Mortality, the Great Angel Said
A soul came to the great angel, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, as terrible as an army with banners.
What do you wish
The soul looked down and would not answer.
What do you wish
The soul steeled himself to answer though his courage fled.
What do you wish
The soul blurted, I wish to be the Hero of Ages.
Granted
The great angel beckoned to a door.
Through that door you must perform a ritual. It is very brief. However, be warned. You must perform the ritual correctly as I shall show you. Parts of the liturgy are left to you to devise, but you must devise them well. Finally, you will be sorely tested during the rite.
If you succeed, you will become the great Hero of the Ages
The soul moved towards the door, then turned back. What is this ritual called?
Mortality, the great angel said.
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Zen
January 31, 2023
I have heard of a medieval legend that fairies (or was it elves?) were angels who were neutral in the war in Heaven, and have been diminishing since then.
E.C.
January 31, 2023
@ Zen,
It was elves, and yes, there are scores of stories that center around that conceit, Thomas the Rhymer being only one of them.
@ G,
An excellent story, one that resonates with truth. What high adventure we’ve been called to, to live through mundanity with that view!
Zen
January 31, 2023
Fascinating. The overlap of implied pre-existence and early-ish Christianity kind of makes me wonder, if this wasn’t a forgotten teaching. Are there really such a thing as Elves? This is just an unusual place for teaching implied pre-existence.
I don’t take Elves seriously, but I don’t quite rule it out either.
Pardon if I have taken the discussion too far off topic.
G
February 1, 2023
Zen, I think that is less likely to be the remnant of a forgotten teaching and more likely to be a convergence because the idea just pops out in certain kinds of framing and settings.
In this story, for instance, I wasn’t consciously thinking of the pre-existence it’s just that framing the whole thing is an encounter that happens before mortality was a very useful way to give perspective on mortality. But without even thinking about it I ended up doing the pre-existence that way.
There’s something similar with you astonishing vision that CS Lewis had at the end of the great divorce where he sees these towering eternal beings moving their mortal bodies like chess pieces on a board
Zen
February 1, 2023
G, I expect you are correct. Still, there are just little odd things, little bits of weirdness in the Gospel that are never explained. Like St George and the Dragon, or the Dragons mentioned in passing in the Book of Mormon.
Perhaps it is nothing at all, but I hesitate to mundane-ify everything I can’t explain.
And to me, it is plausible that there were beings that attempted to be neutral in the War in Heaven. And what would we call them?
Hamlet’s line to Horatio about his philosophy always rings loudly in my ear, despite my STEM degree.
Rozy
February 1, 2023
How many things are literal and how many are figural. Satan is called a serpent and a dragon. Many prophets, seeing the latter days lacked the vocabulary to name the things they saw so they likened them to things they knew or knew of.
I believe that because all “nations” at one time or another had the gospel, there are echos of truth everywhere in the stories and myths and legends of all nations. Won’t it be great when the records of all these nations come forth and we can read the truths and many plain and precious things from them.