I wonder if you’d permit me to address a couple of matters that emerge from answering the “Contact Us” email. One is the matter of asking me to cease addressing Archangel Michael as “Lord.”
There are several traditional attitudes that people adopt in their devotional relationship with the Divine. Hindus have studied this subject the most deeply, in my opinion.
These attitudes reflect one’s own temperament and perceived connection with God or with his angels. One is the friend, another the lover, the parent, the child, etc. And one is the servant.
I am a servant of Archangel Michael. That doesn’t mean that you are or have to be. But I am. And to stop addressing Archangel Michael as “Lord” would be like asking me to do something untoward or reprehensible.
Please know that I feel exposed enough as it is having landed in a society that does not value the word “Lord” without taking up that practice myself.
How others proceed is up to them. This is (becoming) a free society, where we don’t ask people to conform to our usage, providing theirs is not causing harm.
The use of the word “Lord” in relationship to the archangels meets with a response from my heart, a flood of love, a sense of true proportion.
It honors the very wide gulf there is between the manner in which Archangel Michael sees and the manner in which I see. And it honors the fact that I serve him. It’s “proportionate” to me. It feels appropriate or fitting. It may not feel the same to you and I honor that.
In India, where the traditional devotional attitudes towards the Divine are well known, one does not ask a devotee to stop talking to Krishna as if he were one’s child. One allows to each person the form of their relationship with the Lord that they choose.
I’d be happy to see us start doing that in the Western world as well – to allow each person the form of their relationship with God that they prefer, rather than asking one person not to relate to God or the archangels in the way that he or she wishes.
Second matter, the answer to which will sound like a complete contradiction of the first. Archangel Michael seemed to suggest that, if I wanted to see SaLuSa “change” his vocabulary regarding containment, I needed to speak to Mike. A reader asks me why I appear to say I won’t do that.
We nearly lost Mike last year because someone criticized him in a way that really hurt him. It took more than 360 emails from his readers to convince him not to retire. Do you really wish to be without SaLuSa? I can’t tell you how sad I would be if that were to occur.
I admire Mike. I know what a sacrifice he may have made to be the voice of SaLuSa and be known publicly for that.
I’m not going to offend Mike over a matter that time will see to. I know that Archangel Michael has, in the past, completed the suggestion he made to me by saying “speak to the other person or remain quiet.” I could rummage through my readings and find that statement, if you like.
He’s never simply commanded someone to do one thing if they didn’t want to. As he would say, “that is not of love.” So I have the alternative to remain quiet. And I choose to follow that alternative.
The more general sanction for this line of behavior comes from Gandhi. Gandhi would put harmlessness before truth. I’m not as good at that as Gandhi was. But I do follow the dictum nonetheless. I think it necessary for humans because we’re able and show ourselves willing to use the truth as a weapon to work harm. Harmlessness or ahimsa is, for humans, superior to truth, although not superior in the ultimate or absolute range of experience.
No one actually can be harmed in the ultimate sense and the truth is what we are here to learn. But on this relative plane of existence, I choose harmlessness over truth in the matter of the slowness that “SaLuSa” may be showing to discuss containment.
If containment is happening, events will reveal it. If it is not, I will not support the notion and will return to my source for an explanation. If the fault lies with my source, and I were to put that source to the side, it still would not mean that I don’t serve Archangel Michael. It would just mean that my source has shown itself to be wanting.
The real Archangel Michael would know whom I serve.