ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ... ON-LINE?

(Okay, so I was going for a cute title. Give me a break.)

I recently ordered from a company a set of dragon ornaments. I like dragons. I wouldn't put them on my Christmas tree (somehow dragons and Christmas just doesn't seem right to me), but these were appealing enough looking that I'll enjoy having them hanging around. But that's not the point. Once you order something from a company like this, they start sending you mailers about other things they have to offer.

One of those offerings showed up in my mailbox a couple of weeks ago. I looked at the images of these ornaments and thought "What the heck?" My mind was boggling at them.

What they were were -- well, what they were called were angels.

Lovely little feminine figures, each garbed in a dress (I almost called them "evening gowns") designed to resemble or invoke a particular flower, each with pseudo-butterfly wings coordinated with their gown. I thought, "These aren't angels, they're fairies. Fairies of the Victorian sort, hiding in flowers, twinkling around the garden."

Very pretty, but not what I'd call "angels".

I should explain: in recent years, I've developed a strong aversion to the feminized, delicate, romantic "angels" that have shown up on Christmas cards and other holiday decorations. They travel hand in hand with the idea that angels are gentle, soft, sentimental beings, full of comfort. The television show Touched by an Angel contributed to the "cozy-fying" trend, casting the lovely Roma Downey, with Della Reese providing a motherly touch. (Yeah, I know the show often touched on deeper issues, but still... I'm talking about how soft and ... well, safe the angels were presented as being.)

All this stuff is nothing like how angels are presented in scripture.

First off, nowhere (that I know of) do you find an angel described as "she".

Secondly, when they show up in definite "angel mode", they almost always begin by saying, "Fear not!"

Now, think about it. If that's the first thing that's said to you by "someone" who comes up to you, it does sort of imply that that "someone's" appearance is startling (at the least) or frightening (at the most).

Delicate little flowery sprites just don't do that for me. Nor do Pre-Raphaelite musical ladies cuddling instruments like tender new-born babies.

Angels are messengers. That is actually what the word means. They are messengers from God to us. They live in the presence of God. So when they come to us, they're stepping straight from the presence of God into our material here-and-now. I like to think that they're clothed in the glory of God (hence all the light and fire imagery that comes with descriptions of them).

When I do an illustration of an angel - usually for my own Christmas cards - all these thoughts have led me to draw them as masculine, and, well, more agressive and assertive. As creatures we might indeed fear if they showed up on our doorstep. One year, in fact, I drew the angel crouched over cowering shepherds, smiling as he delivered his terrific news. "Fear not! I bring you great news!" That amused me.

But beyond the social trend of softening the image of angels, there's a deeper trend that bothers me. It's this tendency to make all things supernatural (outside of horror movies and Stephen King novels) friendly and safe. As if it's just this "special energy" out there we can plug into, if we just learn how. "Become tuned to the Universe". Or, if you want to include the concept of entities, that they are all just elemental, helpful things.

To me, it's so wrong. And dangerous. We wander through the spiritual dimension hardly ever conscious of it - because we are material creatures (but not the sort described in Madonna's song). Scripture tells us that the spiritual dimension is the proper home of angels, and that there are entities that have rejected the Lord, which are, consequently, dangerous to us. Just as there is danger here in our material world, there is danger in the spiritual world.

Now, I ask you, if you were choosing a companion to venture through a dimension you cannot see with your eyes, would you really want someone with the appearance and nature of a cuddly little toddler or a soft nubile young woman who had never done anything difficult in all her existence? Really? Knowing the dangers about, I'd rather have a strong warrior wielding a sword.

I've been thinking about these things, not just because of that mailer of the flower fairies -- oops, angels -- but also because I'm going to be designing this year's Christmas card soon. I'm still debating with myself as to whether or not it will be an angel or Mother and Child.

But either way, the feeling that will be behind my choice will be that the invasion of our space by the Divine is not a "comfortable" feeling. But it is something we can take comfort from, since the Lord cares enough about us to have done it at all.