#// overall the whole equation between emmanuel being a reminder that 'god is with us' and him choosing what that means.

[handgiven]

Lord, make me your lantern. I shall burn out but I shall also grant others your light.

Emmanuel was created as a promise. An angel whose purpose was to personify the fact that עִמָּנוּאֵל, ‘Īmmānū'ēl, Deus nobiscum, God is with us. It made little sense at first, of course, for God was everywhere and all there was was with God. The many meanings a single name could take on had revealed themselves upon the split of Heaven and Hell.

It was against Emmanuel’s nature to join Hell, the weight of his name keeping him from ever even considering going against the Holy. It was against his character however to become a battlecry. Neither Heaven nor Hell could have him for any part of their agenda, as he discovered to his bewilderment a side uncalled for. The suffering, the wounded, the forgotten. The very universe was ripping at the seams for a holy war and none of those that have put love and care into its creation seemed to have it in them to take a single look.

When in doubt, lean in to the side of mercy. When in doubt, find that which is kind. When in doubt, think of a God that is good before all else.

Emmanuel’s existence may have been an act of godly narcissism, same as it could have been an act of self-awareness. The angel never had it in him to question that part of his nature, nor try to consider the Creator’s point of view.  He knows this: he is the helping hand given by God to the land, the stars, the living beings. He is to help wherever he can and bring comfort where he cannot. And he does that alone more often than not. And he does it always, up until the moment he falls apart. And yet there is so much suffering left in this world, and all the others. But how could you expect a single angel to handle it all?

Nowadays, he inhabits the spaces in between. Abandoned flats in abandoned buildings all over the world. His most often used ability to bend space-time & make use of more than the four dimensions we know as people is exactly this. He has a space of his own which is made out of different spaces all around the world, for as long as those places are free to be inhabited by him.

To a human entering his cottage or a flat or a tiny room inside a lighthouse those are all that they will see. A cottage interior inside a cottage, a tiny flat with a window facing a wall containing precisely that within it – even the lighthouse will seem just a lighthouse. Emmanuel can however move freely between these spaces he temporarily links, and if he wants to make tea in a kettle he forgot in one of these places, he can just reach there and seemingly charm it out of thin air.

Emmanuel can appear as your neighbour the day your neighbours move out. You might meet him in the staircase and he will smile. He will stay as long as that flat is empty and then disappear like he was never there. he leaves behind a feeling of fondness for a place, a sort of appreciation. That’s how he lives, nowhere and everywhere. Following his duty, and being a guardian angel to the entire universe, until it tears him apart.

Here’s your sorrow, and here’s my shoulder.