Letter: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

By Letter to the Editor on January 10, 2023.

Dear editor,

Remember that proverb, homily, saying? Angels? It is said that they are the embodiment of wisdom, caution, prudence, justice, mercy; a higher calling.

Does one have to believe such spirits, such beings, exist? No, one doesn’t.

Yet almost all major religious scriptures, not Christian only, refer to these mysterious, unseen beings from another plane, a parallel reality. Furthermore – per polls and statistics – many believe in, at least admit to the possibility of, the existence of angels, by whatever name.

If they exist, whence do they come, who called them forth, who directs them, what or who are they?

In this technological age, full of the wonderments of human ingenuity, it’s perhaps a preposterous idea, or ideal; wishful thinking of the naive.

Yet if they DO exist; doing wondrous things, keeping from harm, keeping ‘fools from rushing in,’ correcting our course, downright saving us from certain disaster; then where are they when thousands die in wars, famines, genocide; when calamity destroys, hurts, maims, slays? Why would they grab some by the scruff of the neck, so to speak, and save them from going over, under, awry and leave others to some horrible fate?

Ah, yes! The faith-shaking question of the ages that the wise, profound and learned have pondered for millennia. (e.g. C.S. Lewis’s The Question of Pain.)

And yet some of us, having been around for some time, having been there and having done that, feel quite sure that there ARE benevolent ethereal beings; angels, if you will. If you’ve had an open mind, open to the whisperings of the universe; were willing to discern, feel, hear, absorb, allow to enter your soul; then you, too, will have had experiences of seemingly divine intervention, experiences of having been pulled back from the brink, too frequent and similar to have been coincidences or luck. The stories and incidents we could tell you about.

And the urge we have to knock on wood.

Ted Kohlmetz

Medicine Hat

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