Front Porch Perspective
Charlotte Magazine|November 2017

A devil cat, godly men, and an understanding

Michael Graff
Front Porch Perspective

TWO GOD-FEARING MEN in white shirts and ties approached my front door the other morning with pamphlets in their hands. I was on the porch with a laptop on my knees, and they saw me before I saw them, so there was no escaping.

“Working from home today?” one guy asked.

“Yeah,” I said, looking intently at the screen to exaggerate the act.

“I won’t take up much of your time,” he promised. “Just want to drop this off. Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘Someone’s watching over you’? That’s what this is about. Have a good day.”

He was gone as soon as he’d arrived. I picked up the periodical. The cover story was, “Angels: Are They Real? Why It Matters.”

I’m not a religious person, but I enjoy a moment when the universe sends timely remarks. This was an interesting day for such a question—“Angels: Are They Real?”—to arrive on doorsteps. That morning, the attorney general and president said they’d end a program that protects children of undocumented immigrants from deportation. Of the 800,000 young people in the United States who benefit from the protection, about 27,000 live in North Carolina, many of them having moved here at such a young age that they don’t have memories of the country in which they were born.

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