“There is always a host of us exploding with joy at the first moment of creation, which has never ceased happening.”
This line from Stephen Mitchell’s Meetings with the Archangel is spoken by the angel Gabriel to the novel’s protagonist. Gabriel is trying to explain, in human terms, what heaven is like.
Stong’s Concordance defined a host as “a mass of persons or things especially organized for war, an army.”
Creation has many witnesses. We project our human limitations onto our angels. They are individuals who must come together to share in the joy of creation rather than having one’s experience of joy become the experience of all.
Experiences on this earth do not seem entirely real, they lack real emotion, unless they are shared.
Have you ever seen a mother pushing a baby in a stroller when the child is at just that age, she can engage with the people around her, but she does not yet have words. She rides in her buggy with her finger constantly in the air. She points to the dog, to the dandelions, to the boy on his bike, to the mailbox. Everything catches her interest. Everything in amazing. She wants mom to see it too.
It never really changes. When we see funny videos on Youtube we click send and share, we post them on Facebook, because it is no fun to experience it on your own. When we come back from vacation we want our friends and family to look at the photographs.
Maybe it is a cry for reassurance. I need to know that what I have seen in the world exists, that you see it too and it is not my imagination.
Story and Self 