If Only We Could See

Painting: Andrea Pozzo, Guardian Angel

My Guardian Dear

In honor of the Feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2nd, I'm re-sharing our most viewed post of all time. It was originally written when I remembered that the guardian angel prayer was the first one I ever learned (in first grade). 

Ah, the perceptions and innocence of youth...

If my guardian angel were made of flesh instead of pure spirit, I'd be sending him an October feast day present right about now.  Ice packs, splints, ointment, maybe a tin of aspirin - those might be nice tied together with a bright blue bow.  After all, he deserves something appropriate to thank him for putting up with me all these years.

I should have presented him with a box of chocolates after I wasn't expelled on my first day of school.

At that time, I knew little about Religious Sisters.  Only that they wore long black dresses and starched white bonnets.  And I knew that when a student misbehaved, Sister would swoop toward the child "with her beads swinging!!!"  Or so my mother had warned me, using a tone of apocalyptic doom.

I realized, from Mother's words, that the beads were something worn by Sisters.  Now this, to me, was thoroughly exciting.  I positively loved beads; I was enchanted by the gleaming white pearl ones Mother put on when she and Daddy went out for the evening.  I loved colorful glittery beads worn, usually with matching earrings, by my aunts and cousins.  Oh yes, beads were fine things!  Fine, fine things!  They signaled celebration and beauty and times when a lady wore her finest.

I must say, what Sister wore on the first day of school didn't strike me as her finest.  Today must not be particularly special to her, because she arrived unbeaded.  She stood tall and straight beside a cracked slate blackboard, dressed in a stiff white bonnet and a long plain dress of black.  Around her neck, I saw not one single bead.

I still have a sharp memory of my disappointment.  Not only had I expected beads, I'd anticipated lengthy strands of them (after all, they had to be long enough to "swing").  White, gleaming strings of pearls dancing around Sister's neck as she swooooooped.... which was a rather attractive image all on its own to my six year old mind.  I envisioned a large, dark, graceful bird, magically flying forward with its pearly circlet swinging.

But Ah! (I suddenly remembered).  Mother had said I must DO something in order to see the beads swing.  Ah HA!  I suddenly got it.  I had the magic.  I knew the secret. 

I must misbehave.

Sister presented me with the perfect opportunity.  It happened when she told us that whatever we did, no matter what, we MUST NOT WRITE ON OUR DESKS.

Ahhh, that was it.  My ticket to a vision of swinging, gleaming beauty.  I waited until Sister was looking directly at me, I made sure to catch her eye, and I took my big fat long wooden pencil and carved as hard as I could onto the top of my desk.

Here it was:  the moment of swooooooping!  Like a rushing hawk, Sister flew down the aisle between desks and swept toward me.  But oh dear.  She had forgotten her pearls.

And then I saw them.  A long strand of fat black beads had been concealed in the gathers of Sister's skirt all along, and now they were swinging.  Back and forth, with every swish of her dress, they were swinging.  I was so focused on the dark, unshiny beads that What Happened Next has always been a  blur.  It had to do with my being grabbed up from my chair, shaken back and forth a bit (remember that to Sister I must have seemed like the most defiant child in all the universe), and a red-haired classmate looking over at me with thumb in mouth and horror on face.  I don't remember what was said; the scene replays in my mind like a silent movie.  It's just as well.  I didn't know words like defiant and disobedient and disrespectful and wicked yet anyway.  It was probably better to learn those later, in some other way.

(I wonder if my guardian angel just read that last sentence and sighed).

Yes, this story of the swinging beads is true.  And the gratitude to my guardian angel:  that's true as well.  Oh, the scrapes we have seen!  Oh, those sad times when he has watched me race headlong  into sin.  I've gone along my merry, self-appointed, disobedient, defiant path of potential doom so often.  And all the while, he has stayed busy wrestling and fighting and trying to lead me in right paths.  

This is a long overdue public thank you, guardian angel.

Thank you for battling for my soul.


© 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thebreadboxletters.blogspot.com

Even Alone

Painting: William Clarke Wontner

A Vanity of Beads

Has it been only a year since I admitted my blatant first grade disobedience, the act of defiance that for some (surely angelic) reason did not get me immediately expelled from school? I feel I told of it ages ago; probably because I've always clearly remembered taking pencil in hand and writing on my desk, bearing down reeeaally hard with the point, just when I was certain Sister would be watching.

Vanity of vanities, it was all because of the beads.

If you should care to, you can re-visit that story by clicking here. 

Angel of God, my Guardian Dear, thank you for always staying so near.....

Oh My Lord, What a Day

                               'Oh my Lord, what a day
                               when I shall have done once and for all with all sins,
                               and shall stand perfect and acceptable in Your sight,
                               able to bear Your presence, nothing shrinking from Your eye,
                               not shrinking from the scrutiny of angels and archangels,
                               when I stand in the midst and they around me.

                               'Oh my God, though I am not fit to see or touch You yet,
                               still I will ever come within Your reach,
                               and desire that which is not yet given me in its fullness.' 

                               Blessed John Henry Newman

                                         Painting:  Thomas Cooper Gotch, The Awakening

Behold, He is Coming

Be

'Like a secret told by angels,

 getting known upon the earth,  

is the Mother's expectation

of Messiah's speedy birth.'

 

(F. Faber, "Our Lady's Expectations")  


Painting:  Arthur Joseph Gaskin, Annnciation

Oh, the Scrapes We Have Seen!

If my guardian angel were made of flesh instead of pure spirit, I'd be sending him an October feast day present right about now.  Ice packs, splints, ointment, maybe a tin of aspirin - those might be nice tied together with a bright blue bow.  After all, he deserves something appropriate to thank him for putting up with me all these years.

I should have presented him with a box of chocolates after I wasn't expelled on my first day of school.

At that time, I knew little about Religious Sisters.  Only that they wore long black dresses and starched white bonnets.  And I knew that when a student misbehaved, Sister would swoop toward the child "with her beads swinging!!!"  Or so my mother had warned me, using a tone of apocalyptic doom.

I realized, from Mother's words, that the beads  were something worn by Sisters.  Now this, to me, was thoroughly exciting.  I positively loved beads; I was enchanted by the gleaming white pearl ones Mother put on when she and Daddy went out for the evening.  I loved colorful glittery beads worn, usually with matching earrings, by my aunts and cousins.  Oh yes, beads were fine things!  Fine, fine things!  They signaled celebration and beauty and times when a lady wore her finest.

I must say, what Sister wore on the first day of school didn't strike me as her finest.  Today must not be particularly special to her, I decided, because she arrived unbeaded.  She stood tall and straight beside a cracked slate blackboard, dressed in a stiff white bonnet and a long plain dress of black.  Around her neck, I saw not one single bead.

I still have a sharp memory of my disappointment.  Not only had I expected beads, I'd anticipated lengthy strands of them (after all, they had to be long enough to "swing").  White, gleaming strings of pearls dancing around Sister's neck as she swooooooped.... which was a rather attractive image all on its own to my six year old mind.  I envisioned a large, dark, graceful bird, magically flying forward with its pearly circlet swinging.

But Ah! (I suddenly remembered).  Mother had said I must DO something in order to see the beads swing.  Ah HA!  I suddenly got it.  I had the magic!  I knew the secret. 

I must misbehave!

Sister presented me with the perfect opportunity.  It happened when she told us that whatever we did, no matter what, we MUST NOT WRITE ON OUR DESKS.

Ahhh, that was it.  My ticket to a vision of swinging, gleaming beauty.  I waited until Sister was looking directly at me, I made sure to catch her eye, and I took my big fat long wooden pencil and carved as hard as I could onto the top of my desk.

Here it was:  the moment of swooooooping!  Like a rushing hawk, Sister flew down the aisle between desks and swept toward me.  But oh dear.  She had forgotten her pearls.

And then I saw them.  A long strand of fat black beads had been concealed in the gathers of Sister's skirt all along, and now they were swinging.  Back and forth, with every swish of her dress, they were swinging.  I was so focused on the dark, unshiny beads that What Happened Next has always been a  blur.  It had to do with my being grabbed up from my chair, shaken back and forth a bit (remember that to Sister I must have seemed like the most defiant child in all the universe), and a red-haired classmate looking over at me with thumb in mouth and horror on face.  I don't remember what was said; the scene replays in my mind like a silent movie.  It's just as well.  I didn't know words like defiant and disobedient and disrespectful and wicked yet anyway.  It was probably better to learn those later, in some other way.

(I wonder if my guardian angel just read that last sentence and sighed).

Yes, this story of the swinging beads is true.  And the gratitude to my guardian angel:  that's true as well.  Oh, the scrapes we have seen!!  Oh, those sad times when he has watched me race headlong  into sin.  I've gone along my merry, self-appointed, disobedient, defiant path of potential doom so often.  And all the while, he has stayed busy wrestling and fighting and trying to lead me in right paths.  

This is a long overdue public thank you, guardian angel.

Thank you for battling for my soul.


© 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thebreadboxletters.blogspot.com


Painting:  Domenichino, Guardian Angel