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CNN Larry King Live
Do You Believe In Angels: A Panel Discussion.
Aired August 08, 2003 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight an inspiring hour that could change your life. Do you believe in angels? Do they really exist? World renowned psychic Sylvia Browne says yes. "Book of Angels" is her latest best-seller. The inspirational poet and peace maker Mattie Stepanek fighting an incurable illness, writes poems about angels. Minister and best-selling Christian author Max Lucado says there are such things as good and bad angels. And so does Father Michael Manning, Roman Catholic priest, host of the international TV show "The Word and the World."
They're all here. And we'll take your calls too next, on LARRY KING LIVE.
First as always, let's get an update from Mattie in Washington. How are you feeling Mattie?
MATTIE STEPANEK, POET AND PEACE MAKER: I'm feeling great Larry. I'm very excited to be doing this show and I'm just really happy to be hear talking with you. I was having a rough time a little while ago and I still am trying a new treatment, which is very scary, but I'm doing OK.
KING: All right. Mattie will be reading some of his angel's poems.
Let's get around the entire panel. Let's start with Sylvia. What's your definition? What is an angel?
SYLVIA BROWNE, PSYCHIC: Well an angel is a perfect being that was created by God that is pretty, I think, androgynous. And they were the one that were the, let's call them, the army of God that were supposed to be here for our protection.
KING: And they're still around?
BROWNE: Oh they're around all of us.
KING: And how many of them are there?
BROWNE: Oh, they're in the billions. You know, it's sort of like the old saying, how many angel can stand on the head of a pin. But I mean, there's hundreds and billions of angels.
KING: But they're not, like we see them, with the white and the -- you know the ...
BROWNE: Well I saw an angel -- I saw an angel and I have to tell you that I told people for years that they didn't have wings and I saw one and I don't usually see things visually, I saw one and it had wings.
KING: What is an angel Max?
MAX LUCADO, CHRISTIAN AUTHOR: Well there a verse in the bible that says that angels are ministering spirits sent out by God to render aid to those who will inherit salvation. So, like Sylvia said, they're part of God's ambassador team sent out to encourage and to bring strength and to bring comfort. And they are spiritual beings. They are created by God. They are not made of flesh, though in scripture, they did appear as humans, but they are by and large spiritual and...
KING: Are they around us now?
LUCADO: I think so. I think they are all over the world.
KING: Don't know though.
LUCADO: Yes, I do.
KING: Think so.
LUCADO: No, no, I know they are.
KING: You know they are?
LUCADO: Absolutely.
KING: Father what's an angel to you?
FATHER MICHAEL MANNING, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST: Well the Hebrew word is a word that means messenger. So it's God trying to reach out and trying to get in touch with us. And so you find instances of angels, for example, with Abraham, talking with an angel. And you have Jacob wrestling with an angel.
KING: They have a purpose, in other words.
MANNING: They have a purpose of coming and giving God's direction to people. And what's fascinating is, you read in the Hebrew Bible and you find there's physical manifestations of angels. I mean, you can see them and you can touch them and they talk with you.
KING: How come that happened then and not now?
MANNING: It does happen now. Oh, I think, very much so. I think that God is sending messengers in. The neat thing about angels is, if you have a spiritual dimension, there's a war. There's a war going on between good angels and bad angels, and that's the basis of a Christian belief. This battle which is trying, as best they can, to reach out and influence us and change us...
KING: Could be called conscience? MANNING: Pushing the conscience.
KING: Mattie Stepanek, what's an angel to you?
STEPANEK: I believe an angel is a beautiful being -- out of human description and a good example. Here's me and I believe in God. And here's my spirit, me and my spirit, and God in front of me, and above me and all through my life, in everyone's life. I keep -- we're going towards God. And there's something special in between God and me that loves me and guides me and I call that, angels.
KING: Why do you keep that -- you've lost three siblings, right?
STEPANEK: Correct.
KING: You're in a a chair, the prognosis for you is not good. What keeps your faith in all of this?
STEPANEK: My faith lies in God, and I think that God and angels are watching me, and every one, always protecting, always guiding and making sure whatever happens, happens for the best.
KING: Sylvia, why did the angels and god let it happened to Mattie?
BROWNE: See, I do not believe that God sends that kind of thing to anyone. I, as we talked about, I think everyone has a chart that they have ordained between God and them, to come down to this earth to learn for God, And then when we advance through this learning hell hole that we're in, because I believe this is hell, is that then we go to, you know, our reward.
KING: So then Mattie is somehow cursed?
BROWNE: Listen to him talk, he sounds like a theologian.
KING: Max?
LUCADO: When you experience Jesus, you experience a battle against what's going on with Mattie. Jesus came, as best he could, to enter into people that were blind, that were criminal, that even were dead. And his force was a force even going against Satan to overcome this...
KING: He's omnipotent, Max, he could have prevented what happened to Mattie and his family and chose not to, right. It was a decision. Why not?
LUCADO: There's a great example in John 9, where there was a man who was born blind and the disciples asked Jesus, why is this man born blind, is it because he sinned or because his parent's sinned? Jesus said, no, this is so the glory of God can be resealed in him. In other words, the strength of God, the goodness of God. And I think what we see when we see Mattie is display of God's strength. God's goal is to glorify himself, through his strength.
BROWNE: What an example Mattie is.
KING: Before we take a break Mattie, let's hear one of your angel poems, OK?
STEPANEK: OK, I have one of -- yes I do I have three. This one is...
KING: Well you'll do them throughout the show, so -- but do one now.
STEPANEK: I'll read one now. It's about, in my life, I have two near death experiences where I've witnessed angels and the being of the light. This is one that was more recent. "Awakening after a close call, don't believe the Christmas trees, everything is so much more beautiful, and wonderful, and glorious than anything we can imagine or compare or create, especially the light and the angels. The light is so many things, a window, a tunnel, a sunset at the edge of a polished pier. And the angels, the angels are more than just males and females with wings. They glow with the light of every color. One color at a time, or all at once, or none at all, but there is no darkness. There is no darkness in heaven, and there is there no death. Even though we must die to enter, as we face the light and the angels, we are beyond any type of death. Don't believe the Christmas trees. Heaven is beyond human description. Believe in the spirit, behind the trees, believe in the life related to the declarations. Believe in the word leading us to our future, and always, and always, and always believe in the light and the angels."
KING: That's Mattie Stepanek his loving through heartsongs. Sylvia's book is Sylvia Browne's book is "Sylvia Browne's Book of Angels." We'll be taking your calls with questions about angels and we'll be back with our panel right after these words.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: So you say angels are in all religions. And we have the concept of guardian angels, the idea of winged angels with halos that's mythical, right?
MANNING: Well, it speaks of it in the Bible. There is the...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Have you ever had a personal experience with one?
LUCADO: You know, my wife and I were talking about that driving up. And we look back, and there are some times in which we think we should have had a car accident. You know, that should have happened. But my experiences have not been as dramatic as some that I've read about. David Jeremiah (ph) has a book about what the Bible says about angels.
KING: Sylvia, you had personal experiences with angels?
BROWNE: Yes, I saw one in my son's foyer, and it scared me to death. I mean, what do you say to an angel? Hi, how's things going? I mean, I was just simply floored.
MANNING: My problem is that a lot of times I think angels come up in very unexpected ways. For example, yesterday, I was in the lobby of a hotel. And a man came walking up to me. And he said, I need $12.50 to get out of -- to get my -- my child is in dialysis. And I said, oh dear, I gave him $10. I said, here, and I went back and I think, here I'm going to be on Larry King, and I said, angels I think are moving around in ways far beyond what we can experience.
BROWNE: Yes.
MANNING: And I think that's the reality of angels. There's a world of love, as Mattie is talking about, a world of presence to us, directing, helping, battling with us, too, but present, even in forms that might be unexpected.
BROWNE: I think there is a spiritual movement that is really waving across this country.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Mattie, I know we have a picture I think we're going to put up. Have you ever seen an angel?
STEPANEK: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Now, what is that?
STEPANEK: That, out of hundreds of pictures taken that and being developed, right then and there. One, it could have been a chemical smear by (UNINTELLIGIBLE), oh it's angel wings. It looks like the angel wings that are always told about all over. And it happened to be two years ago, right after I had gotten out of the hospital from something that was threatening my life. And all of a sudden, it stopped.
And so people called it an unexplained spontaneous recovery. We call it a miracle. The odd thing is, that picture was taken a week later, right after I had gotten out.
KING: Wow. Let's take some calls. Mattie will do another poem for us. Union Town, Ohio. Hello.
CALLER: Hi.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: I just want to say, Mattie is so articulate and so insightful, he's a great panelist.
KING: What's your question?
CALLER: My question is good angels versus bad angels. Why do we need bad angels? KING: Why do we need them? Well, we don't need them, they're there, right?
BROWNE: I don't believe we have bad angels.
KING: You don't believe in them. You believe they're -- why?
LUCADO: I believe there's a spiritual warfare, and that ultimately, God is going to triumph over the bad angels or bad entities. But I just think they're there. You know, I think they rebelled by their selfishness against God and they created a whole...
KING: But if God is omnipotent, he could squash them tomorrow, right?
MANNING: But angels have their free will, same as (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and they made a decision to move against God.
BROWNE: Yes. Exactly.
KING: Alliston -- or Alliston, Ontario, hello.
CALLER: Yes, hello. I thank you for taking my call. I am wondering about how angels manifest themselves in the present to now?
BROWNE: I have seen angels in human form. I knew it was an angel that gave me a message, I just knew it. And then I also saw one actually in full living color. I mean, they can manifest themselves, as we've all talked about on the panel, in a human form. You'll get someone who comes up to you out of the blue and gives you a message, or it's like father was talking about, someone who kept him.
KING: So what is that, someone who went into a human body?
BROWNE: Exactly, or just assimilates a human body.
MANNING: Very much in the Bible, it's there in the Bible, that they're talking with people.
BROWNE: Absolutely.
MANNING: ... and that they're messengers from God. What's fascinating, too, is that is as you listen to it, there's a real struggle with the distinction between an angel and God. Sometimes you do that. We speak easily of wrestling with God.
KING: Mattie, want to do another poem for us before we go to break and then we'll have a whole half-hour of phone calls, and more -- another one after us that, too. But do another one for us, Mattie.
STEPANEK: This poem is about how I was illustrating earlier, what if we believed in nothing and how bad that would be.
Faith imagery. I can imagine non-existence. Can you? It's not like being dead, but it's not being alive. There is no light, but the dark is nothingness. It is not painful, but it feels horrible. It is being stuck between not having been and having been, but being gone. There is no feeling in non-existence, but it is the most alone thing of loneliness one could imagine.
I can imagine non-existence. I thank God every day for the gift of faith, for it is in faith that I will exist forever. I can imagine non-existence, and I hope and pray that you can too, forever.
KING: We're going to take a break and come back. I'll reintroduce the panel and we'll go to as many phone calls as we can. Our subject tonight is angels. You're watching LARRY KING LIVE. Kevin Costner tomorrow night. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Whenever Sylvia's on, people want to communicate with the departed. We understand that. We have her on usually twice a year. But tonight our subject is angels. And our panel is Sylvia Browne, renowned psychic, number one "New York Times" best-selling author. Her newest is "Sylvia Browne's Book of Angels." Mattie Stepanek is in Washington. "New York Times" best-selling author. His most recent poetry collection is "Loving Through Heartsongs." There you see its cover. He is the national goodwill ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Max Lucado is "The New York Times" best selling Christian author. His latest book is "Next Door Savior." He's minister of the Oak Hills Church of Christ in San Antonio. And finally, Father Michael Manning, Roman Catholic priest, Society of the Divine Word, host of "The Word in the World," and recently became parish priest for the first time ever. His parish is St. Anthony's in San Bernardino, California.
Back to the calls. Ottawa, Canada. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Larry.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: I thank you. And my question is for Sylvia, if she could tell me which -- who's my guardian angel, like my angel right now?
KING: I want to stay away from personal questions like that. We don't want to get into -- but does each person have an angel, or do you have many angels?
BROWNE: Oh, yes, some have many angels. I have seen people with throngs around them.
KING: OK. Louisville, Ohio. Hello.
CALLER: Yes, I'd like to know how do we know when we have guardian angels around us?
KING: All right. Good question. Max.
LUCADO: Well, we rely on scripture. You know, the Bible says in Psalm 34 that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him. And then there is another passage in Psalm 91 that says he will command his angels to guard you in all your ways.
KING: But how do you know?
LUCADO: Well, I think, first of all, we rely on scripture. But then secondly, we look at the experience around us and we find stories and interpretations -- I mean, we have events that happen that are inexplicable any other way.
KING: Mattie, how do you know?
STEPANEK: That when angels are around me, you just -- whether you see them or not, whether you -- like see an aura glowing around you, you just feel uplifted. Whether it be in a dream or in your everyday life, and also when they're not around, you can still feel them if you think and you pray and feel deep inside, if you are really -- you really want to be close to God, and you want to be close to your angels, then God and angels will be close to you. That's when you choose to feel them.
KING: Father, how do you know?
MANNING: I've experienced -- my guardian angel is named Timothy, way back in grade school.
KING: Oh, you have a personal...
MANNING: We decided to name -- to name our guardian angel. And the sisters would make me -- make sure that I left room on the seat in the church -- but you know -- in the classroom. I've experienced the protection and the help of my guardian angel, as I ask him, when difficult situations arise, you can say, well, it was just circumstances outside that. But I felt -- my faith tells me something different. I really believe in the power of that angel, who is interceding with the Lord for me and protecting me and offering me a direction and a help that's very real.
KING: You feel any bad angels around you?
MANNING: Oh, yeah, sure, yeah. There's always that inclination to want to move away from what I know I should be doing. And what's fascinating about the bad angel is, and you can listen to C.S. Lewis, in his, you know, some of his books, what they do is, as a Catholic, I believe that we're always inclined towards good, but the problem is that you can start seeing good in things that are just seeming good, and pretty soon you can find yourself as -- let's say, you can say Herman Goering would be standing in front of the Nuremberg trial and saying, well, the reason that we did all this was, and he can give you all the lists of good. And that's the power of evil, that it takes good and it subverts it, and moves it away from the real greatness that we're all...
BROWNE: But, Father, don't you think it's very seductive, too? Evil can be very seductive.
(CROSSTALK)
MANNING: ... the appearance of good.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWNE: Look at Jim Jones. Look at Jim Jones. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: People believed in him.
(CROSSTALK)
MANNING: And you take something good. And you say, well, look at this, he's preaching and he started out with social justice and all these things. And then you start moving away from it.
BROWNE: Yes.
MANNING: One of the questions that came up that's interesting is, how do you know you're really following the good angel or following the bad angel? I think there's some simple things that would be like peace, love, security.
KING: But bad angels don't think they're bad?
MANNING: Well, they can think that. But I mean, this ingredient of the presence of God of peace. See, the problem is that we're always doing good, as I believe this. And so...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWNE: You bring up a very interesting thing. You know what I've found in all the 50 years I've been practicing is good people are always worried whether they're on track or not. Bad people justify themselves. I've always found that bad people -- you'd never have a Manson call me or anybody and say, do you think I'm on track? They think they're on track.
KING: Cambridge, Ontario, hello.
CALLER: Hi. Can you tell me, when a child is born, do you believe that certain angels are assigned to them, or if it's just a chance happening?
KING: What do you believe, Max?
LUCADO: Well, you know, there's -- I think -- that's a great question. A lot of the thought about guardian angels comes out of a passage in the New Testament, Matthew 18:10, where Jesus is talking about children, and he says, he says don't keep them from coming to me because their angels are always beholding the face of the father in heaven. Does that mean that each one has a personal angel? Maybe. Or maybe it means that their angels are all of our angels. But I do know this, that we're not alone and that God has angels to protect our children. I think that brings such comfort to parents. You know, I've got three daughters, and to think that God, in all of his strength, is watching over my daughters that brings me comfort. BROWNE: Yes, but each one of your daughters has six angels.
LUCADO: Do they?
BROWNE: Absolutely.
KING: You know this?
BROWNE: I know this.
KING: You're weird.
BROWNE: I know I'm weird.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: Mattie, do you have a personal angel?
STEPANEK: The audio went again. Like, I missed a question. The audio blanked again. It's fine now.
KING: Can you hear me now? All right.
STEPANEK: Yes, yes. I'm sorry.
KING: OK. Do you think you have a personal angel?
STEPANEK: You know, I'm never quite sure about that. I may well have. I may well have one. I'm sure -- not that -- there are infinite supplies of guardian angels for the whole world guiding us, teaching us, loving us. And I'm sure that each of us have at least one who likes to focus especially on us, so, yes, I do.
KING: Jackson, Tennessee, hello.
CALLER: Hi. A week before my mother passed, I approached her bed in the hospital, and it felt as though I was walking through a force field. And it was such a peaceful feeling that I knew automatically it was angels camped around her. And nobody else could feel it. And I was wondering why I was the only one to feel that.
KING: Sylvia.
BROWNE: Because you're the one that's most sensitive, you're the one that's been reaching out for spirituality, and the rest of the family isn't going as far as you are.
KING: Do angels talk to us, Max?
LUCADO: You know, again...
KING: Other than the man coming up on the street and saying, don't take the train.
LUCADO: They do. Like Father Manning said, the very Hebrew word "angel" in Hebrew means messenger. It's the same in Greek in the New Testament. And the most common message in the scripture is "fear not." They want to bring comfort. But yes, they do communicate.
KING: Severn, Maryland, hello.
CALLER: Hi, Larry. Thank you for taking my call. I had a brother in the hospital that was very, very sick, and his grandson ran into the daddy's house and said, daddy, daddy, there's a man up in a tree. He has big feet, a white dress, big ears, which I assume was the wings, and silver eyes and no mouth. I would like to know if that was an angel, giving us a message because my brother died four days later.
KING: Or an imaginative kid.
MANNING: Sure. Or why not? My question is why not. If we really believe that God is loving us and that he's wanting, as best he can to protect us and call him to ourselves, he's going to be always doing all kinds of -- why not? Blow it out, sure.
BROWNE: That's right.
LUCADO: I do think it's interesting, that one of the parables Jesus told had angels going to take the beggar into heaven. In Luke Chapter 16 there was a rich man and Lazarus, and Lazarus was a beggar. And when he died, the Bible says that angels went and took him. So there is some type of phenomenon that occurs at the point of transition from this life to the next of which angelic activity seems to be a part.
BROWNE: Absolutely.
KING: Do you believe you will go somewhere when you die, Mattie?
STEPANEK: Yes, I believe that as wonderful as life is, and we have to appreciate life -- because if we waste our life, you know, I do believe that when we die, we can go to heaven, but if we spend our life, waste it or if we destroy our life just because one thing went wrong or if we spend our life thinking me, me, me, instead of thinking of others, I believe that the place might be worse. But I do believe that when we die, we will go to heaven.
KING: We'll take a break and come back with more. Mattie is going to give us another poem as well. Take some more phone calls as well on the subject of angels. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Back to the calls. Charlemont, Massachusetts, hello.
CALLER: Hello.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: I was wondering if angels can communicate with you by leaving physical evidence, such as feathers.
KING: You ever hear of that? BROWNE: Yes, I did. In the letters I got -- and in fact, I was going to say that earlier -- a woman prayed so hard -- she was terminal -- and she prayed so hard for an angel visitation, woke up in the morning and there was two white feathers on her bed and she got better.
KING: To Minneapolis, hello.
CALLER: Hi. When my nephew Gabriel (ph) died, his mother read one of Sylvia's books and in one of the chapters she talked about mystical travelers.
BROWNE: Yes.
CALLER: And I just wanted to know -- that hit very close to home with us and I just wanted to know if you could expand a little bit about them.
KING: What is a mystical traveler?
BROWNE: Well, I think a mystical traveler would be something very much like this young man that we're looking at. There's certain messengers, and we were talking earlier that come down. I mean, he's like a theologian for his age. What is he -- 10 or...
KING: How are you now, Matthew?
STEPANEK: I'm now 13 years old.
BROWNE: Yes, but see, that's what we call -- someone who just seems innately come in with a message that he has never -- he can't be old enough to have read all the theological book. And yet, he's got it.
KING: Could he be an angel?
BROWNE: No, he's mystical traveler.
KING: Santa Fe, New Mexico.
CALLER: Hello. Oh, Sylvia, I just want to tell you, I love you so much. I just want to know -- you talked about different levels of angels, like gold, silver...
BROWNE: Yes.
CALLER: Can you kind of explain that? And I know you say that pets have angels.
BROWNE: Everything that God makes has angels. The only way that I know this is because I was so involved with the study of angels and then I began to realize that they do come with different colors. And their colors seem to be almost their uniform by which the higher file them.
KING: The ministers of the cloth, when you believe -- when she -- now you're -- when she says she can communicate with the people who are departed, shouldn't you be the first ones to believe that since you believe in after death?
MANNING: I believe in after death.
KING: So...
MANNING: I believe there can be manifestations after death, very much know. Oh, yes.
KING: You do. Do you, Max?
MANNING: I've experienced it.
LUCADO: Well, I try to cast all of my thinking through scripture, you know, try to -- I don't want to go beyond...
KING: So do you discount Sylvia?
LUCADO: Well, like, earlier when she said my daughters have six angels. I mean, I've never read that in the Bible. But, you know, if she thinks that's right, that's great. I want my daughters to have all the angels...
BROWNE: Well then we can have Sol and Samuel too, you know, when we brought -- you know, the dead back to life, you know?
LUCADO: Yes.
KING: To -- we go to Bloomfield, Iowa, hello.
CALLER: Hi. My question is for Sylvia, I need to know -- hello.
KING: Go ahead.
CALLER: Yes. I need to know if what I saw was an angel. And I'll tell you why. My boyfriend's mother was in the hospital. And she had been there for a long time, and obviously wasn't going to make it. But it just kept dragging on.
BROWNE: Right.
CALLER: I always talked to my grandfather and I said, Grandpa, please have someone come and take her home...
BROWNE: Come and take her. Yes. Yes.
CALLER: And at about two minutes later, I looked down the hallway and there was a man walking down the hall and the reason I noticed him was because he was rather unkept. And he stopped about eight feet from the doorway, and he just bowed his head, stood there about 15 seconds, he crossed himself and he turned and walked away, and two or three minutes later, the nurse and my boyfriend come back.
BROWNE: That was an angel, honey.
CALLER: They were talking and nobody saw him but me.
BROWNE: That's right. That was an angel. That's very much what father said and Max said that -- it's -- you know, they can come in human form. What's to say they can't come as a beggar or as an old woman, or, like Father said, that woman that kept...
KING: Who knows?
I want you to do another poem for us, Matt. I know you were going to do three tonight. I want you to do another. We'll get more calls in. But which one are you going to do now?
STEPANEK: This is a poem I wrote when I was four years old. And I wrote it...
(LAUGHTER)
STEPANEK: And it's -- I wrote it -- when I felt -- went to sleep one night and I felt not an angel speaking, when I didn't hear a voice, but I felt the words and message flowing into my heart. It echoed peace and light into my mind and my heart.
"Angel Words."
Last night, I felt my guardian angel. And my angel said, Into my heart glory to God in the highest and on Earth, peace to all children and peace to all countries, and states, and colors of skin. That's what my angel said. And then, Katie and Stevie and Jamie and all of the angels, and kings in heaven, like Jesus and Martin Luther, smile at my angel and let a star shine down on to my house and on to my family. And on to myself. And for this, I thank you, God and of this, is my prayer tonight. Amen.
BROWNE: Beautiful!
KING: You were four years old when you wrote that?
BROWNE: Oh my God.
STEPANEK: Yes.
KING: That's a Mattie Stepanek golden oldie.
BROWNE: Oh, yes. When he was just a little kid. Yes.
KING: We'll take a little break and we'll be back with the remainder of our program and your phone calls.
Don't go away.
BROWNE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: By the way, we learned from good sources that Max Lucado is here even on his wedding anniversary. LUCADO: 22 years today.
BROWNE: Bless your heart. Happy anniversary.
KING: His wife's wedding anniversary.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, hello.
CALLER: Hello. Thank you so much for taking my call. It is just a thrill to talk to Mattie. He is absolutely my hero.
KING: Mine, too.
CALLER: Hello?
KING: Yes, Go ahead.
STEPANEK: Hi.
CALLER: I just wondered Mattie -- and it's great to see you, darling. You are looking so good.
STEPANEK: It's great to see you.
CALLER: I just wondered. Do you feel angels around you all the time? I mean, like for instance, do you think they exist in your friends and people who are doing things for you?
STEPANEK: I think that angels exist. You know, they can and may exist -- they exist in our hearts and our minds and they exist. I believe that when we die, that there's something bigger and better in the here and now and I also believe right now, something bigger and better than the here and now, which I call God and angels. I believe that while it may not be angels walking around in people doing us favors, its gifts from God, and angels protecting us, guiding us.
I believe an angel can be around when we choose to accept them, if we close ourselves off to them, we're rejecting them, which means they won't come to us. But I believe that an angel can exist in anything, if we choose to be open to them.
KING: San Antonio, Texas, hello.
CALLER: Yes, my question is for Max and for Sylvia. I had an experience with an angel. I knew the message was from God but also felt it was from my mother who passed on. Do you believe that is possible as well?
BROWNE: Yes, I do. Yes.
KING: Do you, Max?
LUCADO: Well, I don't know. I really don't. I know that God has his angels as messengers to communicate to us. So, I think, what's most important is, if an angel communicates with us, it's ultimately from God. KING: So you believe the departed can't send...
BROWNE: I believe everything that God creates is more-or-less good. It's man, like Father said, that man has separated. But I do believe -- you know every religion also believes in an after life. Then you say, did you see a spirit or talk to a spirit, and everybody gets goofy. I don't understand the logic.
KING: Brewston, New York, hello.
CALLER: Hi, how are you? I first want to say that Mattie has -- is a shining light. There's light within him. And a happy anniversary to Max and his wife. My question is, can you summon your angel or do we have to go to the Lord? And my other part of this is, how can I share with Sylvia, or how do I get in touch with her to share with her my experience with angels?
KING: She was a Web site.
BROWNE: Sylvia.org.
KING: www.Sylvia.org. Can you summon an angel, father?
MANNING: Certainly. Certainly. My dialogue with my angel, I can believe that. Certainly. Just talk to angels and dialogue with them, as they did in the Bible.
KING: Saginaw, Michigan, hello.
CALLER: Yes, Sylvia, I try to watch you every chance I get. I've been wanting to ask you this question for so long. I lost my grandson 20 years ago, when he was 16 days old. And about a year and a half, two years later, I was still crying, and I was on the couch, and I felt a little touch on my shoulder, and I looked.
BROWNE: And that was him.
CALLER: And there was a small boy standing there.
BROWNE: He was just trying to tell you that he made it.
KING: Made it where?
BROWNE: To the other side.
KING: West Haven, Connecticut, hello.
CALLER: Hi, good evening, thanks for taking my call.
KING: Sure.
CALLER: This is directed towards sill Sylvia. When I was a child with my parents, we were in a serious car accident. And before the ambulances came, a beautiful blonde haired woman picked my mother and myself up and drove to us the hospital. And before they took me into the hospital, the woman revealed her name to my mother as Raphael. And as they were wheeling me in, my mother went to turn to say thank you. And she was gone.
BROWNE: Yes. That's an angel.
CALLER: Do you know why they come to certain accidents and not to others?
MANNING: That's the mystery, isn't it? Yes, it might be manifestations in other ways. That might be an intense need at that point and yet there might be something else happening at another. For example, in September 11, there were angels all of a sudden that allowed so many people to get out of that place.
BROWNE: Exactly.
KING: Last call, Michigan.
CALLER: I'm directing my question to Max. I had a near death experience in '99 and I saw Gabriel, and he was cupping his trumpet. Could you just give me an insight about it?
KING: Was that a vision or belief or what?
LUCADO: Well, you know, knowing how much God loves every person and knowing how much he does not want to us fear the departure of this life to the next, how he wants to prepare us, present his gospel, and get us home, you know who are we to say God didn't send her a special message to get her home safely.
KING: Are you concerned?
LUCADO: And I really don't
MANNING: Oh, sure. I'm concerned. I don't want it happen right away. I mean, I'm concerned about it.
KING: Sylvia?
BROWNE: No. Not at all.
KING: Matthew you fear it?
BROWNE: I fear life more.
KING: Mattie do you fear death?
STEPANEK: Yes, I'm listening very intently. This is very interesting. I'm glad to be a part of it.
KING: Do you fear dying, Mattie?
STEPANEK: I fear dying, but not death. I know that as wonderful as life is, I know there's something bigger and better in the great beyond, which I call heaven, but I want to live life as full as I can. I don't fear dying, I don't fear death itself. I fear the pain of dying. I fear how I'm going to die. I'm afraid -- I'm not afraid of dying, because I know there's always something to look forward to. I'm afraid, will it hurt dying, will it be unacceptable.
KING: Thank you, Mattie, thank you panel, we're out of time. I'll be back in a couple of minutes to tell you about the weekend. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Tomorrow night, Kevin Costner. Sunday night, a repeat of an earlier interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right now, it's time for "NEWSNIGHT" and doing yeoman-like work, sitting in for Aaron Brown, the lovely, and talented, Daryn Kagan in New York. How's New York?
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: New York is lovely. A little overcast, a little humid, but we will take it. It's been a great day here. Larry you have a great weekend in our hometown of California, of Los Angeles, California.
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Aired August 8, 2003 - 21:00 ET
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LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight an inspiring hour that could change your life. Do you believe in angels? Do they really exist? World renowned psychic Sylvia Browne says yes. "Book of Angels" is her latest best-seller. The inspirational poet and peace maker Mattie Stepanek fighting an incurable illness, writes poems about angels. Minister and best-selling Christian author Max Lucado says there are such things as good and bad angels. And so does Father Michael Manning, Roman Catholic priest, host of the international TV show "The Word and the World."
They're all here. And we'll take your calls too next, on LARRY KING LIVE.
First as always, let's get an update from Mattie in Washington. How are you feeling Mattie?
MATTIE STEPANEK, POET AND PEACE MAKER: I'm feeling great Larry. I'm very excited to be doing this show and I'm just really happy to be hear talking with you. I was having a rough time a little while ago and I still am trying a new treatment, which is very scary, but I'm doing OK.
KING: All right. Mattie will be reading some of his angel's poems.
Let's get around the entire panel. Let's start with Sylvia. What's your definition? What is an angel?
SYLVIA BROWNE, PSYCHIC: Well an angel is a perfect being that was created by God that is pretty, I think, androgynous. And they were the one that were the, let's call them, the army of God that were supposed to be here for our protection.
KING: And they're still around?
BROWNE: Oh they're around all of us.
KING: And how many of them are there?
BROWNE: Oh, they're in the billions. You know, it's sort of like the old saying, how many angel can stand on the head of a pin. But I mean, there's hundreds and billions of angels.
KING: But they're not, like we see them, with the white and the -- you know the ...
BROWNE: Well I saw an angel -- I saw an angel and I have to tell you that I told people for years that they didn't have wings and I saw one and I don't usually see things visually, I saw one and it had wings.
KING: What is an angel Max?
MAX LUCADO, CHRISTIAN AUTHOR: Well there a verse in the bible that says that angels are ministering spirits sent out by God to render aid to those who will inherit salvation. So, like Sylvia said, they're part of God's ambassador team sent out to encourage and to bring strength and to bring comfort. And they are spiritual beings. They are created by God. They are not made of flesh, though in scripture, they did appear as humans, but they are by and large spiritual and...
KING: Are they around us now?
LUCADO: I think so. I think they are all over the world.
KING: Don't know though.
LUCADO: Yes, I do.
KING: Think so.
LUCADO: No, no, I know they are.
KING: You know they are?
LUCADO: Absolutely.
KING: Father what's an angel to you?
FATHER MICHAEL MANNING, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST: Well the Hebrew word is a word that means messenger. So it's God trying to reach out and trying to get in touch with us. And so you find instances of angels, for example, with Abraham, talking with an angel. And you have Jacob wrestling with an angel.
KING: They have a purpose, in other words.
MANNING: They have a purpose of coming and giving God's direction to people. And what's fascinating is, you read in the Hebrew Bible and you find there's physical manifestations of angels. I mean, you can see them and you can touch them and they talk with you.
KING: How come that happened then and not now?
MANNING: It does happen now. Oh, I think, very much so. I think that God is sending messengers in. The neat thing about angels is, if you have a spiritual dimension, there's a war. There's a war going on between good angels and bad angels, and that's the basis of a Christian belief. This battle which is trying, as best they can, to reach out and influence us and change us...
KING: Could be called conscience? MANNING: Pushing the conscience.
KING: Mattie Stepanek, what's an angel to you?
STEPANEK: I believe an angel is a beautiful being -- out of human description and a good example. Here's me and I believe in God. And here's my spirit, me and my spirit, and God in front of me, and above me and all through my life, in everyone's life. I keep -- we're going towards God. And there's something special in between God and me that loves me and guides me and I call that, angels.
KING: Why do you keep that -- you've lost three siblings, right?
STEPANEK: Correct.
KING: You're in a a chair, the prognosis for you is not good. What keeps your faith in all of this?
STEPANEK: My faith lies in God, and I think that God and angels are watching me, and every one, always protecting, always guiding and making sure whatever happens, happens for the best.
KING: Sylvia, why did the angels and god let it happened to Mattie?
BROWNE: See, I do not believe that God sends that kind of thing to anyone. I, as we talked about, I think everyone has a chart that they have ordained between God and them, to come down to this earth to learn for God, And then when we advance through this learning hell hole that we're in, because I believe this is hell, is that then we go to, you know, our reward.
KING: So then Mattie is somehow cursed?
BROWNE: Listen to him talk, he sounds like a theologian.
KING: Max?
LUCADO: When you experience Jesus, you experience a battle against what's going on with Mattie. Jesus came, as best he could, to enter into people that were blind, that were criminal, that even were dead. And his force was a force even going against Satan to overcome this...
KING: He's omnipotent, Max, he could have prevented what happened to Mattie and his family and chose not to, right. It was a decision. Why not?
LUCADO: There's a great example in John 9, where there was a man who was born blind and the disciples asked Jesus, why is this man born blind, is it because he sinned or because his parent's sinned? Jesus said, no, this is so the glory of God can be resealed in him. In other words, the strength of God, the goodness of God. And I think what we see when we see Mattie is display of God's strength. God's goal is to glorify himself, through his strength.
BROWNE: What an example Mattie is.
KING: Before we take a break Mattie, let's hear one of your angel poems, OK?
STEPANEK: OK, I have one of -- yes I do I have three. This one is...
KING: Well you'll do them throughout the show, so -- but do one now.
STEPANEK: I'll read one now. It's about, in my life, I have two near death experiences where I've witnessed angels and the being of the light. This is one that was more recent. "Awakening after a close call, don't believe the Christmas trees, everything is so much more beautiful, and wonderful, and glorious than anything we can imagine or compare or create, especially the light and the angels. The light is so many things, a window, a tunnel, a sunset at the edge of a polished pier. And the angels, the angels are more than just males and females with wings. They glow with the light of every color. One color at a time, or all at once, or none at all, but there is no darkness. There is no darkness in heaven, and there is there no death. Even though we must die to enter, as we face the light and the angels, we are beyond any type of death. Don't believe the Christmas trees. Heaven is beyond human description. Believe in the spirit, behind the trees, believe in the life related to the declarations. Believe in the word leading us to our future, and always, and always, and always believe in the light and the angels."
KING: That's Mattie Stepanek his loving through heartsongs. Sylvia's book is Sylvia Browne's book is "Sylvia Browne's Book of Angels." We'll be taking your calls with questions about angels and we'll be back with our panel right after these words.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: So you say angels are in all religions. And we have the concept of guardian angels, the idea of winged angels with halos that's mythical, right?
MANNING: Well, it speaks of it in the Bible. There is the...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Have you ever had a personal experience with one?
LUCADO: You know, my wife and I were talking about that driving up. And we look back, and there are some times in which we think we should have had a car accident. You know, that should have happened. But my experiences have not been as dramatic as some that I've read about. David Jeremiah (ph) has a book about what the Bible says about angels.
KING: Sylvia, you had personal experiences with angels?
BROWNE: Yes, I saw one in my son's foyer, and it scared me to death. I mean, what do you say to an angel? Hi, how's things going? I mean, I was just simply floored.
MANNING: My problem is that a lot of times I think angels come up in very unexpected ways. For example, yesterday, I was in the lobby of a hotel. And a man came walking up to me. And he said, I need $12.50 to get out of -- to get my -- my child is in dialysis. And I said, oh dear, I gave him $10. I said, here, and I went back and I think, here I'm going to be on Larry King, and I said, angels I think are moving around in ways far beyond what we can experience.
BROWNE: Yes.
MANNING: And I think that's the reality of angels. There's a world of love, as Mattie is talking about, a world of presence to us, directing, helping, battling with us, too, but present, even in forms that might be unexpected.
BROWNE: I think there is a spiritual movement that is really waving across this country.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Mattie, I know we have a picture I think we're going to put up. Have you ever seen an angel?
STEPANEK: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Now, what is that?
STEPANEK: That, out of hundreds of pictures taken that and being developed, right then and there. One, it could have been a chemical smear by (UNINTELLIGIBLE), oh it's angel wings. It looks like the angel wings that are always told about all over. And it happened to be two years ago, right after I had gotten out of the hospital from something that was threatening my life. And all of a sudden, it stopped.
And so people called it an unexplained spontaneous recovery. We call it a miracle. The odd thing is, that picture was taken a week later, right after I had gotten out.
KING: Wow. Let's take some calls. Mattie will do another poem for us. Union Town, Ohio. Hello.
CALLER: Hi.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: I just want to say, Mattie is so articulate and so insightful, he's a great panelist.
KING: What's your question?
CALLER: My question is good angels versus bad angels. Why do we need bad angels? KING: Why do we need them? Well, we don't need them, they're there, right?
BROWNE: I don't believe we have bad angels.
KING: You don't believe in them. You believe they're -- why?
LUCADO: I believe there's a spiritual warfare, and that ultimately, God is going to triumph over the bad angels or bad entities. But I just think they're there. You know, I think they rebelled by their selfishness against God and they created a whole...
KING: But if God is omnipotent, he could squash them tomorrow, right?
MANNING: But angels have their free will, same as (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and they made a decision to move against God.
BROWNE: Yes. Exactly.
KING: Alliston -- or Alliston, Ontario, hello.
CALLER: Yes, hello. I thank you for taking my call. I am wondering about how angels manifest themselves in the present to now?
BROWNE: I have seen angels in human form. I knew it was an angel that gave me a message, I just knew it. And then I also saw one actually in full living color. I mean, they can manifest themselves, as we've all talked about on the panel, in a human form. You'll get someone who comes up to you out of the blue and gives you a message, or it's like father was talking about, someone who kept him.
KING: So what is that, someone who went into a human body?
BROWNE: Exactly, or just assimilates a human body.
MANNING: Very much in the Bible, it's there in the Bible, that they're talking with people.
BROWNE: Absolutely.
MANNING: ... and that they're messengers from God. What's fascinating, too, is that is as you listen to it, there's a real struggle with the distinction between an angel and God. Sometimes you do that. We speak easily of wrestling with God.
KING: Mattie, want to do another poem for us before we go to break and then we'll have a whole half-hour of phone calls, and more -- another one after us that, too. But do another one for us, Mattie.
STEPANEK: This poem is about how I was illustrating earlier, what if we believed in nothing and how bad that would be.
Faith imagery. I can imagine non-existence. Can you? It's not like being dead, but it's not being alive. There is no light, but the dark is nothingness. It is not painful, but it feels horrible. It is being stuck between not having been and having been, but being gone. There is no feeling in non-existence, but it is the most alone thing of loneliness one could imagine.
I can imagine non-existence. I thank God every day for the gift of faith, for it is in faith that I will exist forever. I can imagine non-existence, and I hope and pray that you can too, forever.
KING: We're going to take a break and come back. I'll reintroduce the panel and we'll go to as many phone calls as we can. Our subject tonight is angels. You're watching LARRY KING LIVE. Kevin Costner tomorrow night. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Whenever Sylvia's on, people want to communicate with the departed. We understand that. We have her on usually twice a year. But tonight our subject is angels. And our panel is Sylvia Browne, renowned psychic, number one "New York Times" best-selling author. Her newest is "Sylvia Browne's Book of Angels." Mattie Stepanek is in Washington. "New York Times" best-selling author. His most recent poetry collection is "Loving Through Heartsongs." There you see its cover. He is the national goodwill ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Max Lucado is "The New York Times" best selling Christian author. His latest book is "Next Door Savior." He's minister of the Oak Hills Church of Christ in San Antonio. And finally, Father Michael Manning, Roman Catholic priest, Society of the Divine Word, host of "The Word in the World," and recently became parish priest for the first time ever. His parish is St. Anthony's in San Bernardino, California.
Back to the calls. Ottawa, Canada. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Larry.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: I thank you. And my question is for Sylvia, if she could tell me which -- who's my guardian angel, like my angel right now?
KING: I want to stay away from personal questions like that. We don't want to get into -- but does each person have an angel, or do you have many angels?
BROWNE: Oh, yes, some have many angels. I have seen people with throngs around them.
KING: OK. Louisville, Ohio. Hello.
CALLER: Yes, I'd like to know how do we know when we have guardian angels around us?
KING: All right. Good question. Max.
LUCADO: Well, we rely on scripture. You know, the Bible says in Psalm 34 that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him. And then there is another passage in Psalm 91 that says he will command his angels to guard you in all your ways.
KING: But how do you know?
LUCADO: Well, I think, first of all, we rely on scripture. But then secondly, we look at the experience around us and we find stories and interpretations -- I mean, we have events that happen that are inexplicable any other way.
KING: Mattie, how do you know?
STEPANEK: That when angels are around me, you just -- whether you see them or not, whether you -- like see an aura glowing around you, you just feel uplifted. Whether it be in a dream or in your everyday life, and also when they're not around, you can still feel them if you think and you pray and feel deep inside, if you are really -- you really want to be close to God, and you want to be close to your angels, then God and angels will be close to you. That's when you choose to feel them.
KING: Father, how do you know?
MANNING: I've experienced -- my guardian angel is named Timothy, way back in grade school.
KING: Oh, you have a personal...
MANNING: We decided to name -- to name our guardian angel. And the sisters would make me -- make sure that I left room on the seat in the church -- but you know -- in the classroom. I've experienced the protection and the help of my guardian angel, as I ask him, when difficult situations arise, you can say, well, it was just circumstances outside that. But I felt -- my faith tells me something different. I really believe in the power of that angel, who is interceding with the Lord for me and protecting me and offering me a direction and a help that's very real.
KING: You feel any bad angels around you?
MANNING: Oh, yeah, sure, yeah. There's always that inclination to want to move away from what I know I should be doing. And what's fascinating about the bad angel is, and you can listen to C.S. Lewis, in his, you know, some of his books, what they do is, as a Catholic, I believe that we're always inclined towards good, but the problem is that you can start seeing good in things that are just seeming good, and pretty soon you can find yourself as -- let's say, you can say Herman Goering would be standing in front of the Nuremberg trial and saying, well, the reason that we did all this was, and he can give you all the lists of good. And that's the power of evil, that it takes good and it subverts it, and moves it away from the real greatness that we're all...
BROWNE: But, Father, don't you think it's very seductive, too? Evil can be very seductive.
(CROSSTALK)
MANNING: ... the appearance of good.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWNE: Look at Jim Jones. Look at Jim Jones. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: People believed in him.
(CROSSTALK)
MANNING: And you take something good. And you say, well, look at this, he's preaching and he started out with social justice and all these things. And then you start moving away from it.
BROWNE: Yes.
MANNING: One of the questions that came up that's interesting is, how do you know you're really following the good angel or following the bad angel? I think there's some simple things that would be like peace, love, security.
KING: But bad angels don't think they're bad?
MANNING: Well, they can think that. But I mean, this ingredient of the presence of God of peace. See, the problem is that we're always doing good, as I believe this. And so...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWNE: You bring up a very interesting thing. You know what I've found in all the 50 years I've been practicing is good people are always worried whether they're on track or not. Bad people justify themselves. I've always found that bad people -- you'd never have a Manson call me or anybody and say, do you think I'm on track? They think they're on track.
KING: Cambridge, Ontario, hello.
CALLER: Hi. Can you tell me, when a child is born, do you believe that certain angels are assigned to them, or if it's just a chance happening?
KING: What do you believe, Max?
LUCADO: Well, you know, there's -- I think -- that's a great question. A lot of the thought about guardian angels comes out of a passage in the New Testament, Matthew 18:10, where Jesus is talking about children, and he says, he says don't keep them from coming to me because their angels are always beholding the face of the father in heaven. Does that mean that each one has a personal angel? Maybe. Or maybe it means that their angels are all of our angels. But I do know this, that we're not alone and that God has angels to protect our children. I think that brings such comfort to parents. You know, I've got three daughters, and to think that God, in all of his strength, is watching over my daughters that brings me comfort. BROWNE: Yes, but each one of your daughters has six angels.
LUCADO: Do they?
BROWNE: Absolutely.
KING: You know this?
BROWNE: I know this.
KING: You're weird.
BROWNE: I know I'm weird.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: Mattie, do you have a personal angel?
STEPANEK: The audio went again. Like, I missed a question. The audio blanked again. It's fine now.
KING: Can you hear me now? All right.
STEPANEK: Yes, yes. I'm sorry.
KING: OK. Do you think you have a personal angel?
STEPANEK: You know, I'm never quite sure about that. I may well have. I may well have one. I'm sure -- not that -- there are infinite supplies of guardian angels for the whole world guiding us, teaching us, loving us. And I'm sure that each of us have at least one who likes to focus especially on us, so, yes, I do.
KING: Jackson, Tennessee, hello.
CALLER: Hi. A week before my mother passed, I approached her bed in the hospital, and it felt as though I was walking through a force field. And it was such a peaceful feeling that I knew automatically it was angels camped around her. And nobody else could feel it. And I was wondering why I was the only one to feel that.
KING: Sylvia.
BROWNE: Because you're the one that's most sensitive, you're the one that's been reaching out for spirituality, and the rest of the family isn't going as far as you are.
KING: Do angels talk to us, Max?
LUCADO: You know, again...
KING: Other than the man coming up on the street and saying, don't take the train.
LUCADO: They do. Like Father Manning said, the very Hebrew word "angel" in Hebrew means messenger. It's the same in Greek in the New Testament. And the most common message in the scripture is "fear not." They want to bring comfort. But yes, they do communicate.
KING: Severn, Maryland, hello.
CALLER: Hi, Larry. Thank you for taking my call. I had a brother in the hospital that was very, very sick, and his grandson ran into the daddy's house and said, daddy, daddy, there's a man up in a tree. He has big feet, a white dress, big ears, which I assume was the wings, and silver eyes and no mouth. I would like to know if that was an angel, giving us a message because my brother died four days later.
KING: Or an imaginative kid.
MANNING: Sure. Or why not? My question is why not. If we really believe that God is loving us and that he's wanting, as best he can to protect us and call him to ourselves, he's going to be always doing all kinds of -- why not? Blow it out, sure.
BROWNE: That's right.
LUCADO: I do think it's interesting, that one of the parables Jesus told had angels going to take the beggar into heaven. In Luke Chapter 16 there was a rich man and Lazarus, and Lazarus was a beggar. And when he died, the Bible says that angels went and took him. So there is some type of phenomenon that occurs at the point of transition from this life to the next of which angelic activity seems to be a part.
BROWNE: Absolutely.
KING: Do you believe you will go somewhere when you die, Mattie?
STEPANEK: Yes, I believe that as wonderful as life is, and we have to appreciate life -- because if we waste our life, you know, I do believe that when we die, we can go to heaven, but if we spend our life, waste it or if we destroy our life just because one thing went wrong or if we spend our life thinking me, me, me, instead of thinking of others, I believe that the place might be worse. But I do believe that when we die, we will go to heaven.
KING: We'll take a break and come back with more. Mattie is going to give us another poem as well. Take some more phone calls as well on the subject of angels. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Back to the calls. Charlemont, Massachusetts, hello.
CALLER: Hello.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: I was wondering if angels can communicate with you by leaving physical evidence, such as feathers.
KING: You ever hear of that? BROWNE: Yes, I did. In the letters I got -- and in fact, I was going to say that earlier -- a woman prayed so hard -- she was terminal -- and she prayed so hard for an angel visitation, woke up in the morning and there was two white feathers on her bed and she got better.
KING: To Minneapolis, hello.
CALLER: Hi. When my nephew Gabriel (ph) died, his mother read one of Sylvia's books and in one of the chapters she talked about mystical travelers.
BROWNE: Yes.
CALLER: And I just wanted to know -- that hit very close to home with us and I just wanted to know if you could expand a little bit about them.
KING: What is a mystical traveler?
BROWNE: Well, I think a mystical traveler would be something very much like this young man that we're looking at. There's certain messengers, and we were talking earlier that come down. I mean, he's like a theologian for his age. What is he -- 10 or...
KING: How are you now, Matthew?
STEPANEK: I'm now 13 years old.
BROWNE: Yes, but see, that's what we call -- someone who just seems innately come in with a message that he has never -- he can't be old enough to have read all the theological book. And yet, he's got it.
KING: Could he be an angel?
BROWNE: No, he's mystical traveler.
KING: Santa Fe, New Mexico.
CALLER: Hello. Oh, Sylvia, I just want to tell you, I love you so much. I just want to know -- you talked about different levels of angels, like gold, silver...
BROWNE: Yes.
CALLER: Can you kind of explain that? And I know you say that pets have angels.
BROWNE: Everything that God makes has angels. The only way that I know this is because I was so involved with the study of angels and then I began to realize that they do come with different colors. And their colors seem to be almost their uniform by which the higher file them.
KING: The ministers of the cloth, when you believe -- when she -- now you're -- when she says she can communicate with the people who are departed, shouldn't you be the first ones to believe that since you believe in after death?
MANNING: I believe in after death.
KING: So...
MANNING: I believe there can be manifestations after death, very much know. Oh, yes.
KING: You do. Do you, Max?
MANNING: I've experienced it.
LUCADO: Well, I try to cast all of my thinking through scripture, you know, try to -- I don't want to go beyond...
KING: So do you discount Sylvia?
LUCADO: Well, like, earlier when she said my daughters have six angels. I mean, I've never read that in the Bible. But, you know, if she thinks that's right, that's great. I want my daughters to have all the angels...
BROWNE: Well then we can have Sol and Samuel too, you know, when we brought -- you know, the dead back to life, you know?
LUCADO: Yes.
KING: To -- we go to Bloomfield, Iowa, hello.
CALLER: Hi. My question is for Sylvia, I need to know -- hello.
KING: Go ahead.
CALLER: Yes. I need to know if what I saw was an angel. And I'll tell you why. My boyfriend's mother was in the hospital. And she had been there for a long time, and obviously wasn't going to make it. But it just kept dragging on.
BROWNE: Right.
CALLER: I always talked to my grandfather and I said, Grandpa, please have someone come and take her home...
BROWNE: Come and take her. Yes. Yes.
CALLER: And at about two minutes later, I looked down the hallway and there was a man walking down the hall and the reason I noticed him was because he was rather unkept. And he stopped about eight feet from the doorway, and he just bowed his head, stood there about 15 seconds, he crossed himself and he turned and walked away, and two or three minutes later, the nurse and my boyfriend come back.
BROWNE: That was an angel, honey.
CALLER: They were talking and nobody saw him but me.
BROWNE: That's right. That was an angel. That's very much what father said and Max said that -- it's -- you know, they can come in human form. What's to say they can't come as a beggar or as an old woman, or, like Father said, that woman that kept...
KING: Who knows?
I want you to do another poem for us, Matt. I know you were going to do three tonight. I want you to do another. We'll get more calls in. But which one are you going to do now?
STEPANEK: This is a poem I wrote when I was four years old. And I wrote it...
(LAUGHTER)
STEPANEK: And it's -- I wrote it -- when I felt -- went to sleep one night and I felt not an angel speaking, when I didn't hear a voice, but I felt the words and message flowing into my heart. It echoed peace and light into my mind and my heart.
"Angel Words."
Last night, I felt my guardian angel. And my angel said, Into my heart glory to God in the highest and on Earth, peace to all children and peace to all countries, and states, and colors of skin. That's what my angel said. And then, Katie and Stevie and Jamie and all of the angels, and kings in heaven, like Jesus and Martin Luther, smile at my angel and let a star shine down on to my house and on to my family. And on to myself. And for this, I thank you, God and of this, is my prayer tonight. Amen.
BROWNE: Beautiful!
KING: You were four years old when you wrote that?
BROWNE: Oh my God.
STEPANEK: Yes.
KING: That's a Mattie Stepanek golden oldie.
BROWNE: Oh, yes. When he was just a little kid. Yes.
KING: We'll take a little break and we'll be back with the remainder of our program and your phone calls.
Don't go away.
BROWNE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: By the way, we learned from good sources that Max Lucado is here even on his wedding anniversary. LUCADO: 22 years today.
BROWNE: Bless your heart. Happy anniversary.
KING: His wife's wedding anniversary.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, hello.
CALLER: Hello. Thank you so much for taking my call. It is just a thrill to talk to Mattie. He is absolutely my hero.
KING: Mine, too.
CALLER: Hello?
KING: Yes, Go ahead.
STEPANEK: Hi.
CALLER: I just wondered Mattie -- and it's great to see you, darling. You are looking so good.
STEPANEK: It's great to see you.
CALLER: I just wondered. Do you feel angels around you all the time? I mean, like for instance, do you think they exist in your friends and people who are doing things for you?
STEPANEK: I think that angels exist. You know, they can and may exist -- they exist in our hearts and our minds and they exist. I believe that when we die, that there's something bigger and better in the here and now and I also believe right now, something bigger and better than the here and now, which I call God and angels. I believe that while it may not be angels walking around in people doing us favors, its gifts from God, and angels protecting us, guiding us.
I believe an angel can be around when we choose to accept them, if we close ourselves off to them, we're rejecting them, which means they won't come to us. But I believe that an angel can exist in anything, if we choose to be open to them.
KING: San Antonio, Texas, hello.
CALLER: Yes, my question is for Max and for Sylvia. I had an experience with an angel. I knew the message was from God but also felt it was from my mother who passed on. Do you believe that is possible as well?
BROWNE: Yes, I do. Yes.
KING: Do you, Max?
LUCADO: Well, I don't know. I really don't. I know that God has his angels as messengers to communicate to us. So, I think, what's most important is, if an angel communicates with us, it's ultimately from God. KING: So you believe the departed can't send...
BROWNE: I believe everything that God creates is more-or-less good. It's man, like Father said, that man has separated. But I do believe -- you know every religion also believes in an after life. Then you say, did you see a spirit or talk to a spirit, and everybody gets goofy. I don't understand the logic.
KING: Brewston, New York, hello.
CALLER: Hi, how are you? I first want to say that Mattie has -- is a shining light. There's light within him. And a happy anniversary to Max and his wife. My question is, can you summon your angel or do we have to go to the Lord? And my other part of this is, how can I share with Sylvia, or how do I get in touch with her to share with her my experience with angels?
KING: She was a Web site.
BROWNE: Sylvia.org.
KING: www.Sylvia.org. Can you summon an angel, father?
MANNING: Certainly. Certainly. My dialogue with my angel, I can believe that. Certainly. Just talk to angels and dialogue with them, as they did in the Bible.
KING: Saginaw, Michigan, hello.
CALLER: Yes, Sylvia, I try to watch you every chance I get. I've been wanting to ask you this question for so long. I lost my grandson 20 years ago, when he was 16 days old. And about a year and a half, two years later, I was still crying, and I was on the couch, and I felt a little touch on my shoulder, and I looked.
BROWNE: And that was him.
CALLER: And there was a small boy standing there.
BROWNE: He was just trying to tell you that he made it.
KING: Made it where?
BROWNE: To the other side.
KING: West Haven, Connecticut, hello.
CALLER: Hi, good evening, thanks for taking my call.
KING: Sure.
CALLER: This is directed towards sill Sylvia. When I was a child with my parents, we were in a serious car accident. And before the ambulances came, a beautiful blonde haired woman picked my mother and myself up and drove to us the hospital. And before they took me into the hospital, the woman revealed her name to my mother as Raphael. And as they were wheeling me in, my mother went to turn to say thank you. And she was gone.
BROWNE: Yes. That's an angel.
CALLER: Do you know why they come to certain accidents and not to others?
MANNING: That's the mystery, isn't it? Yes, it might be manifestations in other ways. That might be an intense need at that point and yet there might be something else happening at another. For example, in September 11, there were angels all of a sudden that allowed so many people to get out of that place.
BROWNE: Exactly.
KING: Last call, Michigan.
CALLER: I'm directing my question to Max. I had a near death experience in '99 and I saw Gabriel, and he was cupping his trumpet. Could you just give me an insight about it?
KING: Was that a vision or belief or what?
LUCADO: Well, you know, knowing how much God loves every person and knowing how much he does not want to us fear the departure of this life to the next, how he wants to prepare us, present his gospel, and get us home, you know who are we to say God didn't send her a special message to get her home safely.
KING: Are you concerned?
LUCADO: And I really don't
MANNING: Oh, sure. I'm concerned. I don't want it happen right away. I mean, I'm concerned about it.
KING: Sylvia?
BROWNE: No. Not at all.
KING: Matthew you fear it?
BROWNE: I fear life more.
KING: Mattie do you fear death?
STEPANEK: Yes, I'm listening very intently. This is very interesting. I'm glad to be a part of it.
KING: Do you fear dying, Mattie?
STEPANEK: I fear dying, but not death. I know that as wonderful as life is, I know there's something bigger and better in the great beyond, which I call heaven, but I want to live life as full as I can. I don't fear dying, I don't fear death itself. I fear the pain of dying. I fear how I'm going to die. I'm afraid -- I'm not afraid of dying, because I know there's always something to look forward to. I'm afraid, will it hurt dying, will it be unacceptable.
KING: Thank you, Mattie, thank you panel, we're out of time. I'll be back in a couple of minutes to tell you about the weekend. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Tomorrow night, Kevin Costner. Sunday night, a repeat of an earlier interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right now, it's time for "NEWSNIGHT" and doing yeoman-like work, sitting in for Aaron Brown, the lovely, and talented, Daryn Kagan in New York. How's New York?
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: New York is lovely. A little overcast, a little humid, but we will take it. It's been a great day here. Larry you have a great weekend in our hometown of California, of Los Angeles, California.
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