Mike S. Lynch is interviewed by CBS Radio’s Benji Cole about his book, “Fresh Angels and Markings,” a comforting reminder of hearing and encountering God
Mike S. Lynch and Benji Cole talk about the book Fresh Angels and Markings, which presents real accounts of God’s actions in the lives of Christians. It expresses a contemplative call to follow Jesus in this time through personal experiences. Rather than retreating to monasteries, one should assault the world with the compassion, kindness, and good actions that Jesus demonstrated in the Gospels.
While attending Western Michigan University, Mike S. Lynch became a Christian at the age of twenty. After his radical conversion, Lynch relocated to Seattle Pacific University, where he majored in Biblical literature and philosophy. The author first became acquainted with the Christian Mystical tradition at Seattle Pacific University. This tradition matched his prior encounters with the Holy Spirit as a new believer, giving credence to his spirituality. While he served as a minister in a number of Presbyterian churches in Seattle and San Mateo, California. His Master of Divinity degree came from the San Francisco Theological Seminary, where he studied St. John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart with Jesuit and Dominican masters.
From 1988 through 2000, he worked as a chaplain for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department at the North County jail and the Santa Rita jail. He also spent fifteen years as a language arts and American history teacher at a large middle school in Tracy, California. He is married to Jane Lynch, who played a key role in the book’s creation. Michael has two granddaughters and three grown daughters. He attends the Modesto Covenant Church in Modesto, California, and is an active member of the church.
Miracles happen every day in the lives of Christians who pray to have the “eyes of their heart opened,” as St. Paul did. Most supernatural experiences go unnoticed or unappreciated spiritually by the typical Christian. God, on the other hand, occasionally breaks through our rationalizations and unbelief and reveals his Real Presence to us in the most incredible ways.
Fresh Angels and Markings is based on forty-four years of dreams, visions, angels, and demons that the author, his wife, Jane, and other family members have experienced. Certainly, there were many days and nights when he felt like it was a “dark night of the soul,” where God looked distant, and the spiritual soul was parched and in desperate need of Jesus’ water.
Lynch began writing this book fifteen years ago, but he stopped because he felt it was not the right time and that God had other things for him to learn. In 2011, he suffered a cerebral stroke as a result of a blood clot. For six months, he was unable to work as a teacher and was left with mild paralysis on his right side. God permitted the stroke to happen, but he was also taught to be grateful for each day because life is a miracle in and of itself.
Listen to the full interview below: