THE OUT OF PLACE ANGEL [W, 12-27-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE OUT OF PLACE ANGEL [W, 12-27-23]

 

I believe in The Out of Place Angel. I knew about her, knew her story, but I had not actually seen her until Shelly Rasche’s studio.

Shelly’s husband, Jeff, was a clergy colleague. He invited me to spend a few days leading his congregation in experiential faith.

A church has five areas of work: worship, education, fellowship, service, and experience. It’s the last one where we are usually deficient.

Worship [reminding ourselves who God is and who we are], and education [learning the beliefs and history of Christian faith], and fellowship, and reminding people to be of service, [either as project or just seeing a need and meeting it], can be done pretty well in Sunday morning worship. Experience, learning how to be personally open to the presence and leading of God, that can’t be done very well in public worship on Sunday morning.

So churches sometimes take a period, usually a few days, to work on “spiritual renewal.” In former days, we called that a “revival,” and invited an “evangelist” in to “get people saved.” Congregations invited me in as an evangelist, but my purpose wasn’t getting people “saved,” as a one-off. I tried to help people learn the ways of listening for God, and continuing to do so. I tried to help people learn who and where they are in the story God is telling.

Anyway, I was staying in the guest room of the Rasche’s house, and Shelly showed me her studio. She was an unknown artist then, but her work was so delightful. I immediately saw The Out of Place Angel there.

 

Her name is Miranda. Not sure why. She is a little girl angel. Never where she was supposed to be. The other angels were exasperated by that, but they put up with her, because God loved her and forgave her for always being in the wrong place.

The problem was with the Herald Angels. They were sent to earth to proclaim the birth of Jesus, and Miranda was some place else when it was time to go, so they left without her. When she realized what had happened, she flew all over the world trying to find where she was supposed to be.

 In desperation, whenever she found a baby being born in humble circumstances, she just went ahead and proclaimed the birth of Christ and the time of God’s acceptance. In mangers in hot deserts, and frozen tundra, and flat prairies… everyplace. When she got back to heaven, the other angels were really upset. She had messed up God’s best plan. But God understood that she had really carried out the divine plan. I said it better in the book, because I was writing for children.

Anyway, Shelly liked the story, and created the most marvelous pictures of Miranda doing her thing, out of place. Alas, no publisher was willing to take the book, by an unknown author and an unknown artist. Even without Miranda, though, Shelly has become quite well known. You can find her on the internet.

I still recognize little Miranda whenever I encounter her. Always out of place, but always proclaiming the good news.

 

John Robert McFarland