I wasn’t reaching for an answer. I wasn’t reaching for an acknowledgement. I wasn’t reaching for confirmation or a rebuttal or a rebuke or a reason. I just wanted to “stretch”. The only way to recover old skills long dormant is to use them again, after all. I had no expectation of actually doing anything.
What mattered is that I tried to do anything at all. Isn’t there a saying that “God will meet you halfway if you only but try.” ?
I was sitting quietly and peacefully at the park. A good place for me to have a meditative moment but not allow myself to completely “check out”. A thought occurred to me that I could try reaching for “the divine”. Which divinity? (I know so many.) I told myself any divinity, as long as it is one I had a connection with already.
But in the silence, I knew which one I wanted to reach for. Of all the gods I have fucked with and been fucked by, only one had a piece of me that I needed to reclaim.
If the promises are true…
If the promises will be kept…
If faith alone is all I need…
Then, Lord, be here with me.
I remembered the solitary quiet times in a church building, when I would feel him completely envelope me without suffering or torment. Standing in the field watching the wind twirl through the wild grasses but being completely still and at peace within because he was near. A time when I didn’t fear an angelic presence looming over me and I could breathe in acceptance of his acceptance of me. When his presence was the eye of the emotional and physical hurricane of destruction that other people were inflicting into my life.
Let me have one moment like that again. When I don’t have to be on guard and treat what is supposed to be love as an enemy seeking access to destroy.
Keep this promise. Justify my faith.
When the angelic presence neared, I did not react in fear, surprise, or other. I was reaching out to him after all. I was trying. So here was the “halfway” response. I was okay with that.
When I finally got the nerve to sit in the Roman Catholic church two years ago, it was an angel that insulated me within from his greater presence without. I know I can’t just plug myself back into the equivalent of 220V after living a 3V life for so long. I’ve been through too much. I’ve changed too much. My faith is not what it was.
So I accepted the angelic presence as the halfway mark I was expecting. It descended from over my head and flowed to surround me with warm and a light I could sense even through closed eyelids. It maintained a polite distance from my body except for the flow upon my head.
The presence touched me. Physically touched me. Right on the crown of my head. I looked up and saw the blue sky above me. I felt my head and found only my hair. But the pressure remained.
It wasn’t forceful. It wasn’t impatient. It waited for me to adjust to the sensation as a patient teacher would.
“There’s an angel touching the cap of my head. Sounds like a fucking joke. What’s the punch line?”
No answer.
I settled back down and just accepted the sensation on the same level as feeling the warm air against my skin. So when my jaw started moving on its own, it took me a second to realize I was not yawning. I meant to close my mouth and prepare to leave.
I sat ramrod straight as the angelic presence speared me in place. A beam of light and love and warmth and holiness pulled my spine into perfect alignment as I was held in position on the bench by the angel. Outside of my body, the presence solidified against my skin as if the angel was hugging me the way a parent hugs a child being vaccinated. Tight enough to keep me from running. Warm to remind me I am loved.
The divine spear expanded in my spirit and I felt a familiar and terrifying fire spread through me.
I wanted to cry out in the absolute terror I was experiencing as the memories of other angelic indwellings were summoned by the sensations and I remembered the abuses that followed.
I opened my mouth.
“Peace. Peace and be still.”
My eyes remained open. Nothing had changed in the environment. No one was within earshot of me, and of those who could see me, no one was actually watching me. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of telling someone who can’t fucking move to be fucking still.
“You will not be harmed. Hold to your faith and be still.”
Wait. That’s my mouth making those words. But that’s not my voice. The entity squatter was not telling me to remain seated. I was being told to calm down and not to panic.
“The promises will be kept. But you must have faith to receive them.”
Ah… Shit. Now I understood what was happening. Understanding and accepting were two different things. The angel wasn’t going to wait for me to attain both.
“I know it has been long since you have been touched in this manner. See with your eyes, you are safe. Hear with your ears, I will not lie to you. Be still, and witness me.”
My body was somehow completely slack and devoid of muscle tone even as the spear of divinity held me seated upright. The angel spoke with words just loud enough for me to hear and I listened.
I understood why the warlord in that dream snapped my neck before the message was fully delivered. These were hard words to listen to.
I wanted to cry “Bullshit” and other obscenities to interrupt them, but the angel had complete control over my mouth, right down to the smile that I could not duplicate after the angel left me.
The theme of the visitation was “Remember”, and that is the only part of the monologue I am comfortable revealing in public. After they ceased speaking, they continued to physically hold me until the terror subsided to a manageable level.
“[…] You are loved.”
They released me and the spear of divinity dissolved. I slumped and almost fell as my muscles had to resume the struggle against gravity. The angel’s words rang in my ears and I could still taste them on my tongue. The world was terribly bright as if the rising sun was in my face even though my back was to the lazy late afternoon light.
Time to go home.
For the rest of the evening I tried to tell myself that it really didn’t happen. That I was imaging things. But each time I reflected on the event, I found myself muttering “angel” over and over again in shock. I wrote down the words the angel spoke to me, spoke through me, and while my memory noted each syllable, dramatic pause, and breathiness of the vowels, my mind continues to struggle processing what happened and when.
Because it happened. Again. An angel was inside my skin. A-fucking-gin. And I came through without “suspicious” bruises or worse happening to my body. Which is the New and Improved™ part.
As triggering as the physical component of the visitation was, what the angel spoke to me disturbed me even deeper. I was expecting to be condemned for apostasy, denounced for betrayal, or any of the other “just rewards” I was promised by the cult who witnessed my abandonment of formal Christianity.
“You are loved.” I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.
I am having a difficult time dealing with this, even as I feel old and forgotten parts of me quicken at the touch. I know this is part of the reconciliation process as formerly locked away parts of me reintegrate.
That doesn’t make this any easier to bear.