HONEST TO GOODNESS; `EARTH ANGELS' MAKE THE WORLD NICER FOR OTHERS.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

Most people think of angels - if they think of them at all - as larger-than-life celestial beings with larger-than-life powers.

Like Gabriel, one of seven trumpet-blowers come Judgment Day. Or the angel who told the Virgin Mary she would give birth to a son. Or Clarence, the slightly befuddled movie angel-in-training who helped George Bailey understand his connection with family and friends. Or even Michael, the slightly rumpled and randy angel from the recent movie of the same name.

But Jerry and Lorin Biederman, a pair of Woodland Hills writers who persistently look for the best in people, believe all the angels aren't in heaven.

Hence the title of their new book, ``Earth Angels'' (Broadway Books; $18.95).

``There is such an angel craze out there,'' said Lorin, 33. ``We wanted to bring the focus down to Earth, to show that there are huggable, lovable people down here who do wonderful things for others.''

As they explain in their book, which debuted in October, ``An Earth Angel can be a teacher who believes in you or a truck driver who stops to change your flat tire, a hero who runs into a burning building to save a child's life or someone who simply holds a door open so it doesn't slam in your face. Every day you are surrounded by ... ordinary people who have earned their wings.''

A prime example was the frantic few days after the January 1994 Northridge Earthquake when buildings were falling down, there was no gas, no drinking water and no electricity in many neighborhoods.

``People ran to help each other,'' Lorin said. ``They didn't care what color you were, or how much money you had. Only that you needed help. That's the way it should be all the time.''

Along with the heroics that make headlines are quiet, small heroics: giving someone a smile that lifts despair, a hug that banishes - just for a minute - depression, a kind word that brings a warm feeling on a bad day, said Jerry, 40.

``There are chances every day for people to be heroes in very small ways,'' he said. ``A word of advice can be their version of pulling someone from a burning building. Everyone is an Earth Angel, whether they know it or not.''

The 231-page volume, a compendium of true stories written by 65 people of all ages about kindnesses done for them, was born out of giddy newlywed love.

He was a professor at California State University, Northridge, and a published author; she was a student and a poet trying to get her work published.

After the Biedermans married four years ago, they gazed at the world through rose-colored glasses.

And when they decided to start a family - Jennifer Nicole Biederman was born exactly a week ago - they wanted at least their small portion of the world to be a better place in which to nurture their child.

``We wanted to swing the pendulum back to where neighbors talked to each other and people took care of each other,'' Jerry said.

``The best way to do that was to show people there is goodness in the world,'' Lorin said.

To prove that to themselves, they took a trip to a local mall, where they saw one person after another doing simple kindnesses for others - an ice-cream man replaced a child's dropped cone for free, a businessman stopped to pet a dog, a rough-looking gang member gently entertained a baby while waiting for a bus. It would have been just as easy to notice only a crying child, an unleashed dog, a gangbanger.

``You don't have to go to heaven to change the world,'' Jerry said. ``It can be as easy as changing your own world - and you can do that by the way you see things around you.''

The stories in the book pinpoint small and large kindnesses, from a stranger's smile that cheered a tearful teen-ager fighting with her mother to a low-rent house that was generously made available to a struggling single mother. From a farm willed to a helpful country boy to a teacher who convinced a little girl recovering from polio she could accomplish anything she put her mind and her heart to.

Passing it along

Marcell Patrick Brickey, a second-year teacher at Fremont Junior High School in Oxnard, was a low-paid busboy when he was faced with a table full of grumpy diners at the end of a long, tiring day. Encountering one of the diners in the restroom, he struck up a conversation with him - and learned that the group was quiet and uncommunicative because they had just left their mother's funeral.

``I'm so sorry,'' the busboy blurted out.

The man thanked him for his sympathy, shook his hand and handed him a $5 tip. ``He ... left me standing there, my perspective completely turned around,'' Brickey wrote. ``It was a lesson from a stranger about judging people, a lesson about kindness and understanding.''

That's one of the lessons Brickey now imparts to his students, using ``Earth Angels'' as a textbook. For the past two years, ever since he met the Biedermans, he's assigned his students to write about their own Earth Angels. Some write about parents, others about siblings or friends, but some have written about total strangers who've done them a kindness.

``The kids weren't all enthusiastic at first,'' Brickey said. ``After all, you're dealing with teen-agers, and you could give them the cure for cancer and they'd say, `So?' But once they got in tune with the whole idea, they really got into it. One boy used to come to class only sporadically, but once he started to write, he loved it and he started to come to class every day. When we got finished, we had the kids make their stories into Christmas cards they could give to their Earth Angel.''

Massive response

The kids' reactions aren't unusual.

First-person stories sent to an Earth Angels Web site and entered in a national Earth Angels writing contest have topped 3,000 so far, and the Biedermans are still collecting stories for a sequel. Schools throughout the country have assigned students to write Earth Angel tales, and the Biedermans receive packets of stories almost daily.

St. Mel's School in Woodland Hills now includes an Earth Angels column in its newsletter. And at Channel Islands High School in Oxnard, a 14-year-old girl's story of abuse by her father resulted in her placement in a foster home where she's now safe.

The writing exercise, teachers have told the authors, may also have helped head off a number of potential teen suicides.

``Forcing them to write this assignment made them see there is someone who would be so hurt if they killed themselves, that there's someone in their lives they can't leave,'' Lorin said.

As the holidays approach, more people may be thinking about their own Earth Angels, said the Biedermans.

Both are old-movie buffs, and although they're Jewish, their favorite film is the Christmas classic in which fledgling angel Clarence works to convince suicidal George Bailey that life for those who love him wouldn't be the same if he had never been born - or if he took his life by jumping off that bridge in the snow.

If Clarence can convince George - and he does - he gets his wings, becoming a full-fledged angel.

As George Bailey, ``the richest man in town,'' is embraced by friends and family, a tiny bell on the Christmas tree tinkles (when a bell rings, an angel gets his wings) and George spots a copy of ``The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,'' his favorite book. Opening it, he finds an inscription: ``Dear George, Remember, no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings. Clarence.''

So Clarence wasn't the only angel in the movie.

``George was an Earth Angel,'' Jerry said. ``He just didn't know it. And there are a lot of people like that around.''

THE FACTS

To send your own Earth Angel story to Jerry and Lorin Biederman:

E-mail them at: earthangelsdigitalstarlight.com.

Send stories to Earth Angels, 18034 Ventura Blvd., No. 414, Encino, Calif. 91316.

Call the Earth Angels Hotline at [phone].

Check out the Earth Angels Web site at: www.digitalstarlight.com/earthangels.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--2) Jerry and Lorin Biederman include ordinary acts of kindness and caring in their book, ``Earth Angels: True Stories About Real People Who Bring Heaven to Earth.''