Each human being has an angel, thank God.  We badly need him in our chaotic daily lives, for otherwise, we would get into big trouble.  Even when we are about to lose our inner compass, the angel still watches over us and does his utmost to keep us on the right track.  A Dutch saying goes: Children and drunkards have a special angel.

Still, an angel is not sufficient to prepare our way on earth.  What would happen to us if there were no human beings who cross our path?  One person can become as an angel for another when he serves him selflessly.

Christ—even Christ—also needs such a companion on earth, who prepares His way.  “See, I send my angel before you.” (Mt.11:10) This task, the task of John the Baptist, is given to each human being, not only to the greatest of all human beings on earth.  Each of us, wherever we go or stay, is called to stand ready for his neighbor like an angel.  Since Christ lived on earth, since someone asked him: “Who is my neighbor?” we know who that is: for every person we meet on the path of our life, we can become a neighbor.

Keep your eyes and ears open, for in every encounter sounds a question.

You do not only have an angel.

Can you also be an angel for your neighbor?

 

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, July 17, 2021

“In your midst already stands one whom you do not know.” (Jn.1:26)

In our fragmented world, which more and more breaks apart into differences and oppositions, there is an open spot in the middle.  You might think of the middle between two extremes, but also of a place in each of us where we come to ourselves.  Now, most of the time this middle is hard to find because we live in such a torn world, and that tear most often runs right through us.

To find the middle you have to learn to walk a tightrope, keeping a balance between extremes, and step by step bridge the chasm of opposites.  And to learn to keep balance, you first have to find it in yourself, usually by trial and error.  The instrument we use in these efforts we call the I.  That is not the little, everyday ego, with which we constantly alternate between fight and flight, between recklessness and fear.  The world is full of egos, and all of them fight for first place.  The true I is only itself, no more and no less.

Only after we have died does the I show itself in its true essence—as one single tone in the world symphony, the harmony of the cosmos.  Then only do we discover: I am that—and without me the world symphony would not be complete.  But during our life we can already practice trying to catch a glimpse of this true I and enable it to manifest as a reflection in our work.  I do this by asking with everything I think or do:  Lord, what is Your will that I do?

“In your midst already stands one whom you do not know.”

Get to know Him by listening to the still voice of conscience, in which Christ is speaking.

 

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan