Calling all Angels

Another theological question would be : Are there angels?

Crimson Glory sings;                                                   
We fly without fear
Through the valley of shadows
Waging our war against evil
In your world
We rule the heavens and earth
From kingdoms of light
We are the holy

This sort of alludes to the popular notion of Angels as dressed in white robes with wings and halos, sent to save us or to bring us home.  Angels of God that fight evil.  With that image comes the question of whether we can see angels when we are alive or only as we face death? and whether angels actions are direct or indirect?

In the Lyrics to Calling All Angels, Train seems to suggest that Angels save in the way of bringing us hope, reminding us of the presence of God and keeping us safe.

I need a sign, to let me know you're here...
I need to know, that things are gonna look up....

When there is no place safe and no safe place to put my head
When you can feel the world shake from the words that are said

And I'm, calling all Angels
And I'm, calling all you Angel

Certainly throughout the ages people have called on angels to protect them and often those who were sainted by the Catholic church were called upon specifically to provide certain kinds of protection.  St. Christopher is said to protect travelers, St. Anthony was to protect "lost souls" and apparently the archangel Michael had time also to protect people's home.   Although in this idolatrous age a google search of ANGELS to protect the home will still bring up several home security systems first, so certainly the 21st century folk have some confusion about where our real protection comes from.

Christianity is not the only religion that has the concept of angels.  Buddhism has the concept of devas, (different word in different Asian cultures) who are luminous beings who do not eat or sleep and who fly. They can be seen or heard by those humans who have developed their spiritual powers. They are not however immortal, all knowing, all powerful and there are considered to be several levels of devas.  

Muslim belief in angels is not that different than traditional Christian belief in angels. They are beings of light with wings who do not eat. The Koran also mentions angels specifically Gabriel (Jibreel) and Michael (Mika'eel) as well as Israfeel and Malik.  Although Muslims do not believe in any fallen angels.   But similarly they see angels as executing God's laws in the world, visiting people at the time of death, recording the behavior of humans for the day of judgement and acting as guardians keeping us safe, and keeping paradise.  One breathes the soul into fetus, sort of assigning its fate in life!

I myself am agnostic about angels with wings or spirits who come to us at death (despite my love of the old tv show Touched by an Angel which included a rather good looking angel of death.)  But I do believe in a kind of angel that has no halo.  I after 3 car accidents in rather short order in my late 20's hung a Christmas ornament of an angel that a friend had made and given me in my car.  I was never in another car accident (although heaven knows, literally, how many near misses there were.)   When that angel became very faded and bedraggled I eventually decided that she needed an honorable retirement, and got a new angel ornament.  Right now I'm on my third car angel.  Does this mean that I believe in little beings in white robes protecting me like the object suggests?   No, I think in the sense that countless New Age writers suggest we create (or co-create)with the Divine our own reality and this includes setting intention.  I believe as I hang my angel I am setting an intention to not get into car accidents and putting it out to the universe that I will be kept safe. I have given two other friends after they also had a series of accidents, angels to hang in their cars.  I believe the fierceness of my own belief worked like a placebo to make them also believe that they would be kept safe, and both so far have been.

I have always put out to the universe that I would not be raped and I never have although I think I was on at least one occasion skating over thin ice to avoid that fate (guarded by an angel?).   I similarly after having being pick pocketed several times in my 20's and once having my home burglarized put it out to the universe that I would be safe and not robbed.  I so strongly believe that my intentions keep me safe (not "security systems") that I have at times not locked my car or my home, bowing only to the needs of others I share these things with to use locks.  But I have also believed that if anything was taken from me that apparently the thief needed it more. Apparently this practicing of non-attachment is translated very interestingly by the universe.  I have had a bike stolen and recovered.  A wallet lost and returned with half a month's pay in cash in side it and a car stolen (while I was out of the country and it was locked!) and reclaimed by the police before I even got home!  I simply do not have fear about this, and I believe my "faith" in my safety actually protects me.

Once while walking in a neighborhood primarily populated by a racial group not my own, two teenage boys came by and snatched the hat off my head and started playing catch with it tossing it back and forth between them, taunting me with it as I screamed for them to give it back.  Suddenly a man of their same racial group drove around a corner in a little yellow VW bug and told them sternly to give it back and they did!  This is the kind of angel I believe in.

The best Cat I ever had was named Mr. Cat after his dignified and gentlemanly ways.  After he died I realized however, that I had been overlooking the presence of an angel in my home for over a decade!  People talk about angels looking over their children while they sleep.  Mr. Cat would literally sit on the bed and help me tuck my daughter in at night, but then he would sleep next to her head on the pillow watching over and comforting her. He indeed was always watching over us extending comfort.  He would actually come when I sat on my couch holding the hand of a crying friend and put his paw on our hands and lie down.  Unlike other cats who would drop their eyes in submission if you stared at them he had an unblinking gaze that seemed to ooze love, compassion and wisdom.  He was always there somewhere in the background sending this energy.  I was a single parent for many years and he died only after I remarried.  I realized that he had come and served as co-parent.  He was an angel, sent my God and I mean that truly.

In our society we often say about a person who rescues us, or bring us something or has remarkable timing, or shows much kindness:  "Oh you are such an angel".   Maybe we need to start taking that inner knowing much more seriously.  For if angels are to help us know God on earth than our fellow humans are not exempt from being God's angels.  Consider for a moment who are the angels that have shown up in your life?  By accident or intention?  Familiar or strangers?

For many years when I lead workshops on spiritual topics I would do just like the old "secret Santa" routine, "secret angels".   People would pick out of a paper bag the name of one of the participants in the workshop and during the week we were together they were to do secret acts of kindness, comfort and encouragement...they were to think of how to shine the light of God into that person's life.  People were not infrequently more touched by thinking about another in this way than what they received during that week.  Once I accidentally left someone's name out of the bag, and this was a person with a handicap  who struggled in life in many ways who was very much dismayed to loose out on this.  I was also distraught because of this mistake and chagrinly announced this on the last day of our conference.   Then a thing of Grace happened. Numerous participants did special anonymous angel acts for her in the remaining day of the conference signing them Your Secret Angels.  She tearfully approached me to tell me this and told me she had learned from this to trust God patiently even when all visible signs would indicate that the spirit was not available, and to know that God acts in God's own time.  I learned that if I called on angels, that they would act even despite my own human fallibility.

How Does God speak?

People often complain that God is silent or at least very unclear!  The God of the Old Testament leaves 12 commandments, parts seas, punishes an innocent man (Job) just because he can, and says clearly you shall have no other God but me.  (ie the claim in strongly made for monotheism.) The God of the New Testament says Love is the only commandment and works miracles through his son Jesus.  (speaking therefore thru a person and also thru miracles.)  Unfortunately, most people do not find these answers very helpful in figuring out the role of God in the daily world they live in.  As always, I encourage people to find theological answers, from where ever you find them, that serve you in your life.

I have a client who says that because she has never heard God's voice she feels God is a Creator who finished the job and watches with mild interest, but is "definitely not interventionist."  For me this simply returns us to the idea of how do you hear Inward Voice?  If we are looking for a thundering voice in the wilderness, commandments on a tablet, a burning bush, or the fulfillment of a prophecy then most people would conclude that indeed God is dead.  But I think we have been done a big disservice by being taught that that is how God's voice is heard.  Most modern clergy would urge people to turn to prayer and listen for answers, but again I don't think much instruction is given on recognizing the answers.

This reminds me of the joke (previously related in another post-clearly one I'm fond of) :  A man is in a flood and he goes on the roof of his house and prays to God to save him.  As he watches the water rising, another man floats by on a log and offers him to get on "no he says, I will be saved."  After a while more a man comes by in a row boat and offers him to get in.  He again refuses saying he will be saved.  With alarm he sees the water now reaching the roof and as he stands ankle deep a helicopter comes and lowers a rope.  He again refuses shouting "I will be saved".  But he drowns, and after he does he gets to the gates of Heaven and he says to St. Peter  "I prayed to God to be saved, why did he let me drown."  And Peter says with annoyance:  "For heaven sakes, he sent you a log, a boat, and a helicopter....what more did you want."

For me this "joke" speaks to the idea that we can fail to hear God's answer to our prayers if we have preconceived ideas of what the answer will be.  Not only do we have to offer the desires of our heart and then let go of the outcome, but we have to be able to "hear" with special ears.  My experience of how God speaks is on bill board signs, thru nature, thru other people's mouths, through lines in various books, thru amazing sychronicties, etc.  But I have had to learn how to recognize the sort of invisible "red circle" around the answer.  One of my friend's told me she had learned to pray and ask for a "very clear unmistakable signs" to be given.  At first I thought "Well that is a lot of hutzpah telling God how to deliver the answer".  However, then I realized: "but I do need for the answer to be clear."  So now I ask that too sometimes.    

I remember hearing a man giving a talk, and he talked about praying for direction as to whether he should go to Divinity School.  He said:  "God if I should go to divinity school send a sign"  A redtailed hawk suddenly flew across the sky.  They were very rare where he lived, but he thought this could be a coincidence.  So he said  "Send a clearer sign."  Then two hawks flew above him.  Thinking it might be the mate he asked for a clearer sign.  He admits that when it got up to 4 he resigned himself that God wanted him to go to Divinity School.

I know there are those who will still say both the joke and the story of the hawks are coincidences, not signs from God.  Those folks will also scoff at the popular practice of asking something in prayer and opening a holy book (or I find any meaningful book will do) randomly to a page and understanding that something in the content of the page contains the answer.  They say:  "wishful thinking.  Reading into it the answer you want, etc."  Except that the friend mentioned in that story did not want to go to divinity school.  He was already examining the question because of other spiritual nigglings he had received.  Many ethical humanists will also argue that this is all just a fancy way of listening to our conscience which is innately human inborn trait.  I do agree it is innate.  However, I also happen to think that having one is one way that God calls us to a certain path.  So the whistle blower who takes great personal risk to serve the good of the many; the spark that makes us tell the truth instead of a lie, the civil servant or the Good Samaritan that risks their own safety to save another, I think listen to the Inward Light that burns in each of us, speaking of the Greater Good that the Creator desires for us all.

But I must also acknowledge that another difference between the skeptics, or the Humanist, and those of us who believe that God does speak to us, is actually having a spiritual experience.  When one has had an experience of an answer so clear and so undeniable that to deny it would be a kind of blaspheme,  or has had an Experience of The Presense that was overpowering, or life changing, or as some would say a second birth, then there is a kind of certainty that comes.  This certainty is not faith, any more than it is faith to believe that the sun exists during the night time.  I have met people whose fear and skeptism was so thick that I do not know how they could have such an experience - how they could notice the log, the boat or the helicopter as a Presence.  In fact I have met people who have gotten in that boat and helicopter and talk about their great good fortune and how they have worked hard for everything they have, noticing not the abundance of Grace they have experienced.  But I have also met people who earnestly seek and long for that confirming Presence and haven’t found it.  I do not know why they have not had it - other than perhaps again expecting it to look a certain way - like Jesus or Mohammad or a parting of the seas.  I would encourage those who seek such experiences to be open to it looking any sort of way, but also being able to answer your question "Is this what I think it is" with at least 4 more hawks.

This is also to say that if you want God to speak to you than you must be in dialogue; you must start the conversation.  Funny how friends never call if you never call them.  So if we ask The Divine Teacher for answers we are much more likely to get them, if we ask the Divine Mother for comfort we are much more likely to get it.  If we ask the Divine Provider for our hearts desire, we are much more likely to receive it.  If we sit silently saying nothing, or even brooding about the lack of communication from God than we are likely to continue to get silence back.  When we put the question out there than we can wait for the answer that comes not immediately, but in a sort of metaphorical language, which is still quite obvious when the answer appears before you.

Recoknowing..or spiritual nigglings

Recently in a conversation with another person she came up with the word "recoknowing". What is this?  It is a brilliant way to describe the spiritual experience of knowing something on a deep or inner level and being mindful enough to recognize it as truth - truth from the Source.  Not long before in a conversation with a client we addressed the topic of "communication with God".  My client felt very frustrated that there was not/is not enough communication with God.  This of course brought up the question of how do we know when God is speaking?  How do we hear God?  (I have loved the UCC banner from a few years ago that says:  “God is not done speaking.”)

It became clear to me during the course of talking with my client that if we have a very precise, narrow or anthropomorphic idea of what God's communication is like, then a great deal of communication can occur that will go right by us.  It reminded me of the old joke about the person in a huge flood who goes up on the roof of their house and prays for God to deliver them.  First a person comes by floating on a big log and offers space on the log.  The person says no feeling the log is too small and too risky.  Then someone comes by in a row boat and offers help - no the roof dweller says, feeling confident that God will save them.  Finally a helicopter come by and lowers a rope, but the roof dweller again refuses feeling the rope and the ascent to the ‘copter is way to scary.  Eventually the person drowns, and when they go to Heaven they rather reproachfully say to God:  "I prayed for your help.  Why did you not save me?"  God replies:  "I sent you a log, a boat and a helicopter - what more did you want?"

I wonder if we do not often missed God's communication in much the same way, not seeing it in the "ordinary" or human language it may come in.  It has been both a joy and a frustration in my life to try to understand the synchronistic or metaphorical way God may sometimes speak to us.  But if you ask people to tell examples of synchronistic events that have happened in their life - often at very critical turning points, some of the stories will actually send shivers up your spine. 

I have always been both fascinated and horrified at the same time by the stories after 9/11 of people who were suppose to be in the Towers that day, or on those flights who weren't:  the person who didn't go to work that day because he was taking his son to his first day of kindergarten, the woman who broke the heel on her high heels and stopped to have them fixed, the person who went out on an errand, the person who was fired the week before  - or the person who "missed their plane" or more tragically the man who was on the plane because he rescheduled to spend the night before at home with his wife for her birthday.   Are these all simply coincidences or did Spirit speak to each of those people calling them to certain choices they made that day or week?

A friend of mine's young dog chewed on her glasses scratching them.  The only way she could get a new pair was to have another examination done, the first in four year - only to discover that she had severe sight threatening Glaucoma.  Coincidence, or Spirit speaking?  Another friend happened by a series of unusual turn of events to be at a meeting with a man who sold supplemental health insurance.  She heard his pitch for a special cancer rider which could be added to your policy which paid all uncovered co-pays and lost wages if you had treatment for cancer.  Something in her just nudged her to do it.  6 months later she was diagnosed with colon cancer; the policy made the different for her as a single person going through 9 months of chemotherapy.  Serendipity, or the Holy One whispering within?

Some denominations tell stories of the faithful following God's direction so literally that they would come to an intersection in their horse and buggy and wait until they sensed which direction to go next.  John Woolman,  a famous Quaker, journaled of feeling called to go to Barbados to preach against slavery, buying the ticket on a ship and traveling all the way to the port and then at the port getting a "message" that he had completed what God had required of him and turning around going home!  Madness or faithfulness to a message received?

Have you ever felt sort of driven to tell another person something?  Not because you were trying to persuade them of a given point or tell them what to do, but just felt it was important to communicate some information, inspiration or encouragement to another?  This is an almost daily experience for me.  Sometimes the words are sort of shrugged off with a sort of "oh right, whatever", but more often they are received with great gratitude and even sometimes with a "thank you I have been really thinking about this, looking for this communication."  This I think is an example of how God taps us on the shoulder and asks us to minister to each other, therefore using our mouths as the vessels that deliver the messages.