More about angels

I posted this as a comment in Mark Shea's blog where there was light hearted wondering if angels are "creative" beings.

Jesus explained that angels constantly face God. Therefore angels are active and creative only in the sense that they fully attend to God's will. By constantly facing God they are always fully "plugged into" and totally responsive to God's will. On their "other side" (the side that faces temporal human life) they interface with humans as God wills it. This was what Ezechiel strived to describe, that angels have "sides" and the arrangement of those sides was the same on all four angels. The "sides" that angels have are the manifestation of God's will and purpose in the direction that it is being directed.

I would not call it angel creativity as much as I would call it an individualized application interface! Each angel has a "personality," an "individuality," but there is no portion of them that is separate in any time or space from God's will and purpose. For example you can see that angels can be conversational (when they dined with Abraham, when Raphael accompanied the family of Tobias) so there is individuality in their appearance and response, but it is not creativity per se because each angel is entirely illuminated in their intention by God's will. Their chitchat might vary per their unique individuality but the purpose and outcome of the chitchat is entirely manifested by God through them. Angels take pleasure in the same things that God do. This is why there are guardian angels, because angels love babies by applying and feeling their portion of God's love total love for humans as children of God, and like God angels are genuinely interested in the well being of each and every person, regardless how far they have strayed. However they never ad lib or improvise. They are fully illuminated by God's overall will and purpose at all times. As Jesus described to the Apostles that he treats them as friends and not slaves (and therefore they know the ways and means of what he does) likewise angels are entirely privy to God's overall purpose and intention, so they are not creative in an ad hoc, ad lib, or improvisational way.

About the choice. Angels chose once for all time. No angels reside in heaven that are not, as I described above, completely of God's will. That is the meaning of the fall. An angelic being that has fallen is not only shut out of heaven, but by not serving God they remove themselves from the life spring of God's will that is the only thing that allows a being to even exist in heaven. When St. John described being in "heaven" and the end of times battles he observed, this was heaven in the sense of not being bound to earth materially and temporally (these are spiritual events) but he was not witnessing conflict in heaven proper, where there can be no battle, nor is there any deviation from God's will. Not because it is an autocracy but because heaven as a place does not exist at all except as it is vitalized by God's will and purity of purpose and intention. Nothing that is not entirely of God's will can take form, reside in, or endure in the purity of the truth of God's totality that is heaven.

People short change themselves when they think that moments of great inspiration come from angels! Angels are not motivated to be creative, but they love, as God does, the vitality of life when it is completely in harmony with the will and love of God. Angels aren't cubists or impressionists, nor do they suggest good plot twists! *wink* In the lives of the saints you will see that the only places angels "inspire" is at the behest of the Holy Spirit when writing the word of God. In Revelation the angel gives St. John the scroll, but the angel was not the author of the scroll, to give an example in the scriptures. Angels strive to be protective of a woman's pregnancy, for example, but do not give decorating advice for the nursery. Angels comfort so that no one is ever really alone (notice that one specific "average" angel comforted Jesus in the garden, not a glorious angelic event, but rather, just as one would have one's own guardian angel present during the worst of suffering). So the beauty of angels is exactly that, not their imaginary garb or creative bent, but their very consistency that each of them constantly faces God and are constantly available to guard and strengthen humans. Jesus himself did not get comfort from an "extra special super sized angel" in his time of need, but the very same angelic type that everyone has available to them in the form of their guardian angel.

Sorry I've gone on a bit here but I do love talking about angels! Real angels, not the feather boa types heh.