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Chapter 2

LITTLE ANGEL DELVES

Has he fallen ? the question begins

This being so, Little A decided it was time to look at personal qualities and to see where these came from and where they went.

He tried courage, for courage, he thought, this was something without which you could do nothing, get nothing, or if you did, you would not understand it, being contrary to the nature of things, as if being hit on the head by a gold ingot would help you to manufacture or understand gold. Besides, it might hurt, in view of the density of gold; for Little A had been studying the earth between chapters, and liked to think sometimes in material terms. Yet he was not in the last materialistic, since that was to mistake the means for the origin, the challenge and the end of things, short-circuiting power and the invention of existence in limited fields. It is one thing, after all, he thought, to live with the stuff, as humans do, it is another to be like it! He winced within at the blindness of such people, but was too busy to occupy himself on the obvious too long, since spirit he was, just as spirit man has.

If I am to have the entirely spiritual quality of courage, he mused, then my spirit must be a good receptor for it. How can this be ? The shimmering featheriness around his arms blew slightly, elongating and he wondered if this was relevant, some sort of growth. I must want it, I suppose, and that very badly. How could it be good to want it badly ? he mused. I guess it means that I want it so that if necessary it would hurt to get it, and this is good if the thing is good. But is courage good and why ?

How would you overcome if you did not intend to try ... hard ? And if you do not overcome, you ARE overcome, and that is mere subsistence, not even existence, and going under is no wonder, but mere collapse. That could not be good. WHY should you WANT to try hard ? It would be because you KNEW what was good. What IS good ? It is to be what you ought to be ? What OUGHT you to be ? It is what you are designed to be. But what if you did not like what you were designed to be ? Then you would be an arrogant, invasive, autonomous spirit inside, but a created being outside, and these would clash; and since you have no power of that kind at all, it would be rebellion, and airy fairy nonsense. I am not an airy fairy being, thought the Little Angel, because I want to find out what is, not what I want to find. That is illusion and who wants that ?

Still, I WOULD like to go and meet God direct one day, but meanwhile, how can I make myself courageous ? I will try things out and rate myself, he declared, and decided to put the foot flat to the floor in the angelic accelerator, since he loved little images such as mortals have and pitied them as he loved them; and so he went in unidirectional but not simply straight lines, for a very long time.

When he relaxed and relented, he found that he had come to a strange spiritual place indeed. Here there were great high cliffs and these had jagged edges, and tended to crumble, for the spiritual skyscape had such an aspect to the spiritual being, that the relationship was rather like that of a terrestrial landscape to the geometry of the body.

Now I could throw myself over the cliff and see what happens, he thought, but that would not be courage but madness. Again, I could imitate the BASE jumping craze on earth, and try to jump, not without equipment, but in such a way that the statistics of survival would be short, and it would take so much skill and alertness, thought beforehand and preparation, that only a few would or even could do it; and then I could tell myself that I was exceptional, and surely courageous; or could I ?

He doubted it, since courage was for the overcoming of obstacles, not their invention; but could it not be that it would teach him how to do so when it mattered, by using means where it did not matter ? Yet if there was no parallel in the celestial realm of angels, to danger on earth, what would courage be, and he was sure there was a sense that things mattered very much about him, so he dismissed this idea, since it would lead to damage if he failed, and this would not be instructive so much as destructive.

How then could he develop courage ?

As he thought, he slipped and as he slipped he fell, and as he fell, he saw a great yawning abyss, which trembled within itself, as if it were afraid, or were meant to impart fear, and he decided that to be courageous he would have to heave fear away, which he did, and it seemed quite easy, since it did not seem to hurt very much, nor yet to help as much as he had hoped.

However, he invented a thing called expectation of deliverance together with alertness in peril and bringing them together, he darted behind a cloud which intervened, and finding a thick knot in its intense darkness, which seemed exceedingly close to being material, though since he was but spirit, this did not matter, he acted. After all, he found, it did help his feelings to cast away fear and to reintroduce the other thing, so he consciously contrived to work his spirit into these airy recesses, thrusting his wings into their interstices in a very courageous manner since you could not actually see what as in them.

Thus he slowed down until the point came when the hill which he was approaching, a spiritual hill for a spiritual angel, merely troubled him with a bump. Moreover he had glided with vigorous angling of his wings, into the middle of a spiritual haystack.

That, he thought was courage. I could have become entangled without initiative, or failed to react at the opportunity, or been faint-hearted in the midst of the glide, or failed to concentrate and apply my gifts in finding or even thinking of the spiritual haystack giving spiritual food for spiritual sheep, and then things would have been needlessly devastating. He glowed a little with pride, and then hung his head.

Of all things, he cited to himself, an old nursery lesson, pride is the most dangerous after direct rebellion against your Maker. Why ? he now asked
himself ? why is that ?

As he did so, another but rather larger angel, but still a 'young' one, approached.

I say (been at work in Britain, thought the Little Angel), I say (certainly has, he affirmed to himself), you there (boy, does he have a lot to learn, he mused as he watched the approaching angelic form), did you ever have a feisty heist there!

An irritable robbery ? I do not think you are very clear, good angel.

Oh, I am not so very good an angel, you see, for I have fallen in my ways, and am looking for some sort of way back, and thought you could advise me, even though you are so very young.

Anyway, said the Little Angel, making a mental note that the sooner he saw God the better, since getting down and back and all that was a total mystery to him, why irritable robbery ?

Well, how could you be in trouble unless you lost your temper, and if you robbed circumstances clearly set against you of their power to trouble you, as you did, it was a robbery from them wasn't it, said the larger angel with a sneer, or something so spiritually like one that this describes its intent. It is time he had a name, and this occurred too to the Little Angel, who asked him what it was.

Oh that! he said with a sort of unstable seeming bravado, my name, it is this: Let Down.

Let Down! why aren't you ashamed of that ? and why did you think I must have been irritable, may I  ask ? (he threw that last bit in because he felt it reduced any sense of sharpness in his question, but then instantly regretted it, since Let Down might let down his temper and misinterpret it as patronizing).

Oh yes! of course, said Let Down, but you see when you grow older I guess, I suppose you will see that in this celestial realm, you have nowhere to hide. What you are comes to be seen by all, including yourself!

How do you KNOW what you are ? asked Little A interestedly.

Oh they tell you that by looks and name and you simply cannot pretend they are wrong, because it resounds inside in such a way that to resist it would be like resisting a ton of hot steel descending on you, instead of stepping aside and watching it.

Industrial action in Britain ? Little A queried inside himself,  of Let Down, and I wonder if irritability was what let him down, so that he assumes it in me, because I was falling ? It is interesting that he did not answer that question and suggestive. Yet he did not share these thoughts, and instead replied differently, and so pursued the other topic that had been raised.

Ah! said the Little A, at once wondering what sort of looks he had been given, since his name was not very qualitatively clear: I mean, he thought, being little does not specify the internal quality, does it! Does it ? he asked himself, with mounting concern.

Then he remembered his quest for courage, and decided the mounting thing could lie down, told it to do so, and when on listening.

Do you think, asked Let Down, that I could get up in the same sort of way that you just came down ? because your descent was in altitude, but mine was moral, and perhaps if I tried hard enough to gain altitude in those winds, it could be called courage, or initiative, and that might help me to qualify my name to Let Down Getting Up, or even Arising, though the latter is a bit much to hope.

The Little A was getting ready to say, I am afraid I haven't the slightest idea! because he had heard someone called Give Up, once say that, and felt it was smart; but then he remembered that dabbling in rudeness was not courageous but uncivil, a very different sort of thing, and so cancelled that line, and instead replied, I am afraid I do not know.

Pity! said Let Down. Are you fallen ?

I do not know that either, said the Little Angel, but I don't suppose so, since no one ever gives me looks which show it.

Oh they don't always, said Let Down, for they are very tender-hearted at first.

I certainly would have fallen just then, said Little A, if there had not been opportunities to escape before it was too late.

Escape! how I wish this had happened to me, moaned, mourned and crooned in some sort of synthetic sibilance, poor Let Down.

Oh well, said Little A, we must take courage.

But where do you find any ? asked Let Down. You see, when I fell, it was courage that let me down, or the lack of it, and I grew irritable because I did not find any.

Why did you let it do that ? asked Little A.

It just wasn't there when I needed it, responded Let Down.

Well perhaps you could join me, because I am trying to grow in it.

Yet I can't grow, you see, for to grow, you need to have something there in the first place, and my courage has deserted me.

Could you look for it then ? asked Little A.

No, I couldn't, said Let Down, for I need courage to look.

As the head of Little A was beginning to spin, he suddenly saw that the haystack was turning slowly around and then beginning to disappear in the midst of what seemed some sort of a spiritual storm, so he took his courage and mounted quickly upwards away from that dell, and thus lost Let Down, who was wondering how to find enough courage to do ANYTHING.

Part of courage, thought Little A, is not to be proud of what is allowed to help you, as if it were your own doing. I must remember that. I wish I could help Let Down, but he is nowhere to be seen. I wonder if I AM fallen ? he mused. I don't really think so, but then I am so ignorant, and really think I grew a little proud of being delivered, which was not really a true thing to do, since it distorted the fact.

Possibly I am fallen and everyone is very kind to me, to help me to find the escalator, or flight plan, or rescue operation or whatever it is, and I really must seek to talk to God, soon; but perhaps on the other hand, I should know more before I come to Him, so I'll just try to find what character is, since I am sure that without character you are just a blob. Then perhaps I can seek an audience.

I must take courage, he declared, and try to avoid becoming another Let Down, and with this, humility, and seek to avoid being proud of it, and kindness, and try to avoid being patronising if I ever see him again; and yet, here I am becoming proud of my sophistication, which is appalling, since really my escape was providential, and that is all there is to it.

Nevertheless, Little A did not look quite so shining as he had done, and if he only knew it, he never had looked anything like what he could have and should have been, but thereby hangs a tale, and it was one which at that point, he found totally boring, because it was too true, and that is something which fallen beings tend not to like at all. avoid being proud of it, and kindness, and try to avoid being patronising if I ever see him again; and yet, here I am becoming proud of my sophistication, which is appalling, since really my escape was providential, and that is all there is to it. Nevertheless, Little A did not look quite so shining as he had done, and if he only knew it, he never had looked anything like what he could have and should have been, but thereby hangs a tale, and it was one which at that point, he found totally boring, because it was too true, and that is something which fallen beings tend not to like at all.