Late Figs

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There are two big, fat figs left on my fig tree. I've never had figs wait this long to ripen. One of them is just now turning a little bit brown. The trick is for me to let it ripen and grab it for myself before the birds or bugs get it for they hungry selves. No blame. It's a race against ti-me. The birds can always fly to another tree like my brother's fig tree next door.

The Mysterious Stranger, the story by Mark Twain, still haunts me. I figured out yesterday this story is metaphor for his remembering vision. I got my own. It's his description of what angels are like that fascinated me. He offers up a very good description of a docetic spirit such as was promulgated by groups of early Christians who were labeled the Gnostics.

The story describes what Twain thought angels are like. For one, they're not humans, because they are immortal. They're innocent of guilt and arrogance, and they don't know why humans judge events and things as right or wrong. Angels do not possess what Twain calls a Moral Sense (sic). He employs parables and metaphors through out the story to illustrate his point.

This story is not just Twain's remembering vision I find similar to mine. Especially how he describes war and more wars as the main feature of mankind. I saw stuff like that too. Moreover, it's how the angel he calls Satan took the boys he befriended on astral travel trips all over the world. I've been there and done that, but I haven't considered that there might have been an angel behind it.

This leads me to think of modeling or mimicry and imitation. Imitating humans can bring me the things of humans and their societies. Modeling angels and/or docetic spirits is more complex. Already learned things have to be tossed out and other rituals have to be mastered. All without the guidance of knowing right from wrong. What a drag, man.

I'm just channeling out of the Twain story. I wouldn't know the truth if it bit me on the ass. Honestly, I've never considered what the attributes of an angel might be. There was an argument on a discussion list by a Viet Nam veteran who seemed indignant about somebody claiming there were guardian angels for people in trouble. Where were they when he needed them. It reminded me of a poem I once wrote I entitled Where Is God When You Need Him.

Twain's conclusions might explain that. If angels aren't possessed of a Moral Sense because they're immortal, then it makes sense that they wouldn't feel obligated to humans to prevent their death or some other human catastrophe.

Modeling angels to be-co-me one with them seems impossible to do. They're angels. Most people confess to not being able to see them. Especially if they're all caught up in trying to save their souls or to become immortal along with having to bring home the bacon.

To me it has to happen on a random basis. Like meeting the Buddha on the road all accidental like after you've tried to be like him all your life, and he passes you by. Like the biblical character Saul who was on the road to Damascus and was blinded by the light.

Modeling angels is a matter of planned serendipity. Meeting up with them is hardly an event one arranges. Like death, it's always unexpected. In other ways it's like the lyrics in the pop song The Gambler describe. "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run...".

The people I looked back at and wondered if they were angels have had similar "qualities". I hesitate to write that what I saw them as indicated something as substantial as "attributes". Maybe how Twain described angels fits those "people". It's that lack of a Moral Sense as a description that grabs me as being a simile for what I grokked from them.
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