I think that we use the term “Angel” to describe anyone who is extra-special and, of course, those supernatural beings we suspect actually exist up in Heaven and come down to do special things for us from time to time.  We actually spent a whole morning in Bible Study today going over the mention of angels in the “Old Testament” or Torah and trying to figure out what they have to do with our lives in the world of today.

It seems that most of us and according to magazine articles about our need to have faith in – well, faith – are comfortable talking about angels.  The ones written about in scripture are most familiar but most of us know an angel or two who lives or lived among us.

I didn’t get much of a response when I took my position as gadfly for the group and said that my thought about angels involved good and bad ones and I used the example of the one sitting on my right shoulder (say Bill Clinton) and the one sitting on my left shoulder (say G.W. Bush).  I think the comparison was pretty exact and appropriate. But the group more or less wants to talk politics but does not.

The Good Angels are those who do good in the name of what most of us conceive as a whole range and array of good that is needed in the world by the vast majority of us.  The Bad Angels are those who pervert that process and do good for a select few in the same name as doing “good” but in a particular, perverted sense directed towards people who already have it too good and have much too much of what anyone would need in a lifetime.  This is the part of the speech where “share the wealth” ideas comes in.

Those who have too little believe a lot in Angels.  Those who have too much believe in: Those who help themselves are smarter than all the rest.  I don’t think that Angels exist nor did they ever exist. Primitive minds came up with them as explanations that God - who did exist in their minds either as plural gods or THE ONE GOD reigning over all the rest - had a bunch of messengers who did the hard work of being everywhere at the same time. They did good things - not in the sense that Santa Claus performs special rites for good little children in time for Christmas Day - but for the special events for which there were no other explanations.

Angelology is not scientific nor is it particularly rational and does not give consistent answers.  What it has been is often solace for the many who cannot see their way clearly through the fog of living in a world that never promised a rose garden or a fair shake.