Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 15, 1994 TAG: 9412150016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE PISANI GREENWICH TIME
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Everywhere you turn, at cocktail parties and in supermarket tabloids, someone has a story about an alleged guardian angel. One woman got a Thanksgiving dinner catered for free by a mysterious stranger while another had a flat tire changed on a wintry night by a suspected heavenly auto mechanic, who didn't leave footprints in the snow, or a bill.
In recent years, the religion sections of bookstores have been overwhelmed by accounts of angelic encounters. There are more than 150 titles on the market, with Billy Graham's often reprinted 1975 work, ``Angels,'' at the top of the charts.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 72 percent of adult Americans believe in angels, and three-quarters of America certainly can't be wrong, except during national elections.
Of course, a surer proof for the existence of angels is that the entertainment industry takes them seriously. Just in time for the holidays, every TV channel has produced several specials about celestial beings, who romp around in seductive evening wear, rivaling the fallen angels of the '70s hit series, ``Charlie's Angels.''
These weighty productions include a show about a ``magical makeover.'' The story line is simple: ``Christine will do whatever it takes to be popular - now an angel will make her wish come true.''
What will be next? Heather Locklear wearing wings on ``Melrose Place'' or Roseanne fluttering about in billowing white robes?
Over the past year, network TV has also produced dramatized documentaries about the saving power of angels, featuring segments like ``An Angel Drove Me to the Emergency Room,'' which are substantiated by expert testimony from law-enforcement officials and health-care professionals.
Angels - the good, the bad and the ugly, the principalities, the thrones and the dominations - have become so popular, they've even gone Hollywood with films like ``Angels in the Outfield.''
During the Middle Ages, philosophers like Thomas Aquinas debated theological questions like how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Today, an equally pertinent question in our consumer-oriented society is how many cherubs can you plaster on bric-a-brac?
In particular, Raphael's bemused, bewinged, baby-faced creatures, who permanently reside in the Galleria del Uffizi in Florence, are popping up on stationery, on wristwatches, on mousepads and on playing cards. Pretty soon, they'll be imprinted on boxer shorts.
But consumerism is only part of this fascination with our celestial guardians. In 445 A.D., when Pope Leo the Great advised believers, ``Make friends with the holy angels,'' he could never have envisioned the proliferation of angel support groups, meditation tapes and newsletters for people who want to communicate telepathically with their spiritual alter egos.
Neither could he have foreseen the countless first-person accounts that would emerge, such as ``My Fiance Was Johnnie Angel,'' ``How an Angel Revitalized My Stock Portfolio'' or ``My Boss Was a Fallen Angel.''
In fact, we've been so inundated with these wondrous stories about good angels that now a subgenre is developing about ``bad angels'' and the evil they cause us mere mortals.
Don't get me wrong. I believe in angels - it's always safer to be a believer - even though I've never had a personal encounter with one. And if Billy Graham says there are 300 references in the Bible to angels, who am I to be skeptical? If Judaism, Islam and Christianity all have enduring traditions about the existence of angels, who am I to relegate them to greeting cards?
We're told they flutter about the universe, rising and falling to heaven as messengers to God and that they have biblical sounding names like Ezra and Sargolais, which are entirely foreign in our culture, where kids are named LaToya, Rush and Kent.
Presumably, most guardian angels prefer to do their good deeds anonymously; however, after we pass into the afterlife we'll probably be presented with a ledger of the countless occasions when they saved us - along with a bill for services rendered.
I confess that I thought it was all hokum until I met two families whose young sons - who swore they were telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - saw angels on more than one occasion.
They were the kind of juvenile accounts most adults scoff at. However, the parents in one family were so moved by the experience they abandoned their careers as corporate lawyers and changed the course of their lives. Now, that's quite a conversion.
by CNB