46) There must have been angels
Last week I traveled down to Mount Gambier to start alternate weeks at a residential care home there. I was happy to take the position, as it doubled my hours, and would help to re-establish me in chaplaincy. I also thought it would achieve some genuine physical distance from Clayton Wesley, while I worked on achieving emotional distance.
Mount Gambier is cold! On Saturday morning, it was only 5° and the sports field opposite the hotel was frosted white. I hadn’t seen that sort of thing since living in England. Not that I was feeling homesick for the old country; After a busy week of getting to know new residents and staff, and settling into a new routine at the hotel, it was Adelaide, and my own bed, and my own garden that I was longing for. After breakfast, I checked out of the hotel, loaded the car, and headed into Resthaven. I spent some time after lunch with William, who talked about his seeing angels. I thought about our conversation during the long drive home. I thought about those verses in Hebrews that talk about angels sent like the winds to minister among us. And about Jesus telling Nathanael that he would see angels.
May Your holy angels dwell with us and guard us in peace.
I took the slightly longer route through the Coorong, and passed through as the sun set – beautiful reds and oranges against the purple dunes and pale blue water. The occasional black silhouette of a pelican. The new routine and its 11-hour round-trip commute had taken its toll, and Sunday and Monday were quiet days of household chores and pottering about in the garden. Regrouping.
Tuesday saw me back at my usual care home in Adelaide. It was another busy day, but a good one. I had missed everyone. As the working day ended, I returned to the office and to the familiar routines of logging the day’s visits, conversations, and referrals into a spreadsheet when, all of a sudden, I couldn’t see the detail on the screen for the kaleidoscopic arc of zig-zagging and flashing lights that filled my vision. I didn’t know what was happening. It turns out that it was an ocular migraine, but I was panicked and frightened. Fortunately, a staff member was also finishing her shift and stayed with me until Rog could come and take me home. My sight returned to normal after about 30 minutes, and there was no repeat of the aura, though I had a headache all Wednesday, and felt like I’d been hit by a truck for the remainder of the week.
May Your holy angels dwell with us and guard us in peace.
There’s a song which laments the state of the world, while recalling earlier optimism: “Stone, the world is stone, but I saw it once with the stars in my eyes, when each colour rang out in a thunderous chrome.”
My own moment of seeing stars is something I’d like to forget.
*
The last time I preached at Clayton Wesley was on Easter Sunday. We considered Mary Magdalene. How she had been there – right beside His cross. How there was no doubt in her mind that Jesus had died.
Luke’s Gospel tells us that she had been healed and delivered by Jesus, had been one of His followers, accompanying Him while He proclaimed the Good News from town to town. Doubtless she had her own hopes and dreams and expectation for the future, based upon His ministry and His precious life-giving words… but whatever her hopes and dreams and expectations had been, she had felt them die along with Jesus on that cross.
And in the Gospel narrative, on that first day of the week, we join her as she makes her way to the tomb while it was still dark. And there she finds the heavy stone has been rolled away from the entrance, and the body of her beloved Jesus, her friend and Saviour, has gone! Desperation on top of grief. Later, we find her still at the tomb, weeping. Where else would she be? I can’t imagine she has eaten or slept since Calvary….
In her exhaustion and grief, eyes blinded with tears, she doesn’t even see the handiwork of God in the presence of the angels. So heavy is her sorrow.
“Dear woman, why are you crying?” The angels ask her. Stooping, desperate, exhausted, and weeping. Grief so thick, so heavy and all-consuming that she can’t even properly process the sight of the angels. All she knows is, “they’ve taken my Lord and I don’t know where…”
And turning around, the risen Jesus Himself is standing behind her. His first words repeat the angels’ question: “dear woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”
She thinks Him to be the gardener. So complete is her grief and her despair, her eyes so full of tears. Bereft, heavy with exhaustion and loss. “Sir, if you’ve taken him, tell me where and I will go to him…” – Tell me where and I will go to Him.
And Jesus says one word, calling her by name: “Mary.”
In an instant everything is changed. Jesus is alive! He has called her by name. Just like he called the dead Lazarus from the tomb by his name, he now calls Mary out of her own darkness, out of her own depths of grief and despair, and into the light of the risen God!
The day that started with a sorrowful pilgrimage in the dark to a tomb has been completely turned around.
“La nuit n'a jamais empêché
le grand Soleil de se lever”
– The night has never prevented the great Sun from rising.
*
The legacy of last week’s migraine is hanging around, like a hangover. And I’m still anxious. The advice is to sleep well, drink plenty of water, and not overload myself. I’ve been following those instructions faithfully. There are days to rest before the next long drive south. Apart from attending Sunday’s rally for the Palestinians in Gaza, I won’t travel too far from HQ.
I don’t know why I thought I could do it all – just pick up where I left off and become a fly-in-fly-out super-chaplain. I need to recover from the past two years. My body is literally carrying the emotional toll of it all. I need to make a slower, more steady retreat back into chaplaincy life. I need more rest. I need to take care of myself.
May Your holy angels dwell with us and guard us in peace.
Right now, though, with a cup of tea beside me and the drizzle on the window pane, I think I am at peace. I did survive the past two years. I will manage the next four months split between two places. This week’s migraine was simply that – and I had friends and colleagues who took care of me. Today’s returning rain suggests that there is yet hope for a good winter orchid season. In September, I’ll take a fortnight in the Grampians and hunt for spring orchids in the mountains. And next year, I’ll return to England. The song says,
“Well, there must have been angels at our doors
Flying carpets on our floors
There must have been something in the air
'Cause we're still here.”
There must be something. I’m still here.
I’ve been thinking again of William down in Mount Gambier, and our conversation about seeing angels. There’s a line in a favourite novel of mine that says, “It's never occurred to me that the stars are still up there shining even in the daytime when we can't see them.” Like Mary Magdalene still in her grief, though there were angels and the risen Lord right beside her! So too, Christ always before me, calling me by name. Stars always shining. And angels everywhere.
Olly Ponsonby, May 2025
***
Scripture refs. include – Heb 1:7,14, Jn 1:50-51, Lk 8:1-2, Jn 20:1-18, Ps 16:8, Is 43:1.
William’s name has been changed.
“May Your holy angels dwell with us and guard us in peace” is taken from Compline, https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/daily-prayer/night-prayer-compline
“The World is Stone” is by Tim Rice, © Sixty Four Squares Music Ltd., Colline Ed. Musicales S.A.
“La nuit n'a jamais…” is taken from “Un Paradis” by Assane Attyé, 2025.
“It's never occurred to me” is from “I’ll Give You the Sun” by Jandy Nelson, 2014.
“Well, there must have been…” taken from “I’m still here” by Lynn Miles, 1996.