God Squad: Angels, like us, are God's creations

As a teacher in a parochial school, I like to share with my students how much we have in common with our religious ancestors in Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures. However, I've been stumped when students ask about the Nephilim. With the recent release of a novel called "Angelology," dealing with the Nephilim of Genesis 6:1-4, I'd love to know your interpretation. Is this just an allegory of how evil came into the world? Or does it have another interpretation or source in ancient writings?

- M., Albertson, via e-mail

I do not believe, and the major faiths reaffirm this, that angels are good dead guys.

People live and die, and then our souls are brought to heaven or extinguished in hell. From heaven, our souls are either recycled into the bodies of newborn babies (without the memory of previous lives) or just allowed to live out eternity near the presence of God. Nobody knows for sure, so you decide. Angels, if they exist, are a form of spiritual being lower than God but higher than humans. They don't have physical urges or needs and disappear once their mission is accomplished. Their missions are to help God interact with people. In Jewish tradition, there are the ministering angels like Michael and Uriel and Nuriel, whose job is to be closer to God and to direct the lower group of angels, who are guardian angels.

One legend I like tells that each of us has two angels assigned to us during our life. One angel rats us out to God for the bad things we do, and one reports all the good we do. After we die, they help our soul understand how we succeeded and failed in the life we just lived.

Then, they disappear, and our soul lives out the consequences of our life and is then recycled or not.

I believe in this idea of angels as lower but still spiritual beings because it seems reasonable to me that God is the supreme but not the only spiritual being in the universe.

The Nephilim referred to in Genesis are part of ancient mythology and reflect the basic belief that although God loves us, our mendacity and sinfulness constantly give God reason to regret creating us in the first place.

Angels reflect our inner spiritual anxiety caused by our contradictory beliefs that we are both created in God's image but also created with evil inclinations. This explains the existence of evil angels, headed by Satan. They're not independent forces opposing God.

Rather, they're created by God to remind God and us that, except for the truly saintly among us, our progress to holiness is a struggle, not a sure thing.

So for those who believe in angels, the main thing to remember is that angels, like us, are created by God, who is the only Creator in the universe. You need not fear the evil angels, nor should you believe that the good angels will make all your hard decisions for you. You're not alone in life, but you're definitely in charge of yours.

For religious folks who find angelology ridiculous, I completely understand. What you might want to understand is that believing in God doesn't mean God is the only spiritual being. Just as electricity is transformed from the big power plants into the weaker current that enters our homes, so the immense spiritual energy of God may be transformed by angels into a more intimate and less fearsome manifestation of God's love and chastisement in our lives.

Nevertheless, you can live a full spiritual life without believing in angels.

Finally, I believe, there is a form of divine messenger who can be conveyed by a real human being. This angel/person might be a teacher who encourages you to do things you didn't believe you could. Perhaps the person introduced you to someone who became your spouse or offered you an opportunity that profoundly changed your life.

Such people are unwittingly helping God deliver a message, and neither you nor the messenger is aware of this.

Our task in life is not to look for winged spiritual creatures flitting around, but to pay attention to the messages being sent by God for our spiritual betterment. So when you become aware that an angel has visited and given you a message, I'd ask you to do two things: 1) Say a prayer of thanks and 2) find the angel if you can, and tell him/her that you're grateful for their being God's mailbox.