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Tuesday 15 February 2022

Thing To Be Today: an angel.

 Angel-type beings come in quite a few shapes and sizes. One Christian league-table goes (most powerful first) seraphim, cherubim. thrones, dominions. virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and then, at the bottom, angels.

So, given that angels are the weakest and weediest,  being an angel can't really be that hard, can it?

Be an angel and make me a cup of tea.

Oh! Just what I wanted, a pair of socks. You're an angel!

You've finished that report? You really are an angel.

(I must note, here, that angels in religion are usually male, and those on Earth are almost always female. I don't even dare to think about why this might be.)

Technically, angels are heaven-inhabiting servants of God. Occasionally one goes bad, but they're usually helpful, doing stuff like carrying messages, guarding people, driving malefactors out of the Garden of Eden, that kind of thing.

Oh, and painting floors.

Oh yes. I've been painting a floor myself, and the instructions on the tin of varnish says that it's re-coatable in two hours, but that you can't walk on the stuff for twenty-four.

Angels is the only possibility I can imagine.

angels by Raphael


Thing To Be Today: an angel. This word was engel in Old English. The Latin form was angelus and the Greek form was angelos, which meant messenger. Before that, in Mycenaean Linear B, the word was a-ke-ro. There's a Persian word, angaros, which means mounted courier, which might be linked to the word angel, too.



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