Angel Hug: Images And A Journey To A Story
Shelley J Alongi

 

Hands, eyes, worship, and a childhood fascination with Christ's agony in Gethsemane lead me to this story. How did I get there? Sometimes, I wonder that myself. I think that one verse in the gospel of Luke planted itself in a fertile mind and the seed grew into this story. After percolating forty years, images resulted in this true labor of love. And who's to say there wasn't some help from above?
 
My latest book Angel Hug might be the most powerful thing I've written. I think it might be the most powerful in my own experience because its central character is Christ. I always thought that Christ was not a character I would write about as fiction because it seemed untouchable. I don't want to use the word sacred here or special. The word that works for me is simply untouchable.
 
The more I read about his sacrificial death and resurrection, the more I discover about his personality from the gospel stories and the more things I found intriguing, I was compelled to try it.
 
The fascination began when I was a child reading my Bible in my top bunk at night. Reading it at night is among my earliest memories. sometimes I wouldn't understand what I was reading. at other times the most vivid of images would pop into my head after reading a particular passage. They would, it seemed, appear out of nowhere. When I say nowhere, I mean that I would be reading a chapter and then suddenly something would jusd pop out to me: things like Jesus walking on water, or the Gethsemane prayer and the angel there. OF course as I got older and got into college or began reading books about the Bible I read that perhaps a translation of Jesus walking on water really meant that he was walking on the seashore paralel to the boat. Too late, the damage was done, guys. Jesus walked on water. And why not? Somehow the first time I ever read that I decided I could see him doing just that walking out in the middle of the lake there with nothing around accept for the boat that was being swamped by a storm or the disciples in the boat being afraid, thinking he was a ghost. It just seemed I could visualize him standing easily upright looking around, interacting with the men telling them "it is I don't be afraid." (Mark 6:50; John 8:20.)
This was the beginning of my imaginings.
Then, there was the night I lay there and read about an angel appearing to Christ in Gethsemane and giving him strength. In my childish head I simply wondered: What was that like? In my adult head I still wonder: What was that like? as time progressed the image of the angel giving Christ strength in Gethsemane was tucked into my head and at the proper time I could imagine that, too. (Luke 22:43.)
 
There was a progression of images and events that finally culminated in the story. By the time I Had reached my first year of college, I had experienced Christ in a personal way through music and rediscovering the gospel stories. I found myself writing a poem called "Angel Hand." The poem begins the current book called Angel Hug. By 1993 I had written a song that I called "Let This Cup" about the prayer in Gethsemane. So, after working with the word "cup" looking up the word in Greek and slowly becoming more amazed with Christ's sacrificial death and the agony, I suppose I was ready to write the story. My fascination hasn't ended: I'm currently working on an instrumental piece comprised of the same themes.
 
In 2015 I pulled up stakes and resettled in north Texas where after a series of events, I finally wrote the story. People have told me this story is "beautiful", "inspiring", or "sweet." It is emotional. It is the god/man vulnerable. I hesitate to say questioning. The Bible states in no uncertain terms that Jesus' sacrificial death was planned before the world began. (Hebrews 9:26.) There would be a way to offer reconciliation between God's creation and Himself. But certainly an angel giving him strength and the whole idea that he prayed in the garden or olive press the night before the crucifixion suggests vulnerability. Hebrews tells us that he was made obedient to death by suffering and tears. (Hebrews 5:7-8.) In my story, this is where he finds himself on that night. We do not learn of any spacific instances of tears on that night in the gospel stories; what we do learn is he was in agony. The word used speaks of striving as if to win an olympic-style victory.
Hebrews tells us that "for the joy set before him he endured the shame of the Cross." (Hebrews 12-2.) Galatians and 1 and 2 Corihthians repeatedly drive home the significance of Christ's death on the cross. He became sin who knew no sin. He never missed the mark. He reconciled us to Himself by his own death. (2 Corinthians 5_15-21.)
 
My story is an attempt to portray the agony and resolution and to only weakly explain all of this. The story is full of images and theology and is designed to produce emotions that make one think and even investigate the Christ personality for themselves.
 
Let me explain how I write. First, I will sit down with an idea and begin to write it. The words pour forth. I then go back and fill in details or change dialog to make points stronger. This story went through a couple of changes. at first I wrote it without any explanations of sacrificial death or the coming resurrection or the final picture when he sees the bride. It was siplya bout the experience in Gethsemane and the actions and dialogs of the angel and Christ's interactions with the sleeping men.
Someone pointed out to me that if a reader was unfamiliar with the events of that night they might not understand my story. I then looked at the story and added backstory about the events of the week and the meaning of the sacrificial death and what happens afterward. Why was he here?
 
It might help in describing the images to summarize my story. Jesus, Yeshua in the story, takes his disciples from the place in Jerusalem where they ate their last Passover meal together to the olive press, Gethsemane, where they wait for Judas to bring temple guards to arrest him and take him to the courts where he will be tried and ultimately executed. At the place they have visited for the last three years he goes and prays because he says he is grieved to death. In the garden he begins to weep and struggle with separation from his Father and this brings on the angel. The story is the actions and interactions between himself and the angel. One who loved so much that He provided Himself as a way to be in relationship with God, the rejection of the human race to that point and beyond, the coming physical pain and the separation from his Father are all in my thinking possible reasons for his agony.
Agony is one of the things that fascinates me about this story. Just how does he express agony? This agony is expressed in a physical sense by tears, pain, and distress, all relieved by the angel.
But the story isn't only about agony. I began to see as I reread it that the interactions between Christ and the angel demonstrate some real biblical images. In Christ's healing ministries we sometimes see him take people by the hand, a blind man, Jairus's daughter when he raises her from the dead. IN the same way, in the story, he takes the angel by the hand. In the dialog parts when Gethsemane's angel talks to the other angels, it says it will probably be exhausted and will have no energy. Yeshua will restore its energy. Before Yeshua returns to his disciples, the angel falls in worship at his feet. The angel has been holding the creator and when the Creator finally feels ready he looks at the angel and the angel is on its face worshiping the Creator. But the Creator has to remind the angel that it wanted to show him something. The Creator who was weak is helped by the angel and then turns and helps the angel. .
There are other things in the story: wind represents the angel strengthening Christ in the garden and also the forces which would dissuade him from the plan.
If I were to do a second addition of this I would create a logo with the angel holding the lamb. Holding the lamb? Grief is a very physical thing. I go to great lengths to describe it in the story. The idea of the Creator being weak is a powerful one. I think it's powerful because we don't usually think of Christ being weak or neding help. We do have a preexisting picture of a weeping Christ, but not of one so debilitated by weeping that he collapses on the breast of the angel and the angel holds him. the idea of the angel in the story is to hold the lamb and not only to hold the lamb but to wipe away tears.
Where did I Get the idea of tears? God wipes away tears from those in heaven. Tonight, the angel wipes away his tears. But how could I imagine such tears? when I moved to texas my friend the railroad engineer was killed. I cried so hard sometimes and so much that it hurt. There were afew times when I stood in my kitchen and leaned against the wall and just cried. It was a very draining experience. There were just some days when I could barely do what needed to be done. When my mom died it was similar because I felt like there were days that I lived under water. But this was worse. I was in a new state, exhausted by my own grief. I took that experience and worked it into the story.
 
How much more devistating would being separated from your father who created the universe be? Combine this with a very palpable rejection. This can only partially explain the idea of his being a man of sorrows, aquainted with grief. One comentator I read added to all of my understanding by pointing out that he was facing his father's judgment for the falling short of all of humanity. This is a very cental part of the story. If He was under so much pressure that an angel came to him, there must be some physical expression of that anguish. These central themes are represented in the fictional account by copious tears and hands comforting his ribs, an increased heart rate and pressure on the insides from anguish.
 
It occurred to me after the first draft of the story had been written that I hadn't mentioned the most famous aspect of that night: the sweat with blood in it. (Luke 22-44.) Here I implement a famous writing technique: show don't tell. In the story he draws his hand away from his face to inspect it, briefly wonders and then knows the sweat is flecked with blood.
 
Is this possible? Medical experts say yes. While rare, the condition does exist and is found most often in those facing execution. One case occurs as late as the 1940s during the blitz in London.
 
Two compelling images for me are Christ's eyes and hands. Anyone who knows me will tell you I have this thing about hands and eyes, especially in writing. Jesus refers to himself as "the son of man" a concept that appears in Daniel and again in Revelation. The son of man in both instances is described as having "eyes of fire" or eyes as if they were burning lamps. On that night in Gethsemane it is possible that the only emotion present in the eyes would be an extreme sadness. Hence, the reference in the story to the eyes being sad and not yet brandishing flame, thereby looking forward from this place of desolation if only briefly to hint at the coming triumph. The combination of these two images fits my own interest in expressing characteristics through the eyes: the god/man would arise to be the victorious "son of man" at a later time. What an idea.
In the same way that the image of eyes emphasizes humanity, the comforting of sore aching muscles with the hands also emphasizes it. The idea here is to present a very human god finally reaching the moment planned from before the world began.
 
When I read this story now I remember lying on my bed reading the original verse in Luke that told us about the angel giving strength to Christ. There are most assuredly other theological concepts I have not yet discovered. I thought it best to write out the ideas which helped me with this story. I am sure on some days that I had help writing it. At age ten after reading the verse I would have never imagined myself writing this type of story. Holding the printed story in my hand was a testimony to me that this image has never quite gone away. It will continue to hold significance for me through the incredible journey that is my faith in Christ with all its varied experiences. I am sure I can not imagine what they will be.

 

 

Copyright © 2018 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"