ArcaMax

I am the perfect person to evaluate God Winks because I am enough of a believer in contact with the dead to acknowledge that some God Winks are real. I am also skeptical enough to know that everything we think is a wink is just not a wink. Here is my wink scale:

Level 1 God Wink: No violation of natural law or verbal communication. These are just natural events that seem to suggest communication from our loved ones.

Level 2 God Wink: A violation of natural law, such as books flying across a room, ghosts and apparitions, manipulations of electrical devices, etc., but no verbal communication.

Level 3 God Wink: Clear verbal communication from the dead but through an intermediary and not directly.

Level 4 God Wink: Clear verbal communication directly from the loved one who is either invisible or visible. This highest level God Wink is like Moses at the burning bush, except replace God with your dead Grandpa Harry.

Every level God Wink can be true but obviously the higher the level, the more certain the communication with a level four God Wink being the kind of life-changing moment that is impossible to ignore.

I will try to fairly rank your God Winks. Keep them coming. These are the kind of spiritual experiences that non-religious folk simply ignore and that religious folk like us are often reluctant to tell. I know that there is a level of “Ghostbuster” spookiness in all this, and I do respect the reticence of the anti-winkites to accept the reality of post-mortem emails, but I choose to see God Winks as very real sparks of hope sent to us by God to ease our grief and renew our hope that we will not be separated forever from those we love. Plus, there are things that are just impossible to explain.

Q: I was very close to my maternal grandparents. My parents divorced when I was a baby and my brother and I lived with them for about four years. I rarely saw my father. After one brief visit when I was about five, I remember grandpa holding my hand as my father drove away and him saying “Kitta, make sure you marry a good man.” In 1982 when my husband and I decided to get married, I asked my grandmother if I could have my grandfather’s wedding band for my husband. It was a simple gold band with engraving on the inside. She gave it to me.

One day my husband called from work. Apologizing profusely, he said while running for the train his wedding band slipped off his finger and was lost on the tracks. Three months later our cleaning lady found the ring hanging on a harp in a lamp in our living room! (The harp is the metal thing that holds up the shade).

Fast-forward a few more years. My husband was in the basement of a business filled with pallets of merchandise. When he removed his work glove the ring went into the air and the slim gold band was lost again. Sweeping up a few days later, a coworker found the ring and returned it. Grandpa “winked again”.

Once again, a few years had passed and I received that call from my husband who apologized for losing grandpa’s ring … again. He was unloading a truck on a cold winter’s day and was again removing his work glove. The slim band sailed into NYC traffic. He felt terrible and believed we would never see the ring again. About three weeks later we bought a simple gold band that fit him. A few minutes later, my husband called me and shouted that he had just found grandpa’s ring under the slop sink in the basement!

You see, I did as grandpa advised and married a very good man, albeit with skinny fingers. We celebrated our 41st anniversary this past December. He still wears the new ring and grandpa’s ring is safely tucked away.

On a side note, when our son was three or four, he would talk about the man in the attic. I would say, “What are you talking about?” He would answer, “You know. The other father.”

Maybe grandpa has been with me all along. Wishing you joy! – (A Level 2 God Wink times three from C in Williston Park, NY)

A: The appearances of the impossible-to-lose ring are incredible but mostly natural, except for the harp which does seem to violate natural law. The most interesting aspect of your remarkable God Wink is the story of your child seeing grandpa in the attic. That would be a level four wink. Have your son write to me.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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