No one can know the ultimate mystery. We never will. But we can invest our lives with courage, dignity, sympathy, understanding, in such a way as to take the utterly crazy things that happen and transform them into a joyful and creative illumination. I am in search of the creativity that is at the center of human-beingness. I cannot know where this lies until I get there, but I have faith it is there where one aspect of God is. All of this implies my dealing with the opposite of what I am used to, a passive and quiet listening to what life says. To learn how to be.
CALCUTTA: A beggar, half-conscious, is lying on a mat in a home for the dying. A nun is kneeling by his side, her delicate fingers wiping his forehead with a washcloth. She is a peasant whose eyes shine like the wings of a heron flying around the sun, a silence whose light soars through the darkness.
How can I describe the beggar's eyes as he summons all his strength to motion her to draw close? She obeys.
It takes the beggar a long time to whisper something in her ears: "I have lived . . . like an animal. Now I will die . . . like an angel." The beggar's final words.
BLESSINGS, dear friends, throughout this holy season! May each of us become aware of the angelic presences ever close by to omfort, protect, and guide us at every moment ... and, may we be assured of those angelic beings that lovingly watch over all those who have passed on to new life, uniting them with all who have gone before them. May all who are troubled feel themseles held in the comforting wings of Love.
No human being will ever have a better friend and confidant than his or her angel. Even in little things, they are always there to help you in distress, pain, unhappiness, or indecision. There is never a time when your angels are busy at something else and do not hear you; their whole concern is you and are always "on tap." Their line is never busy.
I am now an emergency physician and the medical director of a busy trauma center in western Colorado. To this day I shake my head in wonder when I look back upon the series of events that has driven me inexorably to this point. I see now that it all began the night when my life was a certain and violent death. And I also see that I have been shepherded to this place in my life for a reason. Now I speak with angels all the time.
The angels tongues are pure praise. Fire is also praise, the flickering flames are praise. Voice is praise, hearing is praise. All these images of praise are images of movement: fire moves, wind moves, tongues move, breath moves, hearing moves. In this praise there is a reverse movement toward God, perhaps mirroring. Energy moves out from God through the angels, and this movement back toward God in the form of praise is vibratory, dynamic, and meaningful.
~ from THE PHYSICS OF ANGELS by M. Fox and R. Sheldrake
All the angels are amazed at humans, who through their holy works appear clothed with an incredibly beautiful garment. For the angel without the work of the flesh is simply praise; but the humans with their corporeal works are a glorification! Therefore the angels praise humans' work.
Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action ... we reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great; he or she is free from the experience of hostility; she or he is a poet and most like an angel.
~ by Leonard Bernstein in "Religion and Ethics" by D.J. Green with thanks to Dorothea Queen
Angels before me, guide and direct me. Angels behind me, guard and protect me. Angels above me, keep watching over me. Angels beside me, care for and comfort me.
It is one of the goals of human beings to develop to the point where life is aligned to God in such a way that we behave like an angel in complete service to heaven.
~ from "The Sacred Face of Angels" by K. Martin-Kurl
