Plenary, 29 Sep 2004
Meeting date: Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. Our first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Dr David Campbell, from Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Dunfermline.
The Rev Dr David Campbell (Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Dunfermline):
Today is the feast day of St Michael and All Angels—nothing to do with Marks and Spencer, but to do with the life of the angels whom many Christian people and others believe constantly surround us. But how do we talk about what we know about and yet cannot see—what we may perceive but cannot touch?
Our age, if we are honest, is one that is poor in language and concept for the realities that lie beyond that which we can see and yet which we know are there. Even with the knowledge of those things, we can feel embarrassed using the language, concepts and metaphors of angels, demons, good and evil. After all, we are modern people, are we not, and we know that those are just old ways of talking about aspects of the human psyche made colourful by the superstitious beliefs of the past.
Well, there is something more here. We know that there is a struggle that goes on, which gives or takes life away in our present environment. Humankind has stories from every age that conceptualise the struggle between good and evil—how it began, who the players are, what their sources of power are, what their limits are and who is working for which side.
If we are honest, we also have a vast array of consumer goods featuring highly sentimentalised images of angels. Angels are everywhere in our popular culture. We find them in mail-order catalogues and they even have their own shops. Yet there is an enormous gulf between what angels are depicted as and what their true reality consists of. Quite simply, an angel is a messenger from God, and as such has specific characteristics.
Megan McKenna in her book "Angels Unawares" wrote:
"Perhaps we can best describe angels by what they do than by how they look. Angels instil in those who see them or hear them a violent need to obey the truth. Sometimes angels have been described as ways by which human beings apprehend the presence, the knowledge and the will of God … Angels are evidence that God is taking notice of us."
So today, in your work and in mine, let us look out for angels: those people who serve the cause of truth and rightness; those people who are sometimes overlooked in our world but who are purveyors of great truth and beauty; those people whom our society sometimes neglects. Who knows, there may even be an angel sitting opposite you, so watch out.