I got to admit. When I saw this the other day, I did a double take.
Whatever did it mean? What was it supposed to mean?
I was brought up to believe that each of us has a guardian angel.
One that stays with us from birth till death.
When we die, we no longer need the angel.
Our angel then moves on to someone else, who has just entered the world.
To chronicle their life and watch over them, just as they did with us.
Angels are the true guardians of the galaxy.
They operate in a dimension largely invisible to us.
Once in a great while they make themselves visible.
As they did with flaming swords at the entry to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were expelled.
As an angel did to the false prophet Balaam and his recalcitrant donkey.
As perhaps was done when angels rescued Lot from a rowdy crowd with ill intent, and an angel led him and his family from the city of Sodom when it was destroyed the next day.
Perhaps an angel appeared as such when the apostle Peter was rescued from prison.
We know angels are able to impersonate humans and may dwell among us.
Who knows whom that homeless person may be who holds up a sign begging for money?
Have you seen them before?
Will you see them again?
Someday you may know, and that knowledge might surprise you.
I surmise angels are more likely to appear as a homeless person than someone rich and famous or smart and good-looking.
The angel watches over us and takes notes.
There may be some places we go the angel doesn’t accompany us.
But most of the time the angel is there.
Hovering, invisible, a benign presence in a malign world.
Few, if any, of us have seen our guardian angel. That doesn’t mean he/she/it isn’t there.
As Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–1944), French aviator and writer, has his Little Prince say, in the slim book of the same title…
