SKY WRITING

You know, sometimes I think it’d all be much easier if God just did sky-writing. You know, angels in the jet stream, zipping about, making cloud shapes into letters.

“Matt,” would ballon the vapour trails, “That thing you want to do is... O...” and there go two more angels making a K and a lovely fluffy full stop.

That would be great. It would cut out the middle man. And by the middle man I of course mean everyone who’s had a message from the Almighty that somehow needs a few thousand words to decode, either in a dry podcast, a long post on social media, or a half-hour YouTube upload, live from the bookcase.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love a prophet. I’m not having a go at the prophets. I just wonder sometimes whether we get carried away with a small thing and turn it into a larger more flowery one, losing the gem stone in the process. Or rather, drowning the baby in the bath water, if you like a mixed up metaphor.

Oh don’t look at me like that; ‘throwing the baby out’ is just as awful a picture, and you know it.

If we had sky messages... now that would be a thing. Imagine! “2020 will be your year of breakthrough!” or “Don’t worry. Rain is coming!” Though of course, rain literally does come from clouds so that one might be a given.

We don’t have skyscribing angels though. I think he’d rather we sought out the word, than take the lazy option of just gazing upwards. And sometimes those lengthy streams of consciousness on social media have gold sewn into them - there for the finding like treasure in a field. And sometimes the gold is in the digging.

There’s precedent though. Constantine is said to have marched boldly into battle when he saw a vision of the chi-ro, an ancient Christian symbol, emblazoned in the sky above the sun. A Pictish king too, Angus MacFergus (I am not making this up) in the Ninth Century, saw the cross of St Andrew in the clouds, won a battle, and then adopted the sign as the emblem of Scotland.

So who knows, maybe God can write, “Leave your job and go and live in Tahiti,” for me tomorrow when I head out for work. That’d be nice. Though, there aren’t many clouds at all in the South Pacific, so I’d probably not be able to come back.

And that would be a shame.