Dear Brain
I am the echo of your breath. In quietude, before and after sleep, you may hear me if you are attentive. I should be a consolation, a guarantee that your application for admittance to heaven is still being considered.
I can be terrifying, however, especially when the conscience is justifiably restive after you have perpetrated an evil deed. Then I pulsate and become thunderous in your ears until the guilt drives you from your bed and you pine for instant forgiveness from the evil with which you have become besotted.
Your physical exertions may temporarily silence me but I am always there, always.
Drive me out and you are doomed. You cannot see me because I am not flesh and blood nor am I of the world. At my most visible I am a tiny haze that ups and downs in front of your eyes, that sometimes hangs suspended and moves only in unison with your eyes. Sometimes when you are spiritually pure and possessed of the grace of God, otherwise known as peace of mind, you will catch a glimpse of me in your eyes if you stand before a mirror. Settle for the glimpse for I am not at liberty to reveal myself in full.
I am what you would like to be but cannot because of your human shackles. You are in perpetual bondage to your appetites. I am there to leaven the natural evil which you have inherited. I am the antidote for despair. ’Ware these sins above all or I may be driven out; despair, pride and greed and scandalise not the little ones. Remember my friend that you are at this time of life but a russetting leaf. Your summer greenery is long blemished. You could drift downwards at any time. You would not survive a mortal storm and yet you still persist in bringing the winds of tumult upon your head. You flutter before the endearments of mild winds. Imagine your chances in a gale and yet you will persist in gambling with your destiny at this autumnal stage of your lifely proceedings. You would still sport and play beyond the confines of propriety as if there was no God. How often have you foolishly told yourself that things will be all right on the day, that the good you have done outweighs the evil. You foolish fellow. It is not you who will be holding the scales.
You are drifting towards the rocks and your barque is a fragile one, already partially decomposed from the buffeting to which you have exposed it over the years. I do what I can and will do what I can but you must improve if I am to be successful in my advocacy. I once heard you say in your devilishly logical way to another drunken companion:
‘Why should we be isolated to outer darkness because our so-called saviour suffered for a few hours on a cross?’
He suffered all his life for you and your likes, you insignificant ingrate. Without His arrival the world would be in a state of darkness so terrible that it would be impossible to distinguish it from hell. There would be nothing sacred, nothing to which a man might cling. It is His spirit which maintains the light which is the repository of love, truth, beauty and compassion. Without His perpetual presence you would be less than a shadow.
How often have you denied God as a justification for your self-indulgence.
‘There’s no God,’ comes the pitiable bleat from you and other apostles of despair and depravity. Remember that day by the sea when the white breakers foamed and thundered under a blue sky and a rising wind. Your breath was taken away as you gazed enraptured. I stood with you and rejoiced in the glory of God. Remember the old priest who knew you as a boy. He wandered past with his cane and dog.
‘Isn’t it lovely, Father!’ you called out.
‘It is indeed, Tommy,’ he replied gravely. ‘There is a God there after all.’
‘What has God got to do with it?’ You put the question silently to yourself but that old priest seemed to hear.
‘Man didn’t make this day,’ said he. ‘Nor did he make this scene and if it wasn’t man it can’t have been the Board of Works so it has to be somebody else, Tommy.’
When your face assumed a slightly mutinous look he spoke again.
‘We don’t have to call Him God, Tommy. What’s in a name, lad?’
He passed by, a smile on his face. Later that day you were to argue in a hotel bar that God was too grave, that there was no humour in the Gospels, that they were the only books from which you never received a laugh. Point taken Tommy. Point taken. The Gospels are full of laughter, Tommy, because they are full of love and truth and these are the fathers and mothers of internal laughter, not the coarse, drunken guffaws which can be heard in public houses and lavatories. Have this laughter by all means but do not deny the existence of other other laughter.
Why do you think nuns go around smiling all the time? Why do so many priests and nuns and other people of God radiate so much laughter? It is because they rejoice in the glory and goodness of the Creator. You know me all your life, Tommy, and yet you do not know me at all because you have never taken the trouble to know me. That is why I now write to you, to beseech you not to dawdle in the mire of debauch while you might be uplifted by goodness and beauty. It is essential that we get to know each other soon so that we might resolve our differences so that I might contribute to the making of the good man you can still be and ought to be. Then would I salute you. Then would I say to the world:
‘Come look at my pupil, at what he has made of himself, of what he is prepared to be. Come and behold the man who has come in from the darkness and now stands in the light.’
I do not expect you to stay in the light, Tom, old son. Just stay as near as you can. I accept your humanity for what it is, a continuing blight for which there is no permanent cure. All I want from you is an honest effort every so often and you will see that the sum of these efforts will pave the way for something outstanding between us, will bring us together as we were never together. It is my bounden duty to ensure that you are set on the road to true enlightenment. If I could accomplish this it would make me a very happy Guardian Angel. It would also make you into something special.
I wonder if you have ever noted certain priests and nuns and other sacred people who quietly yet elegantly shine their ways through a world which is darker than it is bright. Sometime it would be greatly to your benefit if you were to engage briefly in conversation with such people. You would see at once that they are God’s people. God lets it be known that they are His people because He shines through them and He has given to their countenances a grace-filled radiance and a loveliness which can be inspiring.
You may if you wish catch glimpses of the Creator in the way these sanctified persons disport themselves, in the way they live and, indeed, in the way they die.
Look to them then and at them and absorb the tranquillity which they generate and you may come to know the true value of yourself. You will not be able to conceive of wrong while you are in their presence. They are to be found everywhere but mostly where there is need for them. They are the unselfish, the concerned, the compassionate, the forgiving. Those are the persons whose presences I always long to encounter.
I know, dear Tommy, that you may never be one of these but by talking to them and perhaps walking with them the meaning of earthly loveliness will be revealed to you. God visits every face but many faces are incapable of hosting Him for any length of time. Others are so steeped in evil that they turn from Him. I saw you turn, Tom, but your ensuing guilt gave me hope for you.
I wish I could precisely define my make-up for you. Firstly I am an angel, probably the most inferior form of an angel but an angel nevertheless. I am approved by heaven and I am composed of love and compassion. Also in me is the goodness of the people who went before you, your father, your grandparents, your uncles and aunts and relatives who have gone into heaven, your friends, and well-wishers who have followed. All of these are in my make-up and they have empowered me to look after you. In me there can be no evil although I may brush with evil on a daily basis. In me is total well-being for you from the angels and saints of the heavens and the almighty God who watches over all. My commission is to request you to be generous and caring towards your fellow-humans, to be considerate in your treatment of all people from the lowly to the highest and to let love of your fellow man and your God pervade your make-up to such a degree that evil cannot thrive there. Most important of all, of course, is that you should respect yourself.
I am different from the sixth sense in that I have a link with your Creator. The sixth sense is your physical custodian but I am your spiritual custodian. It is my function to preserve you and to present you whole and clean at the end of your days in order to justify my visitation with you and to ensure that you will have as good a chance of salvation as the next man. Nobody knows better than I the terrible burden you have to bear and the temptations that beset you from morning till night. However, you are spiritually well equipped to bear this burden and to resist temptation.
I am your alter ego except that I do not suffer from physical or moral contamination. Pollute me too much by your thoughts or deeds and you will render me ineffective. I am the sacred cocoon through which you would foolishly burst and vanish irretrievably were I not on guard for your sake and yours alone throughout my stay with you.
I will never desert you. If there is desertion you are the one who will do it. By my angelic nature I cannot and will not forsake you. Without me you have no armour against evil. You may escape your conscience from time to time. You may even escape permanently but you will never shrug me off. I will be there at the last day to stand up for you. I ask little in return, just one thing. Few people know, and you are not one of the few, that my feast day occurs on the second day of October. I would ask you to take yourself aside on that day and consider me. Do not pray for me. Rather pray to me. I have no need of prayer being an angel but it is my duty to foster prayer in you. May I say also that I would not be averse to having a few celebratory drinks with you on my feast day provided that you not over-indulge. Still I must concede that I would rather see you half-drunk on my behalf than to suffer the disappointment of your not remembering me at all.
You have never, once in your life, lifted a glass to me. I can accept this from people who do not indulge in intoxicating liquor but it is indefensible that men who drink for every known reason and often for no reason at all are not prepared to toast their Guardian Angel.
Remember my feast day then with prayers for yourself and your own and the salvation of those near and dear to you as well as the salvation of all well-meaning humans on the face of the globe. I am there all right; make no mistake about that. If you have a heart you must admit to a soul and if you have a soul you must admit to a conscience and if you have a conscience you must admit to having a Guardian Angel. All the spiritual aspects and all the physical aspects of the body resemble, in some ways, a deck of playing cards. Some have more value than others but it is the way the cards are played that shows their real importance in the game of life, which is the most bewildering and often most macabre game of all.
There was a night when you stopped to admire a particularly dazzling sky of stars. It was a frosty midnight in the month of December. You had just departed the lovely Lily Lieloly and your young heart was singing. Hearts have been known to sing when love is present and yours is no exception. You marvelled at the magnificence of the midnight sky. That was as close as you ever got to me, Tommy Scam. I was pleased with you that night. I gave you a spiritual pat on the head and endeavoured to infuse in you a greater love of God’s creations. The moment passed all too quickly. The gentle images of the stars were driven from your mind by sinister and obscene thoughts of the heavenly creature to whom you had so recently bade goodbye.
I don’t know what’s to become of you at all. Should you be taken suddenly by a fatal seizure you would be poorly prepared for a confrontation with your maker and even I as a sympathetic go-between would be hard put to defend you. That is why I urgently entreat you to consider your position. Let us look at yesterday alone. There were no morning prayers before you undertook the business of the day. You failed to contribute a full day’s work in return for the money you earned. You left your employers short but oh! what an outcry there would be if they left you short!
All through the day you entertained immoral thoughts about the new secretary who occupies a seat directly in front of you; difficult to blame you altogether for this. A young, short skirt and an old and dirty mind are important ingredients in the recipe for sexual debauch of the mental variety. You inflicted continuing harm on your much-abused stomach by substituting three whiskies for the soup and sandwiches which your body so desperately needed and once you get the taste of whiskey there is no holding you until total drunkeness sets in. What a way to end a day! Drunk and insensible, unable to eat the delightful meal which your wife prepared for you and nary a prayer from your sinful mouth before that intrepid and often fatal journey though the watches of the night.
You have always taken more out of the world than you can ever possibly put back into it. Still, as Paul says: ‘I will be with you all the days even unto the consummation of the world,’ but after that we may well find ourselves in a parlous puddle from which there may be no redemption.
There is still hope, however, as long as I am with you. You may still aspire and the lower a man has descended the easier it is for him to climb.
I am there to be emulated. Always remember that. With me as with God all things are possible and the best thing about God, because of the greatness of His love, is that He frequently allows Himself to be taken in by the last-minute repentances of lifelong reprobates as long as the sorrow is genuine and the firm resolve to sin no more is present.
Sincerely
Your Guardian Angel