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True strength and true manliness might well be expressed in someone who has nothing to prove. His strength is at ease in the sunlight, the warmth and  the natural world, his tenderness lacks nothing of passion or discipline.
PICTURE A
GUARDIAN ANGEL
The Way We're Meant to be.

Among other things about 'the way we are meant to be', tenderness and protection and gentle teaching are basic. We can tell this by the kind of passionate outrage we feel when what is innocent, gentle and trusting is in some way violated. 

Yet  a very great deal of our culture teaches us to despise just those things - gentleness, trust, open heartedness. It is not cool to be those things. It is not wise to bring up our children without a certain wariness, toughness and street wisdom. 

We mustn't be too protective. We are taught,  in fact, by the World, that we are wrong, or at the least simple minded to expect shame for cruelty arrogance or covetousness.  Rather not to be cruel, selfish and arrogant is to ask for trouble for ourselves and for our young.

We can point the finger and show outrage when these things go 'too far', but we are expected to  raise no protest at the so called 'strengths' which give rise to these abuses of mind, body and 'the way things are meant to be'.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
 
We are called to be 'little ones'.  This has nothing to do with being perpetual children, pre adolescents. It has nothing to do with being simple minded, or with turning from things as they really are. It is, instead, the call to be strong without bombast. It is a call to be like the man in this picture - who shows such love and tenderness to one who has nothing to give but love and tenderness back. This is joy.
If we believe that the truth will overcome, let us not waste time in defending it. Rather let us trust truth to defend us while we set about living those values which truly express the way we wish to be.

Our world is run on the economic theory of lack. It has become bankrupt. It cannot afford to pay for the time, the tenderness, the nurture that it desperately needs to survive. It is dog eat dog and cat eat cat - though who ever saw such a thing in real life I don't know.  Rather the theory of lack is the theory that there is not enough anything - love, food, mercy, laughter, trust - and that what we have, pitiful as it is, must be defended at all costs. It is blind to the berries on the tree so long as it cannot afford the frozen packet at the supermarket. This picture is the picture of a man who loves what is. Who changes himself to be like it. Who does not expect the beauteous world to change to suit his own selfish nature. Who does not require that the sun be less bright, to protect his skin, or that the wind be less cool - or that the child be more strong or more clever than she is..

But this is also the picture  - for me - of something else..

He is a picture of the way we are meant to be
He is a picture of A Guardian Angel.
He is a picture of Christ himself.
 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.


We are called to be like this man. 
We are called to be 'Guardian Angels' of the little ones ourselves. 

But we are also reminded that these very qualities pre-exist us. They are spiritual before they are physical. 

Our Guardian Angels, Jesus tells us, 
stand always before the face of his Father, and they are always our Guardians. 

If it is proper to ask a human friend to speak on our behalf to God, to ask a local community to pray for us, or stand up for us, 
how much more proper is it in us - 'seemly' as the old word has it, if not to ask the angel who has lived with us since our birth to pray for us, then at least to 'listen' with our inner minds to what the true strengths might have to say.
 



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