Watch out when angels sing on a bus

Nestled in the middle of a 66 passenger poop-colored bus, as Ralph described it, the holy duo (the angels Frank and Ralph) were headed to hit a few of Cripple Creek’s casinos. From the billboard advertisements Frank expected the bus trip would educate the angels on dancing and other human merriments. That sociological schooling degree in human frivolity is another story. 

However, on their almost apocalyptic ride there, through valley stretches from Divide into former gold country hillsides, Frank became mesmerized by the stunning scenery outside while simultaneously addled by the smokey, bourbon soaked atmosphere inside. He was lulled into an empyrean ecstasy triggered by the hypnotic chatter among the aged crowd of fellow travelers. Their soulful and sad, bloodshot rasped repartee mirrored the mournful background noises outside Jesus’ tomb a short two thousand years ago. 

Frank would soon sing, an apocalyptic response from an unforgotten trauma, and this was not a good time for that to happen.

Beautiful, decisive angelic voices will announce God's return


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072219.cfm
II Corinthians 5:14-17
John 20:1-2, 11-18


Frank and Ralph didn’t attend Mass in Woodland Park because they couldn’t find a place high enough to perch themselves. Since they have become visible to creation, rafter sitting is difficult to explain. That is, according to the confines of human logic in the 21st Century after Jesus’ birth. In any other age it makes sense without any explanation at all.

Angels naturally look for a location above everyone else when attending religious events. It’s a ten dimension locus calculation, not some better-than-thou thing. Consequently, the two retired angels regularly go to the 7:30 a.m. Sunday service at Holy Rosary Chapel in Cascade. The choir loft sits within inches of the celling. A perfect spot for two traditionalists. They are, after all, the former Guardian Angels to Jesus of Nazareth. Decorum may not be everything, but it is important.

Frank sings like an angel. Of course. For all angels in heaven this is a good thing. On earth, not so much. Sing too much like an angel and the path of God’s plan can be adversely affected. Both Frank and Ralph were plopped into creation for respite, a period of rest after thousands of years of service. Also for some other yet untold reason. Singing angels, though, must hold their voices in the presence of humanity. The current post resurrection age cannot handle even just two of the heavenly choir. The time for heavenly angel’s voices has not yet arrived. 

Unfortunately, Frank forgot himself and sang in public. That was just a few weeks ago. He had not sung a note since he and Raph’s appropriate and expected mournful dirge at Jesus’ pre-resurrectional weekend in Joseph’s tomb. He sidled into angelic song on a bus ride. 

Nestled in the middle of a 66 passenger poop-colored bus, as Ralph described it, the holy duo were headed to hit a few of Cripple Creek’s casinos. From the billboard advertisements Frank expected the bus trip would educate the angels on dancing and other human merriments. That sociological schooling degree in human frivolity is another story. Our singing angel story deals with the ride to the Casinos. On their almost apocalyptic ride through a few lovely valley stretches, they left the intersectional town of  Divide and headed into the former gold country hillsides of Cripple Creek. 

Frank became mesmerized by the stunning scenery outside while simultaneously addled by the smokey, bourbon soaked atmosphere inside. He was lulled into an empyrean ecstasy triggered by the hypnotic chatter among the aged crowd of fellow travelers. The traveler's soulful and sad, bloodshot rasped repartee mirrored the mournful background noises from Frank and Ralph's past. The moaning, unhappy folks on the bus sounded just like sorrowful mourners outside of Jesus’ tomb a short two thousand years ago. 

Frank and Ralph stood inside that tomb for three dark days, heads hung low, bent by incomprehensible horror over Jesus’ motionless corpse. They had failed their charge. The Son of God, the incarnation of God the Father, the vessel to ignite the Holy Spirit directly into creation itself, lay dead. Just a few days earlier Jesus had uncharacteristically held their powers at bay. Out of respect and duty, but with little acquiescence, they stood by. They had not been able to move Jesus to safety. In one shocking change of behavior, there at Gethsemane, Jesus allowed the soldiers to take him. He told Frank and Ralph to stand still, and even rebuked them. The angels did not understand. They had always whisked Jesus away from harm. Recently, they averted a failed stoning of the Christ. It stood as an apex moment in a constant protection campaign that began from the moment of Jesus' conception. 

Such is the life of guardian angels. They protect against all harm without analysis or discussion. Unless their armor and selves are stayed by the hand of God, that is. Jesus had stayed their hands. The worst case imaginable for guardians of any human then happened. Jesus was not just any man, doomed to die. He was God become man. The religious and governing authorities crucified Jesus. God, they had been certain, would not expose himself to death. What happened?

Even for angels — uncompromising in their trust and loyalty to God, no matter the oddest of twists and turns in creation’s history — the undeniable death of Jesus destroyed them. It made no sense. As they held their watch over his linen wrapped body, reports came in that the Spirit of Jesus had descended into Hell. The angels fell weakened in their core, spiritual bodies thrown to the ground. Shaken, they believed that all was lost. They were to blame. 

But for the strange silence of celebration from the demons who circled the earth with increasing alarm just before Jesus’ death on the cross, Frank and Ralph would have slipped into eternal comas. That peculiar reaction, a lack of demonic noise, was all that gave them pause.

Angels do not shiver. They fade into deeper levels of transparency, hiding from everything but God himself. Yet, the axiomatic God, the only God who is and has always been, also fell silent. Nothing but the ethereal whispers of angels traveled across dominions wondering about the purpose of Jesus' death. Jesus was born into human history, at his own hand, for reasons angels didn't know. No one, though, expected his demise. Even Jesus, surely still in divine existence, did not acknowledge them, whisper to them, hush them, or display his presence in any way. The angels were forced, like everyone else, to suffer upon the reality of Jesus' crucifixion and death. 

Through the excruciating seventy plus hours of dirge and dismay in that tomb, hovering uselessly over the unimaginable death of God, Frank and Ralph slowly merged into the gravel, dust and rock which surrounded them. Without God, they would disappear and die. 

Frank began to sing as the horror of Jesus’ death gripped his interstellar being. His tenor matched his soprano, and his alto wafted the two choral parts into a frightening warble over the loss of God. Eventually Ralph replied to Frank's song, a gutteral, hollering hallow bellow, which rolled away the stone that darkened their space. Light immediately shone where they lay on the ground inside the tomb. They rose to their knees, watching the light move to the now empty burial stone that held only the loosely left wrappings of Jesus’ body.

We know what happened next. Now, we do. Jesus rose from the dead. The trauma of that lengthy time of unknown eventuality, however, filled the celestial psyche of Frank’s memory. A memory he won’t be able to fully extinguish until the next age. Ralph recovered from the trauma. His trust renewed. Frank’s restoration continues.

Therein, we go to the Cripple Creek excursion. The mournful setting in the tomb, where unholy disbelief in the tomb rattled even the strongest of angels, returned in full replay to Frank on that the bus on the road toward Cripple Creek. The 66 souls of angst that filled the bus triggered the worst moments of Frank’s memory. The still horrifying pain rose again, an extraterrestrial memory. He heard the same funereal pattern of sounds that filled the background outside where the tomb’s mourners cried and wailed. Now on a parody of doom, a sorry ride with droopy eyed mourners, took Frank back to the dank place of his rattled being, He began to sing again. 

The melodious song of an angel captivates the human heart, preparing it for the coming of God; or, unfortunately, prepares some hearts for God’s exit. As Frank’s humming slowly escalated into the triple cantor alto/tenor/soprano gifting of his celestial capabilities all chatter ceased on the bus. Some women began to swoon. A few fell into the aisle. Plastic cups of alcohol spilled as they dropped. 

Most of the men cried quietly, falling forward in awful surrender. The bus driver dropped his hands. He was the only person to look upwards. He stared beyond the windshield into what he believed were dancing clouds hovering on the mountain tops. He could feel God calling him. Ralph surveyed the people, realizing the driver must be a believer. Perhaps the only one there, but no longer piloting the bus. Ralph flew from his seat — in between the seconds of real time — to steer the vehicle from flying off the road. He did this while figuring out, after a few failed attempts, that the flat left foot pedal would brake the boxy machine. Turning off the key only stopped the engine. It took him a few minutes to work everything out properly.

After resting the bus perilously close to the sharp edges of a steep cliff, Ralph rushed back to Frank. He grabbed his cheeks and bellowing into him to stop singing. Frank awoke from melting into the naugahyde seat, and his voice silenced. 

“You smell like poppy seeds,” Frank said to Ralph.

No one on the bus knew where the apocalyptic sounds of angelic concerto came from. That would be beyond human imagination anyway. Only the actual apocalypse will explain the meaning of the angel’s voices. (I believe we will hear either redemption or condemnation — for most of us that will be probably a little of one and a lot of the other.) In more than a few minutes everyone gathered themselves back into their normal bus ride states. The driver simply assumed he had pulled over for some good reason. He checked the riders behind him. Everyone and everything looked correct, because a number of people had amazingly remained in steady-held cigarette stupors. Except for a few of the fallen women’s spilt bourbons, which actually looked pretty normal to the driver, the demeanor of everyone returned to their incomplete sentences and blathering mumbles. The bus driver levered for a left hand merge with his blinker and resumed the trip. 

"I think he was in the middle of a rosary," Ralph said the Frank, who was still groggy in his ethereal mind.

Ralph then wisely suggested that Frank needed another outlet for his recovering psychosis. Maybe he could hide his voice within the Holy Rosary Chapel’s choir. "For catharsis," Ralph explained. “Mustn’t let that happen again, eh Frank?”

Frank agreed. Not embarrassed, since that’s outside the emotional range of an angel. Just practical. Unnecessarily triggering the apocalypse might not be possible in reality, but why take the chance for even the smallest group of folks? Probably too early to send people off to hell. If they're still alive, they're potential saints. That's been the golden rule for angels since after the flood.

For an angel, singing is a necessary part of existence. Frank clearly needed to sing. Ralph did not sing. Not that he couldn’t. His full bass voice, in fact, is legendary in heaven. Ralph could wait. From time immemorial, literally, Ralph had held the high honor of the bass vocal trumpeter (yes, that’s a thing) in the holy angelic choir. He fully expected to sit at the left hand bass cotillion of the choir of angels for all time, where he would regularly announce the beginning of divine adoration. That was not to be. God abducted Ralph and Frank from the choir for other work.

Their first fully adventurous assignment took place when Ralph and Frank went with the Son of God to save Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego from expiring in the burning furnace. It was Ralph’s voice that held back the flames from melting the three boys. Like humans an angel’s exhaled breath holds no oxygen. Very clever of the Son to employ Ralph for harboring men from fire. Frank’s triple vocals held back the heat. From that point on the two of them were inextricably assigned as a team, almost always at the Son’s side. 

At first, their assignments were complimentary to God’s work. Later they were guardians of his very person. Now, they were, well … together, living in creation’s realm, doing their little parts. Waiting for something yet to come. 

Still, they are quite good singers.

Ralph’s voice, though, has no temper. He can’t be lulled into singing, fortunately. It’s like an on and off switch that only God controls. Anger doesn’t trigger it, nor does exasperation — two angelic emotions that should not be exhibited. Ralph only sings when the Son, incarnated as Jesus, charges him to do so. Frank is entirely syncopated with heaven’s celestial interventions, exhibited when the choir gathers together. He has no clear notion of when the choir will be announcing the end of the age, so he remains ready for a general call to throats, so to speak. Ralph figures if that time comes he might yet boom out his voice again, hopefully to announce Jesus’ return. 

One can dream, right?

So, from the averted bus drive disaster, until the actual apocalyptic time, neither Frank or Ralph will fully sing out. Ralph not at all. Frank just in minor, untoward breaths.

“I imagine we’ll be singing together at some momentous occasion,” Frank told Ralph. He touched the church ceiling, a fond reminder of their early roles in heaven’s worship places.

“Yes,” Ralph agreed. “You know, though. When they’re done here today I hope they have some more of those poppy-seed muffins with coffee in the back of church.”

“Me too,” nodded Frank, happy his latent tomb trauma had been further tempered by a calming, regularly occurring smell. That would be Ralph’s second favorite muffin, the poppy-seed. Next to bran muffins, of course.

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