My Angel

Another rung on the ladder of existence.

I am clinging, I admit it. Despite my rhetoric, I don’t want to die. I am happy in familiar territory! I know where to get breakfast. I finally got my medications balanced, and I don’t want to go through all that again. Now is not the time for a change.

But what will be will be! Stuff happens whether I want it to or not. I live within a context; I am part of a larger being. I am a wave in an ocean; the ocean moves and I move with it. And unfortunately it now looks like the great ocean of being is swelling toward the shore of civilization in a giant tsunami of destruction. I expect to be pulverized in the encounter.

This gives me some anxiety, I must admit. Who likes to be pulverized, after all? But I recognize that it is my necessary fate. I have gotten used to the idea that I am a temporary constellation of energies and materials which must dissolve. I wonder very much “why?” and “how?” but I also understand that those questions are not mine to answer.

Who might know? Is there any level of conscious coherence that understands completely how things work? It is commonplace to say that “God” knows this kind of thing, but I think that may be a fantasy: we may be imagining a level of comprehensive understanding that doesn’t actually exist. I don’t think there is any coherent being who truly holds the entire cosmos in their mind (though some of the Hindu deities are mighty impressive).

I do think there might be creatures who have a level of introspection and insight that is as far above ours as ours is above, say, our pet cats. My pet cat relies on me for her well-being: I protect her from violence, I give her food, I tend to her health, etc. Who does that for me?

(Parenthetically, I know it is possible to create a purely secular explanation for the circumstances of my life that does not require supernatural intervention. I reject such a purely secular explanation! I don’t think anything “just happens.” The question “why is there something instead of nothing?” is not adequately answered by saying “oh, well, there was a big bang and everything just sprang into existence and it’s all been downhill on the entropy curve since then.” Nonsense! There’s a miracle in here somewhere!)

If I reject a “God” who controls everything, then how do I account for being so well taken care of?

I think there are intermediary levels of conscious beings who have less-than-universal concerns. If you need a classical term for it, think “Angels.” I don’t mean waifish, melancholy people with wings, dressed in flowing robes. I mean beings at another level of consciousness who live, as we do, in a world of experiences and choices, and who have a personal interest in our well-being. One of these beings tends to my life, just as I tend to my cat.

I don’t talk to my Angel. They are not a “person” with whom I have a relationship. Rather, I observe the boundaries of my existence and intuit the shape of my life. I built an outdoor enclosure for my cat which defines the boundary of her wanderings, and which gives her access to sun and air. I explore my cage, as she does hers. It’s like seeing the “negative space” at the edge of a drawing which defines the figure in the foreground. The figure in the foreground is me, set against a background of power and potential which I appreciate and revere.

Why are “Angels” more acceptable than “God?” Because “Angels” are not absolute; they are not complete. They occupy, perhaps, the next upper rung on the ladder of conscious expansiveness, but in essence they are beings like me, in the same way that I’m a being like my cat. And the ladder goes all the way up and all the way down, never ending in a fully comprehensive “God.”

This has practical implications! When my cat gets sick, I take her to the vet. I do not have the specialized knowledge and resources needed to take care of my sick cat, but the vet does. When I in my turn get sick, my Angel arranges for me to be taken to the hospital. My Angel does not have the specialized knowledge or resources to take care of me, but they know where to go!

This means that my Angel is incomplete in their world of experience as I am in mine. There are hierarchies of knowledge and power both at the human level of the world, and also, I think, at other levels. Why should the hierarchy of Heaven be different than that of Earth? As above, so below.

But this brings up a moral question: What about people who have access to neither veterinarians nor hospitals? Am I saying that I, for some reason, I have an Angel to look out for me while other people don’t? Am I virtuous? Am I powerful? Am I subject to a special, inscrutable grace?

No, I am not. My Angel has been very good about supplying certain benefits and services to me, but has been rather stony-faced when it comes to particular other things. I won’t go into it here because it’s rather personal, but let me just say this lifetime has not been a bed of roses in all respects!

Nevertheless, I am grateful for the care I have received. I am counting on my Angel to supervise my collision with the solid sands of destiny as the wave of collapse crashes upon the beach. I expect I’ll need to go to the vet!

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