Meet St. Mike
- Michael Jay Tucker's explosive-cargo
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Hello, everyone! So, something very different today. I’m going to take a break from my usual travel blogging to talk about...wait for it...an Angel.
No. Really. I’m serious.
Here’s the thing, a friend of mine (hi, Denise!) dropped me a note a while back. She wanted to know if I might be interested in doing a piece about Michael The Archangel. It seems she developed an interest in my namesake (well, technically, I’m his)--partly for pure curiosity's sake, and partly for her own spiritual practices. I didn’t know it, but it seems this is something of a Thing. People all over the world are linking their inner explorations with the angelic.
I don’t know if I believe in angels…at least, not as actual physical beings or supernatural entities…but I admit that they are powerful cultural and psychological realities. I guess “Jungian archetype” is a good way of putting it.
So…for the next few postings, at least, I’m going to talk about Michael, angel and archetype, whether as a spiritual being, or merely a fabulously potent metaphor.
As an aside, I’ll be posting these entries to my blog at https://www.michaeljaytucker.com/blog . But I won’t always be posting them here, on Facebook. That’s because it is a BIG project and I simply don’t want to overwhelm you. So, sometimes, I’ll just be posting summaries and links to specific entries in my blog, and you can decide whether you want to read the whole thing or not.
Is that okay with you? Great.
Let’s get started.
About the photos: First, here’s a picture of a statue of good ole Mike and his dragon. I didn’t take this. It is from Wikimedia and is by Michael Jaletzke, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons. You can see it here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michael4.jpg
Second, here’s a shot of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial near, coincidentally, Angel Fire, New Mexico. This is one of those rare places where you feel you might really be in the presence of angels.
And, third, here’s a photo of my own personal angel, Martha, standing on a street in Corpus Christi. More about which later.
And, finally, a brief AI video that I did of our boy St. Michael on a mountain top. Yeah. Yeah. I know it is melodramatic and silly and no right-thinking person should eat meat or use AI. But, you know, I’m gonna do it anyway. So there too.
Actually, I’m amazed by how little I know about him. (I’m researching this as we go along). That’s embarrassing because he’s a pretty dramatic character. He has starring roles in several different religions--the big three, obviously, being Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Through, as we will see, he’s also in some other faiths.(1)
And he plays somewhat different parts in those religions. In Judaism, for instance, he is the Defender of Israel. In Christianity and Judaism, he is the mighty warrior who defeats Satan and casts him into hell.(2) In Islam, by contrast, he is more an angel of mercy and comfort. And he *may* have been one of the two angels (along with Gabriel) who showed the Prophet paradise and hell.
Outside of these, as it were, *official* roles in religion, Michael appears almost everywhere else where someone needs a protector, or a comforter, or a healer. He is, depending on who you ask, guardian of the church, the defender of several nations, the patron of dying, the sick, and the poor. He is the saint of bankers and grocers...of police officers and soldiers and sailors...of doctors, paramedics, EMTs, first responders...and on, and on.
He has inspired magnificent art, including paintings, sculpture, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archangel_Michael_in_Christian_art . And some of the most beautiful churches in the world are devoted to him -- for example, Mont-Saint-Michel, in Normandy. And, of course, he’s a character in literature. Think of John Milton’s Paradise Lost:
...But the sword
Of Michael from the armoury of God
Was given him tempered so, that neither keen
Nor solid might resist that edge: it met
The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheer; nor staid,
But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering, shared
All his right side: Then Satan first knew pain...(3)
That’s one hell of a CV.
So, quite a character, this Michael.
But...who is the guy? I mean, really? Where does he come from? Who was he before he was tossing Lucifer out of heaven like God’s own winged bouncer at the The Promised Land Bar and Grill? Why is it that people have sought him out for over two thousand years now?
And what is his future?
I gotta confess, I don’t know. But let’s see if together we can figure out at least some of the answers. Join me now for a little tour of St. Michael’s biography and pedigree.
I’ve a feeling it is going to be (angelically) wild.
More to come.
Footnotes:
1. For instance, he *may* be, as well, present in the Bahá'í Faith, where at least some interpretations of the holy texts envision a Michael-like figure (possibly the founder of the faith himself, Baháʼuʼlláh), defeating evil in spiritual conflict.
2. “Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”--Revelation 12:7–10.
3. John Milton’s, Paradise Lost, Book VI
About the photos: First, here’s a picture of a statue of good ole Mike and his dragon. I didn’t take this. It is from Wikimedia and is by Michael Jaletzke, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons. You can see it here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michael4.jpg
Second, a brief AI video that I did of our boy St. Michael on a mountain top. Yeah. Yeah. I know it is melodramatic and silly and no right-thinking person should eat meat or use AI. But, you know, I’m gonna do it anyway. So there too.
Third, here’s a shot of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial near, coincidentally, Angel Fire, New Mexico. This is one of those rare places where you feel you might really be in the presence of angels.
And, finally, here’s a photo of my own personal angel, Martha, standing on a street in Corpus Christi. More about which later.
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