What's an angel?

My previous post about Tony's Mathematica game reminds me of something I've been thinking about for a while. What's my view of angels? I put them in a play; I put them in my Celtic art; I put them in my rituals. What do I actually conceive of them as?

Well, like so many things, I try to keep the Schroedinger's box closed on that one as much as possible. But if I have to say something, I would say that my working hypothesis is this: Angels (and gods in a polytheistic context, and in some ways saints in the context of medieval devotion) are a manifestation of the human tendency to put a face on the abstract. They're ways of engaging with ideas and parts of our own selves which we can just access better if they're external personalities - much like the way you can have a therapeutic Gestalt dialogue with an alienated part of yourself.

But I would be betraying my own principles if I said they were only that (I can't stand "X is just..." arguments). I admit at least the possibility that actual spiritual forces and/or beings - whatever those are - connect to these constructs and animate them. And for some reason, I find angels a very appealing concept. Look for more of them in my future work.

Holy Week

It's Palm Sunday today, and I'm happy to reflect that at least three churches have been or will be using stuff I've written this Easter season. Cityside, of course, is one of them; Brenda asked if she could re-use the Tree of Life liturgy I wrote and used in last year's poetry-themed service, and of course I said yes. I've also had an email about using the Five Wounds Meditation in a "Holy Thursday paraliturgy" (whatever one of those is) for Bishop Ready High School in Colombus, Ohio. Not the first time I've had Catholics want to use one of my liturgical resources, which reads to me like a compliment.

Finally, I got yet another email back in February about using my play The Ready Room: A Play of Archangels as an Easter performance on 25 March. I think this makes about eight times that it's been produced, all in the US as far as I know (the first time in Japanese, but it was a Japanese-speaking church in Oregon). All of them have mentioned adapting it; sooner or later I'll probably revise it myself.

It's satisfying to know that the things I write are appealing and useful to people.