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Mattie loved me. I loved her, too.
It really was not a romantic thing, although if it was confirmed that we were marooned on a desert island, after three or four days of restraint, we certainly would have done our part to repopulate our new earth.
I really liked her voice. She had one of those folksy, husky alto tones, with a bit of available soprano-melodia. I used to love to sit in a room with her and listen to her share one of her original songs as I sipped tea and crunched on some Trisquits. That was really her best atmosphere. The sound she had selected for her style was not conducive to the recording studio or public arenas. It was simple and intimate. So Nashville producers were not busting down her door to procure the rights to her material.
Therefore, it was really sweet of her to be so supportive of me and my group when we did get signed. Matter of fact, on the day of our session, she showed up at the studio with Rice Krispie treats for everybody, which we gobbled down quickly (even though it did cross my mind that they could be poisoned).
Most of the time she was the brave little warrior, but one day I walked in and found her sitting in a puddle of her own tears.
“What’s wrong, Mattie?” I asked, moving to her side and putting an arm around her.
“I suck,” she replied, releasing a fresh gusher.
I sat for a moment, thinking about what the correct response or encouragement should be to such a proclamation. Merely saying “you don’t suck” seemed insufficient.
“What happened?” I inquired.
She handed over a piece of paper containing her latest rejection from a publishing house in Music City. Not only had they spurned her tunes, but had also misspelled her name. It was rather depressing.
She continued. “I’m ready to give up. I’m no good and will never be any good.”
Once again, as you can see, she didn’t leave me a lot of room to leap in.
“You know what the problem is?” I asked.
She paused, and then said, “Yes. I suck.”
“No,” I replied. “You don’t suck. You just feel like you suck because you’ve forgotten that you have more angels than demons.”
She crinkled her brow at me as she often did when I offered some piece of wisdom that she found to be too heavenly and not very practical. I quickly continued.
“All of us, Mattie, have more angels than demons. It just feels like we’ve got more of the bad guys because we chase the angels away. We don’t do it on purpose, it’s just that angels are more mannerly and less pushy than demons, and if we get in a mood to be negative, we scurry them out of our lives and they stay away until we invite them back in. Meanwhile the demons remain because they have no sense of fair play, and sit around laughing at us–moving the box of Kleenex so we can’t even comfort ourselves.”
She sat for a moment, then asked, “How did I chase the angels away?”
“The same way we all do. When we become convinced that what we have is not enough and we insult ourselves so strongly and meanly that the angels scatter.”
“How do I get ’em back?” she inquired.
I didn’t answer at first. Sometimes I think there’s a danger in being too wordy or overly spiritual with someone who’s hurting. Because I gave that space of time, she answered her own question.
‘”I guess the angels would feel more like returning if I stopped feeling sorry for myself.”
“That’s good,” I said.
She did. Matter of fact, she doubled her efforts, and three weeks later signed a contract with a national adoption agency, which used one of her songs to promote placing unwanted children into new families.
Mattie never became a star, but I know there may be people reading this who were welcomed into a new home because of her efforts.
Everybody has more angels than demons. Everybody chases the angels away from time to time and forgets how to welcome them back home. The key to life is avoiding the temptation to destroy your demons. Instead, outnumber them with your angels.
Good news–we have more angels than demons.
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