Angelic Brightness

Simon Templar (“The Saint”) is the twentieth century Robin Hood. I have not encountered him on the screen and only read a few stories of his exploits, though I did recently thrill to the swashbuckling of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood directed by Michael Curtiz in 1938. And now I’ve encountered a co-author of The Saint. Fleming Lee started his blog a few weeks ago & having discovered one another we’ve been mutually reading and commenting. There’s an article about him in Wikipedia.

One of his comments on my post “Angels and Grace” reads:

I do wish you would relate your “anecdotal evidence” of angelic assistance, grace, miracles. Direct personal experiences of those kinds are much more valuable to the enlightenment and edification of other people than reams of philosophizing.

It would certainly be possible to tell such stories from personal experience, and I’ve read them in angel books. But something prevents me and I think it will be more edifying to look at that instead.

• First, there is nothing supernatural. Nature, including you and me, contains wonders and miracles within itself, without breaking its own laws. The hunger to break rules for purposes we deem good is universal, whether through teenage rebellion, activism or vicariously through the exploits of The Saint. It’s as if we find ordinary reality oppressive. Why can’t we float in the air as we can in water, and sometimes in dreams? How we love to be deceived by a magician, whether a shamanic healer pulling pebbles by sleight of hand out of our nostrils and ears, or David Blaine astonishing the hip-hop youths in downtown streets! In fact, everyday reality is elastic enough to contain miracles and wonders without busting its own principles.
• Second, angelic interventions tend to be highly personal. They are not spectacular shows except to their intended audience, and require skilful dramatisation to convey their impact to others. Some are mainly subjective, though the boundary between hallucination and reality can’t be determined without tedious investigation. Others are “coincidences”.
• Third, in order to convey their impact, I’d have to tell more of my life-story than I find comfortable.
• Fourth, my direct intention is not the edification and enlightenment of other people! By following our honest and innocent impulses we teach and learn in a natural two-way flow, especially when we aid that flow by practising our arts, e.g. in this case writing.
• Fifth, I believe that the essence of angelic assistance is its universality. There is nothing to be taught and everyone is equally an expert.

Fleming, I hope this is enough to wriggle out of your request!

I find that angelic encounters have a special feeling. It’s a sparkle, an excitement and a depth, as if we are not sure whether we are awake or dreaming. Why would we ever be sure anyhow? Don’t we live in realms of imagination? Why otherwise would we gaze entranced at the flickering light of a log fire (unfortunately replaced in most households by a box with a similar flickering light that does much of our imagining for us)?

A rainbow is just one miracle of nature. Most mysterious of all, to my eyes, is the change of light: brighter within the arc, darker without. That brightness reminds me of angels.