Today is the Catholic Feast of the Guardian Angel. Of course the concept of a Guardian Angel is not exclusive to Catholic Christians. Angels have fascinated humans since we stood upright and began to think instead of react. Many faiths embrace angles, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhist (Devas) and Hindu (Spirit Beings). And of course Angels have become a central focus in non-traditional spiritual beliefs too. Not unlike discussions of late, is their a God, and if so, what form does this supreme Spirit take, the Guardian Angel opens up a wide degree of interpretation. The image above struck me as the perfect Guardian Angel for the Knights of Moleskine, Spirit and Ale. This is how many view the Archangel Michael, the warrior who defends us from the powers of evil.
Of course, then there's the Guardian Angel that is nurturing, more feminine, who watches over us as children, keeping us safe and secure during a scary night.
Then, the Guardian Angel that is without body, omnipresent, detached but always present. It seems to me that like everything else, our Guardian Angels take on the persona that we project on them. Like beer, sometimes we're in the mood for a mellow lager, sometimes a hearty stout, sometimes a hoppy ale; so too our Guardian Angel, sometimes mellow and nurturing, sometimes a hearty warrior, sometimes a bitter yet satisfying aftertaste.
The picture above was taken by me behind the altar at the Dome, the home of the nuns of St. Benedict in Ferdinand, Indiana. I have always embraced this image as one of my favorites of my Guardian Angel. A warrior, yet approachable, open and wise. I have this image as my main background on my iPhone. Of course, it in reality is a reflection on how I view myself.
I came to believe in Guardian Angels long before I became a Catholic Christian. One night after late studies on my return home from University to my trailer in the woods overlooking Kentucky Lake, I fell asleep at the wheel, literally. When I awoke my car was driving itself through the woods, steering to avoid one tree after the next until it came to a crashing halt, perfectly wedged between two trees. Not a scratch on my body, yet my car was totalled. The freaky thing was, watching that wheel moving, like unseen hands where steering it away from harm.
I finally made it to my bed that evening and just as I was getting ready to go to sleep a rainbow of light appeared at the end of my bed. Instead of being frightened, an overwhelming calm came over me and I went right to sleep. I knew that I was being watched over.
What is your experience in this spiritual realm? Do you believe in Guardian Angels? Why or why not? A new debate begins....
Sir Hook the Warrior Angel of Warrick
2 comments:
Sir Hook, you seem to have WAY too many "wrecked car" stories. I'm sure that your Guardian Angel co-pilots are getting tired of all the crashes and picking up the pieces. Unless they "live" for that sort of stuff.
I think on some level that angels are examples of our oneness -- or never being separated.
I do not have any personal memories of being saved from harm and then seeing my Guardian, but that doesn't mean he/she/it is not there.
When I was very small, I did have an experience with seeing my grandfather standing and watching me -- he had passed away years before. I guess he just wanted to check out how I was growing up.
I know that my father believed in angels, especially family members who have gone before. That is a comforting thought.
Sir Bowie "hoping mine keeps me healthy and safe for years to come" of Greenbriar
Wow Bowie...thats spooky..in the context of what i say further down...
I'm very much a cynic when it comes to all the guardian angel thing... having put them in the same catagory as teddy bears and comfort blankets. Visions..even my own I usually find a Biochemical reason why they have happened, and a well researched medical name to go with it.
But i do carry with me one weird moment that even I..Sherlock Carr can't quite make ends meet.
I imagine you have Spiritualist Churches in the USA like ours.. where you can go in...and Old Gals can tell you stuff about yourself from something that you have held for five minutes. I have pooh poohed this too on the level of Gypsy women in carnivals and even women who have the same powers as Sherlock homes and can tell pretty much what people are by how they speak, react and dress.
Anyway... I was with a friend many years ago ( in the late 70's... so no computers or electronics were involved. )..on a first visit to a city in the North of England called Manchester..3 hours from where i live.... and she wanted to go visit a vast Spiritualist Church, almost like a cathedral...
She was into the Spiritualist thing. I said i'd wait in the Lobby as i dismissed it ( see above ) ... and i waited. Twenty Minutes later she came back... and was happy with interview she'd had with one of the elders in the church...and then she proceeded to convince me to have a go. I resisted then thought; oh sod it there can't be any harm....so I held a piece of plain card ( about business card size) for five minutes, I had chosen out of a bowl of them.
Then i was taken into the huge church which was empty of people, except for the Old Gals who were seated at various desks..away from each other.. I sat with one Old Gal, in private, and gave her the blank card. I had decided to play it tight...say hardly anything...give nothing away that she could use to decide who or what i was.. ( yeah i've been in Police Interview rooms LOL)
anyway to cut a long story short.. she proceeded to give me a short catalogue of the obvious..." you have Travelled far"..( she could tell that by my accent etc etc ) " i worked in manual labor " ( she could tell from my hands..and so forth )
She had little to go on..and was good at what she did.. I wasn't from the area. she didn't know my name....i wasn't known...and my friend wasn't a close friend so couldnt have told the Old gal anything about me...
It was all basic stuff... so this is why i was surprised / shocked at the very end. I'll always remember her words ; she said.. " You have someone who was a close family member, who you never met. He is in this building right now, and he watches over you every day"...........and i'm thinking...yeah right....i have a very small family, and i've met them all, dead and alive.......hmmmm except one!!
So I say " what's his name?" And the Old Gal...says a very unusual mans name. One you never think of, and one i never use to anyone. She could tell by my face she was right.
She left it at that. and we were done. I said no more, as little more could be said.
She had used the christian name of my Grandfather, my fathers father, who died fairly young in 1948.. 7 years before i existed.
There is only one picture of him, and i had never seen that until this year i started to research his family tree. and soon found that we have Swedish line to the family thru him..
I have to say i've often tried to work out the odds of the Old Gal trying to come up with a right name first go... a name that probably wouldn't show up on a list of 100 if you wrote a load down... . And anyway ..if she did...( which i now believe she didn't ) that would have been almost as extraordinary as the fact my Grandfather watches over me. Have i been to other Churches to get a second opinion?..No... i tend to leave these things alone, I'll settle for that extraordinary moment.. which has further been advanced by Bowie saying nearly the same thing... hmmmm
Sir Dayvd ( think i'll have a beer now, and freak out later ) of Oxfordshire.
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