Report from Labor Day Week-end

This has been a good week-end, and not just because I had yesterday off.  Let me capture some of the elements that made it special before they slip away into the mists of September memory:

--I enjoyed working on seminary classes.  They are going to be even better than I expected, and I was expecting them to be wonderful.  This morning, I watched some of the videos from my Biblical Storytelling class, and I thought, my drama nerd heart is very happy at the thought of this class.

--I had some good sewing time.  I worked on my quilt top, which always brings me joy, and in the spirit of full disclosure, is also bringing me some frustration as it gets bigger and bigger.  The frustration comes from needing longer and longer strips, so I'm no longer piecing together very small scraps.  But I've always found it soothing to sew in straight lines, so overall, I'm still happy with this project.  Here it is, stretched out across our queen sized bed, with burgundy comforter and pillows visible at the top.

--I also had fun constructing some projects for the upcoming Crafts for Christmas week-end.  I was trying to make an angel out of circles, and it took me several attempts before getting something close to what I had in mind:

My friend was making these angels out of paper and flat bead faces to put into Christmas cards.  

When I saw hers, I wondered if I could create something similar in cloth.  Now I'm pretty sure that I can.

--On Saturday, we had brunch with a variety of second cousins and their children and grandchildren.  What a treat!

--I was very pleased with how my sermon went on Sunday, and several people told me they liked it, people who don't always say that.  Hurrah!  You can read that sermon here.  

--I had wonderful walks, full of mists and fall colors.  

A new season is underway!

Fun Angel Craft Project

On Saturday, I went to see a friend before she heads out on a camping trip.  She was sorting craft supplies, and we chatted while she organized the supplies she will take with her.  She has a vision of making these angels while her spouse drives:

What a fun craft!  They are made of paper circles and flat buttons for faces--no glue needed.  She plans to put them in Christmas cards, so she needed a flat button.

The "jeweled" bead/s just below the face are stickers.

Here's a view from the back, a view that shows that the body and wings of the angel are made of three circles, each folded in half (the halo is a full circle):

I plan to experiment with other options.  I want to find out if we could make these out of cloth.

I also have a lot of beads in my jewelry box.  Could we use those beads for faces?

But mostly, I love these for their whimsy.  Just seeing them made me happy--and thus, this blog post.

The Feast of Michael and All Angels

Today, the Church celebrates the role of angels in the divine plan, my prayer book tells me (The Divine Hours, written by Phyllis Tickle). Our Orthodox brothers and sisters handle the question of angels better than most Protestants. Most of the Lutheran churches that I've been a member of don't talk about angels much, and based on the ideas of some of my students, many Protestant churches do talk about angels, but with a very shaky theology.

I'll never forget one time teaching Paradise Lost to South Carolina students in my Brit Lit survey class at a community college. One woman seemed particularly confused about all the angels in the story. "How could there be angels," she asked, "when nobody has died?"

It took me a few attempts to understand her question. She knew about angels from church, but only in the sense that we become angels when we die--which is a very recent idea about angels. I explained the more ancient idea about angels, which is that they are a species completely separate from humans. We got into a bit of a theology lesson, but I could see that she wasn't happy with these ideas about angels. She was much more comfortable with the idea of the angels being Grandma and Grandpa who died when she was a child. The idea of angels as a separate kind of entity with no free will? No thanks.

In a way, I understand. Angels are scary. Death is scary. It's rather brilliant to come up with the idea that we become angels when we die--and yet, this shaky theology defangs several concepts which should, in fact, be scary. We will die--and before that, everything we love will die. How do we cope with that idea?

Some of us cope by clinging to the idea that there is a Divine God with a plan and a vision that's vaster than anything we could develop on our own. This God has more power than we can conceive of--including legions of angels, angels that are there for us too.

Let me confess that I don't do angels well either. They seem a bit too New Agey for me, especially with the spate of angel books that were published 20 years ago, books that promised me that I would get to know my angels, books in which getting to know my angels was very similar to enslaving my angels to do my will. Blcch. Giving the angels a mission is God's job, not mine.

I often joked that I should combine two publishing trends and publish a diet book: Your Angels Want You to Be Thin! The Know Your Angels Diet Book. I'm not that mercenary, though (and if you are, feel free to steal my title), not that willing to make money off the real troubles and gullibility of humans. To borrow words from Blake, I don't want to be the one that makes a Heaven off of misery.

But now, years later, I find myself a bit envious of those people who grew up in traditions that had theologically sound approaches to angels. Again and again, I find in the traditions of others something I feel lacking in mine.

Luckily, I'm part of a Lutheran tradition that doesn't insist that we remain closed off to traditions that might enrich us spiritually, even if Luther didn't sanction them. We've seen an explosion of exploration of labyrinths. Maybe angels will be next.

For those of you who want some special Scripture for this high feast day, here's what the Lutheran church (ELCA) recommends:

First Reading: Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3
Psalm: Psalm 103:1-5, 20-22
Second Reading: Revelation 12:7-12
Gospel: Luke 10:17-20

The Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels

Today, the Church celebrates the role of angels in the divine plan, my prayer book tells me (The Divine Hours, written by Phyllis Tickle). Our Orthodox brothers and sisters handle the question of angels better than most Protestants. Most of the Lutheran churches that I've been a member of don't talk about angels much, and based on the ideas of some of my students, many Protestant churches do talk about angels, but with a very shaky theology.

I'll never forget one time teaching Paradise Lost to South Carolina students in my Brit Lit survey class at a community college. One woman seemed particularly confused about all the angels in the story. "How could there be angels," she asked, "when nobody has died?"

It took me a few attempts to understand her question. She knew about angels from church, but only in the sense that we become angels when we die--which is a very recent idea about angels. I explained the more ancient idea about angels, which is that they are a species completely separate from humans. We got into a bit of a theology lesson, but I could see that she wasn't happy with these ideas about angels. She was much more comfortable with the idea of the angels being Grandma and Grandpa who died when she was a child. The idea of angels as a separate kind of entity with no free will? No thanks.

In a way, I understand. Angels are scary. Death is scary. It's rather brilliant to come up with the idea that we become angels when we die--and yet, this shaky theology defangs several concepts which should, in fact, be scary. We will die--and before that, everything we love will die. How do we cope with that idea?

Some of us cope by clinging to the idea that there is a Divine God with a plan and a vision that's vaster than anything we could develop on our own. This God has more power than we can conceive of--including legions of angels, angels that are there for us too.

Let me confess that I don't do angels well either. They seem a bit too New Agey for me, especially with the spate of angel books that were published 20 years ago, books that promised me that I would get to know my angels, books in which getting to know my angels was very similar to enslaving my angels to do my will. Blcch. Giving the angels a mission is God's job, not mine.

I often joked that I should combine two publishing trends and publish a diet book: Your Angels Want You to Be Thin! The Know Your Angels Diet Book. I'm not that mercenary, though (and if you are, feel free to steal my title), not that willing to make money off the real troubles and gullibility of humans. To borrow words from Blake, I don't want to be the one that makes a Heaven off of misery.

But now, years later, I find myself a bit envious of those people who grew up in traditions that had theologically sound approaches to angels. Again and again, I find in the traditions of others something I feel lacking in mine.

Luckily, I'm part of a Lutheran tradition that doesn't insist that we remain closed off to traditions that might enrich us spiritually, even if Luther didn't sanction them. We've seen an explosion of exploration of labyrinths. Maybe angels will be next.

For those of you who want some special Scripture for this high feast day, here's what the Lutheran church (ELCA) recommends:

First Reading: Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3
Psalm: Psalm 103:1-5, 20-22
Second Reading: Revelation 12:7-12
Gospel: Luke 10:17-20

Poetry Tuesday: "The Archangels of America Retire"

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole the other day.  I was working on a poem idea about Gabriel, and I wondered about the other archangels.  I don't spend much time thinking about angels, and I didn't receive much schooling about this topic--hence, the internet search.

It will come as no surprise to you that there's some strange stuff out there that one finds when one launches a search with key terms like angels, archangels, and angel hierarchy.  I didn't find much information sponsored by academic organizations, but I didn't really expect to find much.  I was more surprised to find the amount of information from the fringes that I found.

My internet rambles reminded me of a poem about the Archangels of Destruction retiring.  I haven't looked at it in years, so I went to my files this morning.  I think it holds up well, and seems more relevant than when I wrote it years ago.



The Archangels of Destruction Retire



When the polar ice caps thaw,
the Archangels of Destruction consider
their career plans. Creation
has gotten out ahead of them.

Science and ancient hatreds collaborate
in new and more effective ways of death.
Each decade, a different continent deals
with genocide, each one more horrifying
than the last.

Pestilence, that ancient foe,
so ever-present as to seem friendly,
wraps the earth in swaddling clothes.

The specter of nuclear annihilation
haunts the dreams of children yet again.
Small countries lust for large weapons
and starve their civilians in service
to that vision.

With little for them to do,
the Archangels of Destruction change course.
They retire, and some decide to work on their golf
game. Others return to the angel school
and discover the pleasure of thundering
hymns. Most concentrate on the pleasures
of grandchildren and all the neglected
hobbies of the past: cooking and travel and friendships.

Angels in the Artwork

During my 6 week journaling class, I noticed some images recurring in my sketchbook.  When I look back, I see a lot of doors, but that makes sense:  the book we were reading used the door as a metaphor.

I see flames and hearts.  I see eyes.  I also see wings:  butterfly wings, wings that aren't attached to anything, wings on regular humans, and angel wings.  When we were at the Ringling Museum on Monday, I was intrigued by the variety of angel wings.

My friend and I talked about how the angel wings that surrounded us are different from what we think of as angel wings.  The wings in the art museum were not light and fluffy.  Some of them had intricate feathers.  One seemed constructed of peacock plumes.

I was surprised by the variety of colors, especially the rust colors and the blues.  I wondered if the colors were chosen for their symbolic value or were modeled after actual wings that the artist saw in the natural world.  I tried to research this question, but once I typed colors of angel wings into the search engine, I came away with all sorts of new age resources--think angel wings and chakras and channeling--but nothing from the world of art history.

As I walked through the museum that was so full of art from time periods that I rarely studied while in school, I reflected on how I would have responded to the art when I was younger.  I'd have been frustrated by how few of the artists I'd ever heard of.  I'd be annoyed by all the religious imagery, while also hating the portraits.  My younger self would have scoffed at all the angels.

I am glad to have evolved into my older self, the one who is intrigued by the diversity of angel wings.  Now, to remedy my lack of knowledge about art that happened before the 19th century!

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.

A Different Look at the Annunciation

Today I am in charge of the interactive service at our church.  We are off lectionary, so we're looking at the story of the annunciation.  I was trying to think of something new to do.  We've done plays and that kind of approach.

Today, I'm taking copies of Annunciation:  Sixteen Contemporary Poets Consider Mary.  One of those poets is me.  When the book came out a few years ago, I ordered extra copies because I could get an author's discount.  I thought I might want to have them if I did readings, but so far, that hasn't happened.  They have sat on my shelf since they came to my mailbox.

So, today, we'll look through the book to see if any of the poems or woodcuts speak to us.  Yesterday I looked at the book to be sure that there wasn't anything too intense for children.  I should look again, because I got distracted by the poems that I read, and then I wanted to find more from the authors, and then I was down the rabbit hole of the Internet--but in a good way.

I've meant to return to this book since I ordered the copies.  I thought I might use it for an Advent practice, but that hasn't happened.  I'm glad to have an opportunity to spend some time with the book, and I hope others will enjoy it too.  If you'd like a copy, you can order it here.

I am often in charge of the interactive service during Advent, at least one of them, and I often choose the Annunciation.  I do worry that I say the same thing year after year.  There's nothing wrong with that--in fact it could be good.

But this year, I'm sure I haven't had this approach.  Tomorrow, I'll report back on how it goes.

Advent Weariness

In some years, the angels speak to us, with their news that we need not be afraid, that something wonderful bursts forth for those who have eyes to see.

Some years, it's the prophet crying in the wilderness about pathways made straight, the need to repent.

Some years, we tire of that locust-tinted breath always beating down on us.  Some years, the angels come too close.

Some years we scan the skies, looking for the unusual, a far-away star to tell us something new.

Maybe we just need a walk with a friend to do what the prophet and angels cannot do, to get us back on track and restore our sense of wonder.

Poetry Friday: A Windowless Room, a Fluorescent Sky

It's been a week of many meetings, most of them in the same room.

 During Wednesday's meeting, I thought about the fact that it was Epiphany, and I sat in a windowless room under a fluorescent sky.  I composed lines for poems and eventually wrote a sonnet.  It's not a great sonnet, or even a good sonnet, but it kept me steady and focused.  Writing in rhyme and form is an interesting exercise, but not one I force myself to do often.
In the afternoon, I sketched angels and vines around the margins of my meeting agenda.  My Culinary colleague friend sitting beside me sketched an angel in profile.  Mine was full on, with a cartoonish face.  My writer colleague friend thought the angel was saying no, because of her o-shaped mouth.  I had intended to show that she was singing, so I sketched some musical notes around her head.

I thought of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez story, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"--I titled mine A Very Young Girl with Ragged Wings.  Her wings were ragged, and her gown had layers of ruffles that may or may not have been ragged.

My writer colleague friend asked if I was going to write about her.  My visual artist colleague friend asked if I was going to construct the dress.  I was just filling time during the afternoon meeting and responding to the doodle of my Culinary colleague friend beside me.  I thought about the different responses to my doodle--how intriguing!

I came home and checked through every slide for an online course I'll be teaching and did dishes.  I would have rather had a different 3 Kings celebration, but oh well.  My spouse has been fighting a cold (the cold has been winning), and even if he hadn't, I'm not sure what we would have done differently.

By the end of the day, I had written 2 poems in free verse (one written before I left for school), an unfinished poem in free verse, and a sonnet--plus a series of sketches--all in all, a great day in terms of creativity.  Here is my sonnet:

We stare at our phones and our screens,
no time to search for a star.
We consume information in constant streams,
but wisdom remains afar.

We sit in endless meetings
under a fluorescent sky.
Some look at numbers to determine meanings,
but most don't even try.

We wish for clear direction:
Come to Bethlehem and see.
We hope for resurrection:
Take your family and flee.

But even if the messenger did appear,
we are much too distracted to hear.

Poetry Monday: the Angel Gabriel in Miami

Yesterday we went caroling.  Today I scrolled through old blog posts as I tried to remember why we didn't go caroling last year--I think we had visiting family to get to the port.

Yesterday as we caroled, I remembered why I don't always go caroling.  It's not like the caroling of my youth, where our Girl Scout troop would go to a nursing home and sing in the main room or go from room to room.  We go to houses of shut ins and yesterday, we made a stop at the ICU too.

In short, we spend more time in the car than we do singing.  I want to believe it brings joy to those we visit.  I  do know that the carolers are having a good time.

As I scrolled through posts from last December, I realized that it was precisely a year ago that I started working on my angel Gabriel in Miami poem.  I suspect that in December, I just had the idea.  It wasn't until later, in January, that I would write the poem. 

I described I the process n this blog post.  In short, I saw this picture on Beth's Facebook update:

and on the same day, I saw this picture in a different Facebook post

and a poem began to emerge.

It wasn't until I revised the poem in June and returned to the original January post about the poem that I ended it in a satisfying way.  I originally had the angel Gabriel finding Mary in that real estate office.

Here is the complete poem, which seems perfect for this third week of Advent:


A Girl More Worthy

The angel Gabriel rolls his eyes
at his latest assignment:
a virgin in Miami?
Can such a creature exist?

He goes to the beaches, the design
districts, the glittering buildings
at every boundary.
Just to cover all bases, he checks
the churches but finds no
vessels for the holy inside.

He thinks he’s found her in the developer’s
office, when she offers him coffee, a kind
smile, and a square of cake. But then she instructs
him in how to trick the regulatory
authorities, how to make his income and assets
seem bigger so that he can qualify
for a huge mortgage that he can never repay.

On his way out of town, he thinks he spies
John the Baptist under the Interstate
flyway that takes tourists
to the shore. But so many mutter
about broods of vipers and lost
generations that it’s hard to tell
the prophet from the grump,
the lunatic from the T.V. commentator.

Finally, at the commuter college,
that cradle of the community,
he finds her. He no longer hails
moderns with the standard angel
greetings. Unlike the ancients,
they are not afraid, or perhaps, their fears
are just so different now.

The angel Gabriel says a silent benediction
and then outlines God’s plan.
Mary wonders why Gabriel didn’t go
to Harvard where he might find
a girl more worthy. What has she done
to find God’s favor?

She has submitted
to many a will greater than her own.
Despite a lifetime’s experience
of closed doors and the word no,
she says yes.

Poetry Tuesday: Early Morning Thoughts on Angels

At church on Sunday, we were talking about Jesus in the Temple and how surprised Joseph and Mary were to find him there.  Our pastor said, "Come on--there were angels at his birth.  What more do you need to know your child is special?"

There are many answers to that, of course.  We could argue that most parents of newborns feel that someone very, very, very special has been delivered to them.  I argued that the Gospel of Luke wasn't meant to be literal.  Maybe those angel choirs symbolized the feelings that many new parents have about their babies.  One woman theorized that it had probably been awhile since Jesus did anything special.

The season of Advent to Ash Wednesday always sets me to thinking about angels.  I am a good English major, and so I am well aware that more of our theories of angels come from Milton than from the Bible--or worse, from people's desperate desires, and the purveyors of sentimentality who prey on those people.

On the days when I believe in literal angels, I believe in them as a species separate from humans, living or dead.  When I die, I will not join the angel choirs.  Those choirs are for angels.  Humans do not die to become angels.  Angels were in existence long before humans.

I like the idea of angels moving amongst us, but not in the same way that most people do.  I don't believe in guardian angels who are there to step in and save me from myself.  But I do like the idea of angels who take an interest.  I do like the idea of angel messengers, although I suspect that most of us are deaf to the message.

Long ago, after the exhaustion that comes from explaining medieval ideas of angels and their place in the universe so that my Brit Lit students could understand Milton, I wrote the poem below.  For many decades, I've been writing poems that imagine Jesus moving through our modern world (see "Heaven on Earth", "New Kid," and "Strange Communions").  Occasionally I play with similar ideas with angels.

Here's my take on guardian angels.  I wrote it after hearing voices I couldn't identify outside my window in the wee, small hours of the morning.  Readers of Milton's "Paradise Lost" will notice some echoes.


Strategies Before Sunrise


The neighborhood angels congregate
outside my window. It’s very late,
3 a.m.—and they know their charges sleep
safely under the covers in darkened homes.

The angels make calls
on their interstellar cell phones to check
stock prices, check on family members. Sell,
buy, a career change, the futures
market, sleep, snack: their arguments
filter into my dreams.

These angels drink light beer
as they play checkers, strategizing
while waiting for sunrise. They’d prefer
a more challenging game, a better beer,
a darker blend, foamed with honey
and the yeasty blend which bespeaks bread.
But only rebel angels partake of chess, lagers
and all the forbidden conspiracies which tempt
the good citizens of the celestial spheres.