I first learned of the feast of the archangels in the Episcopal church, where it is known as Michaelmas and the focus is on the Archangel Michael. My fascination with the Archangel Michael goes back earlier though to a trip to Mount St. Michel in France in my 20’s. I loved the idea of pilgrimage, of people traveling by foot for months to visit one of the sites dedicated to Saint Michael throughout Europe. For years, I wore the little medalion that I bought in the village below the monastery there. On the medalion is Saint Michael, spear raised, ready to kill the dragon.
The issue of dragons in European culture is complicated though. Our portrayal of dragons as evil probably dates back to the suppression of goddess religions. Apollo killed Gaia’s dragon in order to establish his own oracle at Delphi. And if dragons came to represent the wild, it is too easy to turn the metaphor of slaying the dragon into permission to destroy the natural. And if dragons came to represent anger, it is too easy to turn the metaphor of slaying the dragon into permission to tell suppressed people to shut up and take it.
John Edgerton, when he was minister at Old South Church gave several sermons on demons. He believed in demons, he told us, but not as cartoon characters with horns. He believed in the demons of greed and despair and hate. If the dragon represents these, then perhaps we have something to work with.
Ursula K. LeGuin wrote “People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.” We cannot deny the existence of hate and greed and despair, especially as they appear within ourselves. It is easy to see them out there, but to see them in here is a much more difficult matter. Yet they are universal and when the old stories are told of Saint George praying to the archangel Michael for courage to face the dragon, it is the dragon within that he is looking for the courage to face.
That just leaves us with the problem of slaying the dragon. In my 20’s that idea seemed so right. I believed there were things that could, nay should, be cut out with a sword. Cut out of society. Cut out of me. I wonder about that now though. If, as Master Yoda says, hate stems from anger which stems from fear, then maybe we can’t just cut out hate, from ourselves or from society. Maybe we need to face the hate and work our way back through the anger to the fear. Which means the dragon isn’t hate itself, but a creature consumed by fear and anger until it became hate. Maybe then as Saint Francis did with the wolf of Gubbio we are meant to tame the dragon, return it to it’s true self and learn to live beside it. And honestly that seems a more difficult and frightening task than just killing it. So today, I offer this prayer to Saint Michael, the Archangel:
Saint Michael the Archangel, send us courage to face the dragon within. To love back to its true self what has become unloveable. Amen.
