I work in a homeless day shelter several days a week. My life is centered around homelessness whenever it is not centered on my own hearth and home. Over the years of my career I have done a lot of thinking about how homelessness affects people, and one of the things most striking to me is how the ability to evolve spiritually is curtailed when what you have to think about is how to stay warm, fed, clean, and dry in a really hostile environment. I have never forgotten a psychological evaluation I read maybe a decade ago in which the client told the doctor he couldn't function until he'd had his daily bowel movement. As this man adjusted to the rigors of homelessness, this became a daily obsession for him—not only planning where and when it might possibly happen on any given day, but wondering whether it would be a good experience or a bad experience. If he had a "good" day, he could then concentrate on finding a meal, which meant he could then concentrate on getting in line for the shelter, which meant that maybe he got dinner, too, and a half-decent sleep inside. If it was a "bad" day, he became nonfunctional: not eating, not sleeping, and smoking cigarettes in the rain while people ignored him. He explained this in such detail that I am still stunned.

Archangel Azrael says, "When you understand that you are deserving, you grow daily. When you understand that you are deserving, you have an obligation to reach out and help those who can't see the way home."

I have a warm bed at night, not only sheltered with blankets, but sheltered with unquestioning, unconditional love. I know that tomorrow I will have a hot shower, a hot breakfast, and a "good" bowel movement in my own clean bathroom. I know that I have clean clothes to put on before I go to my office and get on my computer and answer my cell phone. I know that in the evening my family will come home, and I will eat again and sleep again and have ears to listen for the angels. In my abundance, I have the time to know what God needs of me. It's nearly impossible to think about these things when you are cold and hungry and your body is distressed.

Archangel Michael says, "Everyone who is on the earth is the responsibility of those who live on the earth. Every thing on the earth is the responsibility of those who live on the earth. Honor what God gives you so that you can hear what God needs of you. God will always need you to lift someone up. God will always need you to let something touch you."

I translate this to mean that on my worst day, there are always people who have it worse than I do. There are always opportunities for me to be compassionate. On my worst day, there is always someone who has less than I do who lifts me up. There are always opportunities for me to receive.

Michael says, "Every day you have the opportunity to wake from the dream of poverty into the wealth of consciousness. You are the person next to you. Wake him, too. And give him breakfast and a shower."

Yes, well, the angels speak to me in the language that I know.

Many healers struggle with weight problems. Asha and I have recently started doing Weight Watchers. We are consummate foodies, my wife and I. We have been resisting "the diet;" however, the angels started to work on us after Harry was born. One day I was in tears, sick of being fat and dealing with all the discomfort it causes me. The next day we were counting points. I steeled myself emotionally to how difficult this might be and how long a process it might be to make changes, but to my surprise there was nothing hard. We had been asking the angels for help with this issue for a long time, truth be told. On the day we made the decision to take action, our hearts were instantly changed about food. As the days have gone by, it has even become an exciting challenge to make healthier choices. After the second week, we were both feeling remarkably better. The angels came through with this message:

Food is the most common tool that human beings use to lower their energetic vibrations. In order to raise your vibrations, you must become aware of your relationship with food. One of the most destructive influences on the earth planet today is fast food. Fast food is not only a cocktail of fat and preservatives that acts like a drug against the ethereal messages, but when one eats without consciousness, one becomes unconscious. If millions eat without consciousness, millions become unconscious. When millions are unconscious, the harmonics of the planet are affected. Many, many of you will be getting the message to pay attention to your relationship with food.

And so we have.

This morning I was wheeling about the house in a quiet moment, and I noticed the pattern of light and shadow falling in our hallway from two lighted rooms. Light and shadow crisscrossed the floor. I had been contemplating our current political climate in the US right now, the darkness of which certainly gives me pause. This is the message I got from Azrael:

Where there is light, there is always shadow. Do not be afraid of the places of darkness, as the dark defines the light, and the light defines the dark. They cannot exist without each other on the earth plane.

She shows me that the place were the angels are is pure light, and we all have the opportunity to return to this place, but I struggle to put this into words since she didn't speak about it. I saw this light once in a near-death experience I had as a child, and I've never found the words to describe it to anyone else. You have to be there, as we used to say. Just know it's there, this place of perfect love and perfect light. Whatever you call it, however you understand it. It is there. We are the darkness that defines that light. We are also that light when it ceases to need the darkness to define it.

Archangel Azrael would like me to share with you that healing the world can be as simple as healing our language. If we label it "problem," so it will be a problem. If we label it "failure," we have closed any door of possibility surrounding us. There are no problems; there are circumstances. There is no failure; it is all learning process.

Most often, we brutalize ourselves with our unhealed language: "I’m too fat," "I’m not good enough," "I can't." This language is damaging to our higher vibrations even when it does not leave our own thoughts. When you find yourself thinking lower vibrational thoughts, work on coming up with a higher-vibrational alternative. "I'm too fat" could become "I am just as God needs me to be today," or "I am perfect just as I am."

Azrael asks us to embrace the moments when we are fearful because these are our opportunities for exponential growth. When we travel in the direction of that which we fear, we are often on our journey to what God needs of us. Some of us fear going to the doctor because we don't want to hear the diagnosis, but sometimes the diagnosis is the one thing we need in order to share our higher purpose with those around us. All life experience gives us the opportunity to connect.

We can always choose the gentle thought or the gentle word over the harsh one, even as we stand as warriors of peace and healing. "Gentleness is not surrender, My Beloved," she says to me. "Gentleness will silence all wars."