All of us live with daily chores. Taking out the trash, washing dishes, cleaning the toilet. How often do we see those tasks as sacred work? How often do we realize the deeper metaphors that simple work entails? One friend told me recently that he loathed taking care of his ailing father. Here he was changing his father’s diapers as his father had once changed his. It made him feel something between disgust and pity. Until the day came when his Dad turned to him and said, “I am so sorry son that you have to do this”. Suddenly, he saw the man, not the figure he had resented all those years, suddenly his heart burst with love, an angel within giving him the wisdom to understand that all of us need love no matter what. With tears in his eyes he kissed his dad on the cheek and said “Its no problem Dad, I am just paying you back. I love you.”
The first chore of our angels is to remind us to love and praise. Every angry word, every hurt, while not forgotten can be forgiven. But our angels also remind us to strive, to interfere with what is wrong with our world as Bobby Kennedy once said:
"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or interferes with injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”
Most of all, I believe the chores of our angels is to help us expend energy where it is needed most. This may be the best scientific argument for angels I know of. The Catholic mystic Matthew Fox and the biologist Rupert Sheldrake make a compelling case that the law of entropy which states that energy flows from its highest to lowest forms might actually have a moral dimension. Who can say the Universe doesn’t think? Who can say we aren’t called to help those who have less energy, measured in money, shelter, health and love, than we have? (The Physics of Angels: 1996) After all, those rich Wall Street Bankers are not taking any of their money with them; they leave it to their kids or the ex-wife, or, if some see the light, maybe even a charity. You get to decide. And who is to say we aren’t being called by our better selves to expend that energy where it is needed most?
Bill and Melinda Gates have it right. Provide more than enough for your heirs but leave the rest to those who need it more than you ever would. Isn’t that a chore we can fulfill? Instead of bemoaning the fact that the Democrats have failed to provide a social safety net for those in need, why not take some of that tax you now won’t have to pay and do their job for them? Your church, a charity, a friend in need; you are already being called. It’s not a bother, it’s a privilege. It’s a sacred chore that might actually be calling us on this holiday season. From greater energy to lesser. The chores of our angels. Calling us to strive for a better world.
With Grace and Grit, John
