The Problem With Angels

By CL Bledsoe — NOT ANOTHER TV DAD

When I was growing up, people told me there were angels watching over me. It was kind of ambiguous where the angels had come from (heaven?) and where they were now (also heaven?). They had something to do with God…or possibly toilet paper, according to the commercials. Maybe they were the heavenly host. But other times, people talked about the souls of specific people watching over their loved ones. I guess they’d achieved angel-hood after death.

This idea always bothered me. If they were angels created by God, how many were there? Did we each have our own personal angel, or did each angel have a certain number of people they watched over? What happened when we died; were they transferred to a new department? I had similar questions if the angel was a deceased loved one. Just because someone dies, doesn’t mean their lives can be retconned, reimagining them as a good person, though that’s what people like to try to do. And what happens when a person dies; does their angel keep watching over their descendants? That’s going to get confusing, fast, as generations diverge. And what if, say, your mom dies but you have siblings? Does mom watch over all of us? What if we move to different countries, different continents. How does mom keep up with us all? The biggest concern I have about this situation, though, is the idea that I would be keeping my…