The angels—the messengers closest to Him—bring us abundant consolation. They visit us softly: the presence of those who are most present is barely perceptible to us. They bring us comfort and sit to linger with us, for a moment. These gentle messengers who are not entangled in earthly events listen to us and hear us. They are amazed at times and loving take interest in matters that they do not really know—these luminous beings without history, because they were created in the middle of eternity, the edges around which time first flowed. They keep us company silently and tentatively questioning, like children. They are comforting through their pure presence, for they remind us unmistakably of our original source, wherein peace and love dwell but what is innermost must remain veiled for us humans. The angels, our silent companions and guardians, sit with us and listen with us because we hear the murmuring, not them; they look with us because we make the discovery. The angels accompany us, take us by the hand—our older siblings, who do not have our task but their own.
We walk on the worldly plane beneath time, into which the stars have an effect. Above the barrier of time and stars live the angels, looking down on us through the clouds, and our souls are open to them. They see our souls and see all the many experiences taking place in them, like the changing weather. But the angels also see through this layer with their unclouded view from which eternity gazes. The angels see our life plan. They see us when we were still children, as adults, as we left this world in old age. They see our life in one fell swoop, before we have lived it, as a constantly occurring pulsation that blends into time, like whispering in the wind, like an evening’s conversation. The angel’s gaze is a knowing look and a deep touch. Looking into the depths of our soul, the angel touches the veil of our innermost sanctuary. Some angels see this too, but only a few, because the spirit lives in our innermost sanctuary—this tether, this umbilical cord that ties us to our life-giving source, for from thence we come, as do the angels.
The angels spread their wings and fly through the higher heavens, forming a choir and singing together hymns of praise to the source. Their language is not human language. Their hymns of praise cannot be described. These are hardly voices singing and sanctifying the source—with the angels, it is an eternal tone, an eternal word that speaks and is spoken and keeps everything that is in being. For if it were to fall silent for just a moment, all reality would fold up and disappear. Their choruses proclaim this fundamental tone and variations of it. It is a language that would change the soul from the ground up if it were to hear it once.
The angels sing in their choir, and space is continually filled with the light of their hymns of praise. Angels praise the source, but this is much more than just praise. Their language is not speech. It is a language without sentences, a language that knows only a single word, but through which the whole multifaceted reality in which we live emanates. Their language brings about the conception of a child—it is the divine spark of life that transforms the dead into life. Their language is the lightning strike that ignites the fire; it is the touch that releases someone from shock and brings them back again; it is the first time we enter a house or the first sip of coffee I have ever had; it is the reunion with a person that we meet for the first time. Their language is our awakening in the morning. It is a word that continually pours itself out, into, and as the world. Their language is the core and periphery of reality, which expresses itself in a concentrated point and thereby brings the world and us into existence. By virtue of their language, which is ultimately that of the original source, floods are set in motion, sea basins fill with water, and all rivers flow through the land. Fish and all life in the water, on earth, and in the sky stir because the angels speak the original word in the immediate vicinity of the original source, and in speaking it, they are. Called to and immersed in constant devotion, they continue their song, their inspired word, as long as anything in the world exists.
Translation Laura Liska
Image Angel by Rik ten Cate in his exhibition of 52 bronze sculptures at the Goetheanum. Photo: Xue Li
