Conversation with an Angel

A Catholic Fundamentalist was recently invited to interview a high-ranking Angelic Sub-Programmer who preferred to remain anonymous:

Catholic Fundamentalist: Thank you very much for deigning to speak with me.

Angelic Sub-Programmer: It’s always a pleasure to speak with a human being.

CF: I have some questions I’d like to ask you from our readers.

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Why don’t they just ask me, themselves?

CF: They’re afraid you won’t hear them.

Angelic Sub-Programmer: That’s ridiculous. We hear everything. Listen, I’ll let you hear a sparrow burping after eating a bug in Sonora:

CF: I hear it! I even see it! If you’re aware of that, you know about everything.

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Yes, I do. I can hear people thinking, too. Often, they are thinking thoughts that are embarrassing.

CF: I know that feeling.

Angelic Sub-Programmer: I know you do.

CF: What do you do when people are thinking bad thoughts?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Personally, I don’t do anything. There’s a whole department for that. We have Listeners. They hear every single thing that every single person is saying, either to themselves or to someone else. When Listeners hear anything that could be destructive to a soul, it goes “Beep!” on their “moral radar” screen.

CF: Then, what happens?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Usually, we send a “question angel”. The “question angel” asks if the person really wants to go on thinking along that line.

CF: What if that doesn’t work?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: If they want to keep thinking bad thoughts, we usually aren’t allowed to stop them. Free Will, and all that “conscience” business. We just remind them that there may be long-term, deleterious effects from that kind of thinking.

CF: What, actually, is “that kind of thinking”?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: It’s any thought process that leads them away from Him and His Commandments.

CF: Do you get them straightened out?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Not at first. Usually, we have to ask and ask and ask. And, we aren’t allowed to “straighten them out” unless they ask. We do try to get them to ask.

CF: How do you do that?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Lots of times, we provide some kind of a mini-miracle in their lives. We have someone be kind to them. Listen to them. Have them win a prize. Sometimes, the Help Desk provides a job, a new friend, or a book. Something for which they can be thankful. It’s a never-ending job.

CF: Don’t you get tired?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: For brief periods. Saving souls is a tough, challenging job. Getting rid of that blasted vanity of theirs is harder than putting out a volcano with a water pistol. But, to answer your question, when we get tired, we just go to a more powerful spirit to get re-charged to the proper level.

CF: Where do you go when you get tired?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: We have a Recharge Department for that.

CF: How does that work?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Same way as immoral thought alerts. When a spiritual being is tired, its output changes. The Holy Wireless Connector picks that right up.

CF: Holy Wireless Connector?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: He recharges and connects the Programmer, the Program, and everything in it that’s accessible. You humans used to call Him “The Holy Spirit”. Before that, you called Him “Holy Ghost”. But, He’s really a Universal Connector who’s both Holy and Wireless.

CF: He keeps everything in order?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Yes. He lets the program that is “you” connect with The Program and The Programmer. The three are a seamless operating unit. They, or He, keep, or keeps, everything going.

CF: That’s why things don’t seem to be running down or collapsing?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: That’s it. They provide re-energization. Not for the physical part. That program just runs by itself. The important tiredness They get rid of comes from the confusion that you free-will creatures get when you embrace conflicting systems. We try to get you closer to one system. His system. That’s why He created The Church.

CF: How did He do that?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: The Church was so hard to start that He was sweating blood. Lots of people did.

CF: Why doesn’t the physical part run down?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: There’s a department for that.

CF: Is there anything for which you do not have a department?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: No. Everything has a department.

CF: Which department do you work in?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: I work in The Simplification Department. It has several sections. My favorite section works to insert word patterns into confused minds to let them rest. Replace hate with love, dislike with affection, and so forth.

CF: How does that work?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: We have several sources for helpful word patterns. We try to get wandering souls involved in conversations with people who will tell them the truth. We try to have them read books with thoughts that will help them eliminate confusion. Sometimes, we try to get them to watch a particular movie or TV show, or hear a speaker, who will help them simplify their thoughts so the poor things can be at rest.

CF: Sounds very challenging.

Angelic Sub-Programmer: It is. Sometimes, we have to get them to read an entire book, or watch an entire movie, just to get one or two simplifying sentences into their mind.

CF: Then, life gets easier for them?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: It may. We help. Sometimes, we’re ordered in to clean out living elements of confusion in their minds.

CF: Living elements of confusion?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Demons, dervishes, and imps. They’re always there, making trouble.

CF: Can you see them? What do you do?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: We zap ‘em. Best way to describe it to you is use the word “charge changer”. You’d think it’s like a ray gun, but it’s not. It’s like a kid’s pistol that shoots bbs. It’s small and accurage that it can knock an electron out of place, and so fast that it can get into the nucleus underneath the orbiting electrons.

CF: What’s it do with its tiny bbs? I assume they’re as small as electrons?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Much smaller. It changes the charge. Simple as that. The demon, which is a spiritual force smaller than an electron, can be neutralized or even weakened. Other times, the charge may be reversed.

CF: You mean, a demon can be turned into an angel?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: It’s theoretically possible. After all, the evil spirits used to be good. When jealousy turned their leader against The Programmer, jealousy made him hate all that’s good. Just took a little charge-change to get him twisted into pure evil. Charge-changes are quick.

CF: Do angels still turn into evil spirits?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Not for eons. Once the rest of us saw how bad they were, we just shudder. So do they. Demons are, as St. Theresa used to say, “essentially spiritual, so they hate those who pervert their spiritual nature.”

CF: So, you turn a lot of the bad ones back to good?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: Depends. Sometimes, their self-imposed punishment has to continue.

CF: What happens at the end?

Angelic Sub-Programmer: We really don’t know. A lot of us talk about it on breaks. The best theory is that they just disappear into a flash of agony that goes on forever. We, on the other hand, are everlasting bundles of joy.