Relying on Angels

Many of us have just come through a liturgical season full of stories of angel visitations.  We may have heard of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary.  We likely heard about choirs of angels appearing to shepherds.  Maybe we also heard about the angel visiting Joseph or Zechariah.

In so many ways, our modern times have changed our view of angels.  Most of us probably don't believe that angels exist.  If we believe in angels, we certainly don't expect to see them or get a message from God through them.

I've been intrigued through the years by talking to people about their belief in guardian angels.  For some of them, it's a friendly relative watching out for them from a heavenly perch.  For others, they're not sure of how angels are assigned, but they're certain that they have one.

I have been thinking about angels as I've looked back through my sketchbooks for the recently ended online journaling class.  Angels make appearances, as does my disbelief:

Would angels have made the kind of appearances that they do if we had done the online journaling class in the summer?  Much of the class took place over the season of Advent, so I had angels on the brain.  I was also covering Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" in the literature class that I taught, so I had a different sort of angel on the brain.

When I made this sketch, I had intended to create the figure with wings, but I couldn't quite pull it off:

And then yesterday, this sketch and poem-like thing appeared:

I had planned to draw a backpack spilling open to reveal wings inside, along with a pen and a book and a dry pair of socks. But then I couldn't figure out how to draw an open backpack. And then I thought, a woman with a well-stocked backpack doesn't need a pair of wings: and voila, a sketch and a poem-like thing!

It made me think about angels again--about how my human who probably represents me has progressed from having wings to not needing them.  Would I also say the same thing about angels?

I have always worried about the human propensity for needing an outside force, whether it be to save us or give us a vital message or fix things.  Angels tend to fit into this category.  We may joke about how much easier it would be to believe if we had a sign like angel choirs singing in the skies--but we often neglect the much more regular miracles that might point us to the Divine.  We may wait for our guardian angels to step in while never making the small steps to improve our lives.

Do I really not believe in angels?  I have no idea if they exist in literal life or not.  I do believe in them as very potent symbols.