I don’t believe — and never believed — in the angels of the spirituality section at the bookstore. I never believed in the cherubim I see clustered about in rococo churches. But at least in some sense, I do believe in angels like Gabriel who spoke with Mary and Muhammed, and like the one who wrestled with Jacob and wounded him on the thigh. Those are angels with serious messages!
I’ve met some whom I cannot help but call angels, always in the guise of humans or animals. Ten years ago this past June, one of them — a tall and tired nurse in a psych ward, younger than I am now — told me it was time for me to live, and live without ambivalence. And I heard the angel, and I started to live.
In earthy vernacular or some strange and divine tongue, they speak. And if we’re lucky, we listen. This Czeslaw Milosz poem reminds us of that.
On Angels
All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe in you,
messengers.
There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems.
Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.
They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.
The voice — no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.
I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:
day draw near
another one
do what you can.
This poem is beautiful. Thank you for posting it.
I believe in Gabriel, but I don’t think he could have spoken with St. Mary AND with Muhammed, since the messages He is supposed to given them were precisely opposite in some regards (namely, the matter of the Incarnation, and whether Jesus was divine.)
You’re welcome, Merm.
Hector, as I’ve learned in teaching, the fact that people hear different messages doesn’t mean a problem with the messenger. We hear what we want to hear.
Thank you for the poem Hugo…
What is interesting to me in this post is this, “… — told me it was time for me to live, and live without ambivalence.” Your reflections on this would be of interest to me. I believe that leading an emotionally rich and full life requires learning to live with simultaneous and contradictory attitudes, which basically is ambivalence. I don’t know how anyone could conduct their life without some measure of ambivalence. If she meant uncertainty…well that is a different matter.
I meant ambivalent about staying alive. Acknowledging shades of gray is one thing; being uncertain about whether you’re gonna off yourself before next Tuesday is another.
It’s good the nurse responded to you with understanding and compassion–not everyone encounters similar behaviors. When I wound up in a hospital after a suicide attempt, unfortunately I didn’t find empathy or understanding.
Thank you for clarifying…and I’m glad you chose to start living and acknowledging the many different shades of gray.
Er, OK, Hugo. But then who do you think misheard the message? St. Mary, or Muhammed? If you are a Christian, then there really isn’t any room for dissent about whether Jesus was fully divine: co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
Last time I checked, Hector, Gabriel did not define trinitarian doctrine when he spoke with Mary. He’s a bit vaguer about who this baby is really going to be — something remarkable, indeed, but we’re going to have to wait for Chalcedon to get clearer.