The Journey from Heaven
Lately I’ve been reading creation stories in preparation for writing pieces about faith issues on Medium. Here’s mine. It’s an extract from the opening chapter of my book The Journey from Heaven. Doubting his faith, an old man has asked, “Where are the angels?” He is about to get an answer.
I pass through this congregation of the living and the dead, pass through the gate, pass between the monks and stand briefly at the altar. There is darkness outside now, but the candles give the old stone a tint of pale honey and their reflections are bright in the stained glass of the great window.
And then I take two steps back from the altar so that I am standing between the monks’ stalls. They face inwards, so that I can turn first one way and then the other, studying the faces for the first and last time, saying my silent farewell.
In the beginning, after that first shared flight over the newborn land and its green ocean of trees, as we all travelled on to our places in the world that would be, I chose the river and the valley around it and the green horizons.
Sahasrael travelled on to enter the dreams and visions and the imaginations of artists, travelled on to become a guardian to the lost and near-lost and a guide to those freshly embarked upon a life’s journey. I became one with the harmony of the river and the valley, then the circles and cairns of stone, then the walls and the rooms and their successive religions.
I became the spirit of the place, the quiet sense of peace, held to awareness only by the souls around me, and then by the questing presence of the tribe, then of the priests and their people, then of the monks and theirs.
Until now.
I am no longer the spirit of this place.
I see that John is watching me. I smile and he smiles in return. I am surprised that he should see me so quickly.
He sees me first as a young man with a rucksack, a tourist perhaps, who has come through the gate and approached the altar. Perhaps in a moment, he thinks, this young tourist might even try to take a photograph.
But now I see in his mind that he has begun to understand. The indulgent smile for the young man with the rucksack leaves his face. He glances to one side, at his fellow monks, and understands that he alone can see me.
In his eyes, as his mind opens, I take on the appearance that he had so hoped to see. The light flows through me. Bright wings spread about me. Before he can move, I answer his question.
WE ARE HERE. WE ARE WITH YOU.
I raise my right hand in a gesture of blessing.
He does not speak.
The thought forms in his mind that he should kneel.
But he can see in my face that there is no need.
“Is it my time?” he asks.
My book The Journey from Heaven is the story of an angel, Chandrael, who cannot bear human suffering and attempts to counter it with miracles. By the end of the book, Chandrael has worked out how to intervene in human life. Climbing Tree Books, 2019. Find it wherever you look for books.
