Let’s Talk About Angel Movies (and Hope When All Seems Lost)

The angels in the movie are strange bunches. Take that malicious crew with you Prophecy Series, Jewish Combatant Legion (2010) or unhelpful Cherubim in Constantine (2006). Then there is Wim Wenders’ spiritual meditation. Wings of desire (1987) skillfully recreates it as a romance Angel’s City (1998). In both photos, the angel-like majority is made up of watchers, Bene Haerohim Compare and observe the works and notes of ancient Jews standing. Except for a few who can’t resist a deadly woman. With such angels, who needs the devil?

I like movie angels who seem to be more interested in serving God than I do. Even if it’s in a dugout.

first Outfield Angel (1951) is characterized by an outspoken and often rude angel who pursues redemption of difficult baseball coaches on the plains. DisneyThe 1994 remake features a fun team of angels working to help orphans desperately to God rather than win a championship. Consider The field of dreams (1989). Did the ball player cross from the afterlife? Are they angels? Or both? The answer may seem obvious, but I’m not that sure.

James Kugel, professor emeritus of Hebrew at Harvard University and Bah Iran University in Israel, suggests that there is a distinction between God, Angels and God’s messengers. It’s completely blurry. For example, before the events explained in, it was common knowledge among the ancient Israelites. Daniel’s Bookthe angels had no name to eat, drink, or eat. However, the heavenly visitors were offered food and asked to identify themselves when they were called to the wives of Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Jacob and Manoah. It was unclear who they were. Kugel suggests that it is “a moment of confusion, the sign of God’s encounter.” We can withstand the shock of these experiences, as in God’s mercy, God seems to give us a special vision, a kind of spiritual mist. The problem is not the form of God’s manifestation, but as Kugel says, “What God say It’s quite realistic. ”

Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Ellie Wiesel agree that as they shake up biblical identity, we may miss the point. Hebrew is usually translated as an angel, Mal’akhsimply means an envoy or messenger. After his famous Wrestling matchJacob did not speak of man, angel, dreams, or visions. “He spoke about God,” Wiesel said. I’ll observe. “From the conflict with God, Jacob won, but he limped. He would never be the same again.”

Such contrasts can lose importance in interaction with the invisible world. “Religious teachings recognize Mysteries of LifeGrief expert Edgar Jackson advises. For example, when a mother calls her dead child an angel, none of us bald. Genesis, Exodus, Ezekieland revelation. Rather, the term is one of comfort and hope. Children who have died from stillbirths or miscarriages are often referred to as angel babies as a way to remember and respect them in anticipation of future reunions.

I know how I feel.

In 1999, after midnight, I was driving on a dark highway towards Raleigh, North Carolina. My daughter fell asleep when she left Richmond, Virginia, but now she’s awake and bored with her regular CD. Scan the radio station. Jess is 10 years old and is hoping for his latest hit. Instead, we landed in 1959 at Mark DiningTeen Angel. ”

I will never kiss your lips again, they buried you today.
Teen Angel, can you hear it? Teen Angel, can you see me?
Are you somewhere above, am I still your own true love?
Teen Angel, Teen Angel, please answer.

Jess laughs with breath. “Daddy, I’m crying!” I smile warmly in the light of my dashboard. The song is one of the most popular and sentimental ballads of the 1950s. Then she surprises me. “It’s not a song,” Jess says. “I just met her and I already miss her so much.” Now I’m torn. I put my hands on both of hers. “I know, baby.”

We spent the day at the museum with my girlfriend. My girlfriend drove from New York to attend an exhibition in ancient Egypt. This was the first time Jess has met her in person, but she feels the growth of her obsession with my wife and the woman who will become her stepmother. So our shared sadness.

Jess passed away in 2015. That day, in Richmond, I bought a small onyx pyramid from a gift shop. It was less than 2 inches tall and symbolized the gold leaf Egyptian hieroglyphs. She kept it for the rest of her life. Today, I pause as I write, gently press the tip of the triangle into the palm of my hand, reminiscing about a sad, magical, timeless night for both of us. Gestures are touch. I guarantee that Jess exists in this world and that our love will last forever.

“My angel, my little angel, you want to fly away!” His youngest child, Keens Friedrich Rückert, as a 3-year-old Luise, is almost dying. “Would you like to stay?” As she walks past, her grieving father writes that he still feels her with him. Rückert is relieved by the idea that his daughter is mentally with them. It seems that this is assumed to be read as figurative. It also flies in the face of the living reality of bereavement, as revealed by another poem written after Luise’s death:

Angels float around us wherever we go.
The angels surround us.
But in the light, we cannot grasp who
By what name they call them.

Shall we turn our backs, are we too bright?
Are we too blind?
No, we see your joy in the light:
You are known. We will call you by your name.
Laugh, you help us to see and know:
Wherever you go, you hover around us.

Rückert suggests that we are unaware of the angels around us. As years go by, his poems become more mysterious in nature. Written by hospice care expert J. Todd Dubose Journal of Religion and Health That grief immediately affects our internal perceptions of our physical experiences and our perceptions of the physical and intangible world. These may help us to deal with loneliness and loss. He often experiences hips and talks about her place in heaven and talking to family on earth.

Experts identify the type of inner vision that Rückert describes as follows: An extraordinary experience It helps to maintain ongoing ties with the deceased and promote recognition of death. There is a question as to whether the parents of the family actually see the child who died in a mystical encounter, or whether they will see the child who died as part of a “personal myth.” Julie Parker (Halifax Community College) wrote in the Journal of Death and Dying omega Such a feeling is often to contribute to a spiritual or religious belief system that nurtures healthy grief, as the bereaved family adapts to life without a loved one.

But it doesn’t hit me. If our dead interact with us, are they God’s messengers? It reminds me of the last scene Black woman (2012). The honorable ghost gathers the souls of children. She tries to lock up the young son of a widowed father. Our heroes jump in front of an approaching train to save the boy. They are both killed, but his sacrifice inspires the spiritual presence of his late wife, the boy’s mother, leading them to heaven. “What is in heaven resonates on earth,” writes Luckert. Most of us would agree. Just like in this scene, there are intertwined with invisible visible worlds.

Such a sacred visit appears to be a solid gift in Christian theology. We believe that our soul is eternal. We believe that our dead are with God. We believe that God interacts with humanity in countless ways. We believe that God is love. Also, in His grace, does God believe that our death may allow us to communicate with us? That’s what CS Lewis thought. Above March 27, 1951shortly after Vera Matthews’s father lost, Lewis writes a comforting letter worthy of serious reading.

I feel very strongly (and I am not alone in this), I feel that I am born from someone who is born out of death in the months or weeks after death. I think my father helped me a lot after he died. . . . Certainly, they often seem to be close to us at that time.

Lewis’ ideas are nothing new in the world. Martin Luther, who is himself a survivor, has approved of the contemporary story about one mother who has experienced a dead child. “This account is not narrated as a dream, Actual eventa real encounter between a grieving mother and her son,” says historian Anna Linton (Kings College London).

My daughter, Jess, passed away on Friday, January 16th, 2015. The next Monday, I am in a busy department store, leaning against my cart, wandering vaguely. I know nothing about sadness. Or, more precisely, I know that everyone has to learn.

Suddenly a man is in front of me. He wears the employee’s uniform. I notice his beard and stabbing eyes. “May I Help you? “He asks in measured words.

I shop there regularly, but I never met him again in the store. A few months later, I ask a shift manager who has been in the chain about her workers for many years. I’ll explain about him. “No, there was no one like that,” she says kindly. “I have a lot of mustaches, but no beards.”

angel? perhaps. Or someone else who is flawed when I’m flawed and that behavior means that when Jesus says we are when we help others Serve him. “We see people who know that all hope is lost and still don’t give up,” Angel Michael tells us Legion. “Some people who find themselves lost have been found.”

The angels in the film ensure that we are not alone in the dark, linguist Marcelein Winninger Robano Amazing Journal of Art. “Their film relevance is the same as their theological relevance,” says Rovano. “Angels remind us that there is more to creation than we can observe with five senses.” They are the connection between the earth and heaven, providing guidance in life and comfort in death.

As the priest and poet John O’Donohew wrote in his book Beauty: An invisible embrace:

The deaths are far away or lacking. They are with us. When we kill someone, we lose their physical image and existence, and they slide from visible form to invisible beings. This change in form is why we cannot see the death. But we can’t see them, so that doesn’t mean they’re not there. The dead, transformed into eternal form, cannot reverse the journey, and cannot even re-enter their old form again to last with us for a while. They cannot reappear, but they remain close to us, and part of the healing of sadness is the refinement of our minds, which will make us feel their loving closeness.

As we ourselves enter the eternal world and begin to fully see our lives on earth, we may be amazed at the enormous aid and support that our departed loved ones have accompanied us at every moment of our lives. In their new, transformed beings, their compassion, understanding, and love assume the depths of God, allowing them to guide the unfolding of our destiny and become secret angels to evacuate.

This is why I enjoy Angel movies. Not because of epic struggles or fantasy bravery, but because they offer hope. “We’re always watching,” the voice reminds us at the end of 1994 Outfield Angel. We feel the truth of his promise. If the angels are messengers from God, it may be that we will meet them every day.