From the Author:

Throughout my life, but particularly while writing David, My David, I have felt the presence of protective, encouraging intent, both living and beyond.

This soothing, salutary action is mentioned within the book as the capacity for being “the unsummoned angel.”

It is not only others, or other spirits, who can be an unsummoned angel, but each of us, here and now. In the open-heartedness of our friends in Reformed, Reconstructionist and Humanist Judaism, this is often called “tikkun olam” — repairing the world.

The following poem, whose Ancient Greek title-phrase means “the unsummoned angel,” expresses this effect, this gift.