The Parable of the Angel

            A parable is told of an angel who came to visit the earth. He found himself in the usual stream of human activities and he listened to the conversations of people. For the first time he heard negative comments. Someone who was supposed to be an authority said that there might be a war and human life would be destroyed. And he read in the newspaper of a great epidemic of illness. And someone who certainly should have known explained in great detail that the financial hardships were certain to limit all of us. He heard that there was not enough good to go around, the world was not going to be able to produce enough food for everyone, and people were going to starve to death.

            He began to wonder if these things might not be true, and even as he entertained the thoughts of negation to which he was listening, the brightness of his angelic presence faded into dark shadows. His form seemed to shrivel, and looking at himself he saw that he was dressed as a human being, walking the earth in fear, doubt, and uncertainty.

            And so the weary years went by, years of unhappiness and impoverishment and dread, years so filled with anxiety that he wished he were dead, that some oblivion might forever swallow him up. And yet, even in the midst of all this, something within him remembered that he was once an angel of God, living in a heaven of Beauty and a place of Peace and Joy, living in a Garden of Eden which God had provided for him. And, remembering, a determination arose within him to somehow or other find his way back to this lost paradise.

            This determination grew into a great hope, and as hope was renewed, a Light seemed to shine in the distance; and he seemed to have the courage to travel toward the Light. And gradually a miracle took place. As he traveled toward the Light, he found that shadows were being cast behind him, until finally he so completely entered into the Light that no shadows were cast at all, and he realized that he had been asleep, that he had had a bad dream from which he was awakening.

            To what extent are we all dreaming, and in our dreams seeing the monsters with terrible forms that we have unconsciously built up in our own minds? And we too are asking these forms, “What are you going to do with me? What terrible future do you have in store? What awful experiences are to come now?”

            Perhaps we are still asleep and have not had quite the courage to ask these phantom forms what they are going to do with us, or to listen to the only reply they can make: “There is nothing we can do to you. What are you going to do to us? We are your own creations, you know.”

            St.Paul said, It is high time to awake out of sleep. So let us wake up, and let us be certain that we no longer drug ourselves with the sleeping potion of fear and uncertainty and doubt, but awake into faith and confidence, into peace and joy, into love and happiness. For there is something in us, too, like the angel in the fable, that has never forgotten. There is a Silent Witness at the center of every man’s being which evermore proclaims with the great and beautiful Jesus: Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

From Living in the Science of Mind, by Ernest Holmes