Angels We Have Seen Up High

Sunday night, October 7, 2007, the boys and I were heading to Denton, TX around 6:45 p.m. and in the western sky there was an amazing sight - a very dark blue cloud in the shape of a mountain, with a pinkish/purple cloud on top shaped like an angel on a pedestal. What a beautiful angel she was. I say she because the head appeared to have long hair. Her wings were very wide and regal looking. The boys and I watched her and discussed her as we continued to drive west. As she seemed to grow larger and more real I started thinking about angels, how unapproachable this one seemed, and how that is not the way I think of angels.

I then started thinking about angel statues I have seen on tombstones and how some of them actually seem scornful and condescending, and that surely is a mistake on the part of the crafter of the tombstone. Maybe I have seen too many movies, and have read too many novels about angels coming to help people, but I like to think of angels looking like normal everyday people that are willing to help people through a tough situation.

Looking at this very haughty, yet beautiful, vision in the sky, I couldn’t help but be a little disturbed by the fact that angels might actually look that way, and therefore would seem unapproachable. Then something happened. The very regal cloud angel passed gas. I started laughing. I had proof that she was a normal angel putting on a façade. My sons asked why I was laughing and I told them to look at the little puff of cloud that had broken off the angel in a strategic spot. I said that the angel had tooted (only I used the word that teenage boys usually use). They laughed too, and then I said what my boys are always reminding me of when I say something irreverent – “I’m going to Hell.”

As the week has gone by, I have thought of that angel many times. There she was looking over the world in a form that was totally recognizable to anyone whether or not they believe in angels. If she had appeared in the sky in the form of a grandmotherly type would anyone have recognized her as an angel?

I am very sure it was important for that angel to be recognizable at that moment, whether for my family or another family. I know that I have not forgotten her.