I didn’t want to go out that night because of the bad weather, but went anyway. As I pulled out onto the road after leaving the store, out of nowhere a car smashed into my rear-end. My car door opened and I flew out, landing on the black tar. The car continued down the road without me. I was completely unhurt, not a scratch; I ran after the car, jumped in and stopped it. The car was totally demolished and so was the drunken driver’s car that hit me. I ran back to the store and called the police who sent an ambulance for the other driver. After the police investigated and the cars towed away, I called a cab and went home with my kids lunch.
I look forward to seeing and thanking these Angels in Heaven one day, in the meantime I Believe!
Joan: John, won’t it be wonderful when we arrive in heaven, meet our angel and discover how many ways he helped us when we weren’t even aware of it? J
My Mom raised me to believe in angels and the powerful protection they provide us during our journey on earth. I was in a train crash a few years ago that had the angels working overtime. A truck stalled on the tracks; our commuter train and a fuel train coming from the other direction hit it at the same time. Both trains were derailed and both engines blew up, with incredible fireballs swooshing past our windows. Our commuter train ended up teetering on the tracks with fire all around. Not 100 yards away from us was a nuclear power plant (I kid you not!). The angels were definitely on top of things that day as the worst injury was a fractured hand on one of the train workers. Everyone else escaped minus a shoe or a coat, but in perfect health.
More recently, my teenage daughter, who has contracted a nasty case of lyme disease, has been having more intimate experiences with angels. She has been horrendously sick for over a year and has missed all of 10th grade, now going into 11th. She has bouts of terrible insomnia and spends many nights wracked in pain but comforted by the angels who keep her company. She talks with them and with God during the night and they reassure her when she is scared and lonely. She’s always been a very spiritual child and in her early years could remember Heaven and would try to explain to us, although words can never do justice.
I, too, believe and am grateful for the presence of God’s helpers among us.
Thanks for writing, Sharilee. I am so thankful that you and others walked away from that train crash. I’m sure your daughter is grateful too to have you with her during this time. Having been out of commission with Lyme disease for about a year, I know how tough it can be. My prayers are with you and your beautiful daughter.
Joan A angel took care of me and my 3 month old baby in a icy storm an I submitted my story to a magazine to be published but they never did. How do you get a story published? Please let me know. God Bless you.
Dear Mrs. Joan,
My name is Yoel , i am indonesian and now living and working
in china ,aye always like to read your books maybe about 4 books and always inspired by your writing and aye have several time has experience also help and assist by an angels and i married with 3 kids , Ryan,Jasmine and Abby ,(boy/girl/boy) so aye think your book is very very nice for moderen people in the end of world and its so wonderfull when people especially christian who really beleave in FATHER,SON,HOLLY SPIRIT in the name of YESUS CHRIST and if you need a story of christian/chatolic in my country who really was assist by an angels ,its really alot of story until you should write new books again maybe and if you need those story just email to me and may YESUS Bless you ////syallom- Yoel