In the course of reading Through a Glass, Darkly, a conversation between Ariel, the angel who appeared to the sick child Cecilia sent my brain surfing through its convolutions...
'Many humans believe that an angel is a ghost that flaps around between heaven and earth and without a proper body--'
'That's just how I've imagined angels myself.'
'But it's the opposite. To us you're the one ones who are light and airy. When you kick a stone, I'd simply kick straight through it. It's no more solid to me than a piece of fog..'
'Then I understand how you can glide through doors and windows without hurting yourselves. But I don't understand why the walls aren't spoiled.'
'When you walk in fog, the fog isn't spoiled either. And when you think about something, your thoughts can't do any harm to the world about you.'
'That may be. But if you can dive through a wall, it must be because you don't have a proper body.'
'Feel my foot, Cecilia.'
She put two fingers round his big toe and squeezed. It was like touching a piece of steel.
Ariel said, "We have much more solid bodies than anything in creation. An angel can never be destroyed. That's because we don't have a body of flesh and blood that our souls can be departed from.'
'You can be glad at that.'
'But nature isn't like that. Here everything is destroyed very easily. Even a mountain is slowly ground down by the forces of nature and turns to earth and sand in the end.'
'Thanks for the information, but I know all about that.'
'You are ghosts to us, Cecilia, not the other way around. You come and go. You are the ones who don't last. You suddenly appear, and each time a newborn child is laid on its mother's stomach, it's just as wonderful. But just as suddenly you've gone. It's as if God is blowing bubbles with you.'
-Jostein Gaarder
.....
That sent me thinking. I'm supposed to include a picture of an angel here. But upon second thinking, I realized angels in this novel don't grow, are neither male nor female, don't grow hairs, and have no wings. And I can't find any photo of that kind of angel. It comforts me to think, though, that they still wore white robes.
'Many humans believe that an angel is a ghost that flaps around between heaven and earth and without a proper body--'
'That's just how I've imagined angels myself.'
'But it's the opposite. To us you're the one ones who are light and airy. When you kick a stone, I'd simply kick straight through it. It's no more solid to me than a piece of fog..'
'Then I understand how you can glide through doors and windows without hurting yourselves. But I don't understand why the walls aren't spoiled.'
'When you walk in fog, the fog isn't spoiled either. And when you think about something, your thoughts can't do any harm to the world about you.'
'That may be. But if you can dive through a wall, it must be because you don't have a proper body.'
'Feel my foot, Cecilia.'
She put two fingers round his big toe and squeezed. It was like touching a piece of steel.
Ariel said, "We have much more solid bodies than anything in creation. An angel can never be destroyed. That's because we don't have a body of flesh and blood that our souls can be departed from.'
'You can be glad at that.'
'But nature isn't like that. Here everything is destroyed very easily. Even a mountain is slowly ground down by the forces of nature and turns to earth and sand in the end.'
'Thanks for the information, but I know all about that.'
'You are ghosts to us, Cecilia, not the other way around. You come and go. You are the ones who don't last. You suddenly appear, and each time a newborn child is laid on its mother's stomach, it's just as wonderful. But just as suddenly you've gone. It's as if God is blowing bubbles with you.'
-Jostein Gaarder
.....
That sent me thinking. I'm supposed to include a picture of an angel here. But upon second thinking, I realized angels in this novel don't grow, are neither male nor female, don't grow hairs, and have no wings. And I can't find any photo of that kind of angel. It comforts me to think, though, that they still wore white robes.
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