Dawn Is Coming

NOTE

2006-11-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

Finally, I get back on and post the next two parts. Notice: TWO PARTS! Part five is under part six. I did that for two reasons. One, both were ready to go, and two, part six is so short I felt that if I published five and six separately, some might be disappointed by six's length.
Happy Thanksgiving. Part seven coming soon (and we all know what that means...)
As well as two others I am working on, including one concerning abortion and another dragon slayer that could take up four or five posts.
God Bless,
Arthur B Roberts

THE MEETING. PART SIX: PREACHING

2006-11-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

Aimee couldn't shake what Deputy Bill Michaels had said. "They deserve it, don't they?" Aimee knew that Hynes deserved to die for his crimes. In fact, every man in that building had earned their punishment, hadn't they? Michaels sat there silently, letting his words sink in. Aimee didn't know how to respond.
"Of course they deserve it," she said finally.
"And Vincent Hynes deserves to die," Bill said.
"He does," she agreed.
"Then why is your husband in there right now?" he asked. "Surely your daughter's killer doesn't deserve forgiveness. Does he?"
Aimee didn't reply. Her intended response didn't sound very Christian to her.
Bill looked down at the Bible that Aimee had carried with her. Her finger was still holding the place where she had been reading when the reporters ambushed her.
"What were you reading when those guys found you?" he asked.
She glanced down at the book. "Luke fifteen," she said. "The parable of the prodigal son."
"Interesting," Bill said, looking back at the prison. "Tell me, did the prodigal son deserve to be forgiven?"
Aimee thought for a moment. "No. He didn't. He squandered everything he had been given and only went home when he had no where else to go."
"But his father forgave him."
"Yes, he did."
"Why?"
"I guess because he was his child," Aimee said. "He loved him. He wanted to forgive him."
"He was waiting to forgive him," Bill told her. "He sat there just waiting for the chance to go out and embrace his son again. He didn't care what the boy had done or where he'd been. He just wanted to love him."
Aimee looked down at the book again. The parable was so familiar to her. She had read and heard it more times than she could remember, but this was the first time it seemed to speak directly to her.
"And here we are," Bill went on, "outside of a building full of prodigal sons that Father is just waiting to embrace."
Aimee looked back at the stone walls and barred windows. Did one of those windows belong to her daughter's murderer? Was the Father waiting to embrace him? Aimee couldn't believe it, but the words of Jesus' parable told her that it was so.
Inside the visitation room Alex had just finished reading Luke fifteen to Vincent Hynes.
"I don't get it, Reverend," he said.
"Look what it says," Alex said. "There's rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repents. Elsewhere Jesus says that He came to call sinners to repentance and that He didn't come to the world to condemn it, but to save it. He wants to save you, Vincent. Like the father in the parable, God's just waiting for you to come home."
"How could he?" Hynes asked. "How could He even stand to look at me?
"He can't," Alex said. "He couldn't look at me either before I repented. He cannot look upon sin. But it's because He loves you that He wants to save you. The Bible says that if you're in Christ, you're a new creation. He makes you new so that He can look at you!"
"What does that mean?" Hynes asked. "In Christ?"
"Oh boy," Alex said, looking at his watch. "I don't know if we have time to go into all that. It takes some people years to grasp that concept."
"I don't have years, Reverend," Hynes reminded him quietly.
"Right," Alex said, feeling stupid. "Well, being in Christ basically means being a Christian. Giving your life to Him, putting everything you are into His hands. He then cleanses you and makes you an entirely new creature, one He can fellowship with."
"But he sure can't do this with someone like me," Hynes said. "Can he?"
In response to that, Alex turned the pages in his Bible to the book of Romans and began to read some other Scriptures to him.
As he took Vincent Hynes through the "Roman Road" he thought to himself that it was actually going well. It was working. He had been able to detach himself from the fact that the man he was speaking with had murdered his little girl. Alex was just preaching another sermon, and he had been able to say the right words without thought to his own feelings ant motives for... well, for ten years.

THE MEETING. PART FIVE: CHARLIE

2006-11-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Charlie Woods was home alone. His classes had been cancelled that afternoon due to some sort of teacher training day or something. He didn't care. He wouldn't have gone to class that day anyway. He would have called in sick, even though he had no physical ailment. But he was feeling nauseous because of that he had just seen.
Charlie had been renting a house off campus with two friends for two years after a terrible two years of living in the dorm. The house wasn't all that nice; four bedrooms, one and a half baths, a small kitchen and a small front room, no garage or even much of a yard to speak of. The only thing he, Max, and C.J. prided themselves on was the big screen TV they had saved up for six months to buy. The entertainment center filled almost a third of the front room and had run them nearly five thousand dollars altogether, but even though this was their most prized possession, Charlie had to work to refrain from kicking in the TV screen.
He had been flipping through the channels when he happened to pause on one of the cable news stations and saw his sister's face. It was an old file photo of Jessica Woods, the one of her sitting in the park that Sunday. He had known that his father was visiting Vincent J. Hynes today, and he knew that the media had somehow found out about it, but it still didn't seem real until he saw Jessica on television.
The scene shifted from the file photo to a shot of his dad walking briskly into the prison, ignoring the dozens of reporters. There was a graphic at the bottom of the screen which read "Victim's father meets with killer." Then a reporter stood there with the prison as a backdrop and a microphone in her hand. Her nearly flawless face bore a somber expression, but Charlie knew she was far from somber. He remembered very distinctly from a decade earlier that when the cameras were off, the reporters were greedy, heartless, and overbearing. This pretty blond lady had gone to that prison for the sole purpose of exploiting Alex Woods, his grieving family, and his dead little girl. She didn't care about any of them, and neither did most of the people tuning in to the broadcast.
"Yes, Michelle," the reporter said, "Reverend Woods is inside the facility at this moment and we can only assume he is meeting with Vincent Hynes. His wife Aimee is here as well, but she did not go inside. We attempted to ask her a few questions about her husband's decision, but she declined to be interviewed. I'll be here when Reverend Woods comes back out and we'll see if we can get a statement from him."
Then the story was over and another one, this one about a skirmish in the Middle East, took precedent. Charlie and his friends received two other cable news networks and he checked them both only to see similar accounts of his father brushing off reporters and a promise of an update. One did a short revalidation of the Hynes case, focusing mainly on Jessica. When it was over, Charlie flipped off the TV and began to sob.
Why, after all these years, why did this have to be dug up and flung back at him? Why couldn't these people just let Jessica rest in peace? Why couldn't they leave the Woods family alone? And why didn't his father just burn that letter and say, "To Hell with Vincent Hynes!" That's where the monster was going anyway.
Charlie remembered the day Jessica went missing. The last things his sister had said to him was, "I'm going to kill you, you little brat!" Charlie had been more hurt than angry. After all, it was just a stupid picture and he was just having fun. It had haunted him for ten years that the last time he had seen his older sister they had fought. He never got to say good-bye to her and the last memory she would have of her little brother was of him saying, "I don't know what the big deal is. You look ugly in ever picture!"
But Jessica had not been ugly. Not ever. Charlie had loved her so much and had always thought that she was one of the prettiest girls he had ever known. He was just being a stupid little brother. He never meant to hurt her. If only he could just go back and tell her that.
He hadn't cried this hard since Jessica's funeral. He was glad that Max and C.J. weren't home, though he was sure that they would understand. He would much rather be alone.
He still remembered the day Jessica went missing like it had just happened. They hadn't told Charlie or his younger sister Chrissy until they had gotten home that afternoon. They had gotten off the bus to find a police car and three news vans. From that point on, they fell into the nightmare that the next year of mourning, trials, and media harassment became. Chrissy barely understood what had happened, but Charlie was old enough to understand rape, and to understand murder.
Charlie had always been a good kid. He had never been the typical minister's son. He wasn't a trouble maker and was well liked and respected by the church, his school, and the community. All that changed the day Jessica disappeared. He stayed home from the school the whole week after she was kidnapped and returned to class the following Monday only to be sent home before lunch with a five day suspension for fighting. He didn't remember what the fight was about, but it was so severe that the only reason he hadn't been expelled was the "extenuating circumstances" involved.
"My sister is not a circumstance!" he had screamed at his principal before his father took him home. At the time, his parents were so preoccupied with what had happened to Jessica that his behavior went mostly unnoticed, which only worked to encourage it. He became known as a "bad boy," always getting into fights, and by the end of that year he was smoking and drinking. The summer before eighth grade he was caught smoking pot by his father. That brought Alex back to reality long enough to deal with his son and with their ensuing talk, the punishment, and the assistance of the church's youth pastor, Pastor Larry, Charlie was able to get his act together before he ended up doing something really stupid.
His behavior improved, his grades, which had slumped, returned to their honor student levels, and he poured himself into church activities. But only Charlie knew that his motives behind the improvements weren't what everyone around him believed. He had originally tried to push out his emotional turmoil through his violence, drinking, and drug use, which would have gotten much worse had he not been caught. He was scared straight, that was sure, but now he was pushing away the turmoil with academics and church.
Not that he cared about God. He was furious with Him. God had allowed his big sister to die. He had sat back and watched as that sick pervert violated her and then strangled the life out of her. God hadn't done a single thing to stop it. Never once in his entire life had Charlie doubted the existence of God, but since Jessica's death, he hated Him. He would never say so to anybody and nobody was the wiser, but his facade of Christianity was simply that. The activities kept him busy and the appearance of righteousness kept people, especially his family, from bothering him.
He was even a leader in the Christian Student Association on campus and nobody involved in the CSA, not even Chrissy, who was a freshmen at the same school, even suspected that his faith was less than genuine.
Chrissy had been at the house a few months earlier when they had seen the first news story on television about Alex Woods' impending meeting with Vincent J. Hynes. The first thing that they did was call home and ask their father if it was true and if he was crazy.
Charlie's pretense of faith was so convincing even his father believed it. Alex asked him to keep the meeting in prayer, which he promised he would do, though if Charlie did happen to pray, it would be his first real prayer in nearly a decade.
Chrissy had prayed, and he had gone through the motions for her sake. He even said a few words out loud, all the time just burning with a rage and hatred with which he had burned for a decade.
And he had been silently burning with that rage since that phone call. Whatever his father was doing with Hynes at that moment was a waste of time, and even if, by some odd chance, God could actually forgive that evil monster, then he was the sort of God that Charlie wanted nothing to do with.
The phone rang. He didn't answer it. After four rings, the machine picked up the call. After the brief outgoing message, a familiar voice filled the room.
"Charlie? Are you there?" It was Chrissy. "Come on, Charlie, pick up. I need to talk to you. I want to know if I can come over. I just saw Jess on TV. Please, Charlie, if you're there, pick up the phone."
Reluctantly, he did.

THE MEETING: Part Four: Face-to-Face

2006-07-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

The ten minutes was indeed a long time for Alex Woods. Impatiently, he flipped through the pages of his Bible, but couldn't decide what passage to read. He felt like getting up and pacing, but didn't know if he should. Some prisons were so strict in their rules regarding visitors that even something as simple as getting out of the assigned chair could result in immediate termination of the visit. He wasn't sure of the rules of this prison, but he would rather have been safe than sorry.
Frustrated, he closed the Bible. He had the sudden urge just to get up and leave. He would simply tell everyone that he had changed his mind. No one would question such an action. He didn't want to be alone with the monster who had murdered his daughter. But he wasn't alone; he knew that. The Lord was with him. And he knew that there were hundreds, maybe thousands of people praying for him at that moment. He closed his eyes, took a deep, stomach calming breath, and joined them in prayer.
"Lord Jesus," he whispered, "please, please help me through this. I don't know if I can do it. I don't want to do it. Please, Lord, help me. Help me to forgive this man. Help me to love him as You love him. And, Lord, I know that You do love Vincent Hynes. Help him to know that. May there be another celebration in Heaven for him tonight. I pray for him, Lord. Be here today. Speak through me. And, Lord, please calm my nerves."
He ran out of words early, but kept on praying anyway. He knew that God didn't need his words to get his message. One word just kept repeating itself in his mind, and it summed it up perfectly: Help!
After a few minutes, the door to the visitation room opened and in walked Vincent J. Hynes, flanked by two uniformed officers who may as well have been transporting a dead dog by their expressions. Lt. Mark stood behind them with his arms folded across his chest and his face a mask of disgust.
As Hynes came in, Alex found himself surprised to see an actual human being. He had spent so long demonizing this man in his own mind that he had almost expected to see an apparition from Hell in a prison jumpsuit. But Hynes was just a man, not a monster. The face that had haunted his nightmares seemed to have aged twenty-five years in the past ten. His hair, which hung just past his shoulders, was more gray than brown and he had grown a very scruffy beard, but Alex still recognized the man from the mug shot. He wearing a dingy yellow jumpsuit, leg irons, and handcuffs that held his bound wrists in front of him.
The C.O.'s forced him forward and he shuffled towards the waiting chair.
"My officers will be standing outside the door," Mark said from the hallway. "All you have to do is call them and they'll be in in seconds. Do you have any questions?"
"No, sir," Alex said.
"Good," Mark said. "Then we'll leave you alone."
The two C.O.'s turned and walked out and the door shut behind them with a loud clank. Alex was left alone with Hynes. The two men sat across from each other for an excruciatingly long moment, neither one wanting to be the first to speak. Alex had often fantasized about the moment he would meet his daughter's killer and what he would do to the man. Very few of these fantasies involved prayer and Bible reading.
Say something! he silently told himself. You didn't just come here to stare at the man!
But it was Hynes who finally broke the silence.
"Thank you for coming, Reverend Woods," he said shyly. "I know you didn't have to."
"Yes," Alex said. "I did."
"How have you been?" As soon as the question was out, Alex could tell Hynes regretted it. It was such a stupid question to ask someone who had spent the last decade mourning his daughter; especially in you were the one who killed her.
Alex almost snapped at him, "How do you think I've been?" but thought the better of it. That was not how he wanted to start off this meeting.
"I'm doing well," he said instead. "Not great, but well. I won't ask you how you've been."
"I think that's pretty obvious," Hynes chuckled, raising his hands for emphasis.
How dare you laugh? Alex thought. My little girl will never laugh again thanks to you! How dare you?
"I was surprised by you letter, Mr. Hynes," Alex said. "I didn't expect to hear from you."
"I think I was more surprised by your letter, Reverend," Hynes replied. "I've never heard of anything like it in my whole life. If I were you and somebody killed my little girl, I don't think I could ever forgive them."
"Yeah, well..." Alex trailed off. He didn't want to lie to the man about having forgiven him. Not again. But he didn't want to admit to him that he hadn't. This whole meeting was based on the assumption that the forgiveness had taken place. If he admitted now that he never really did it, he might as well just get up and leave.
"I know it doesn't mean much right now," Hynes went on, "but I am very sorry. What I did was... awful. I didn't apologize ten years ago, but I'm apologizing now, for whatever it's worth."
"Believe me," Alex said, "it means a lot." And it actually did. It was easy to hate a man who showed no remorse. It wasn't as easy to hate one who was genuinely sorry.
"If I could tell all the other families I'm sorry, I would," Hynes said. "But you're the only one I knew how to contact. Besides, if they come next week to my execution... I'll say it then."
It was like torture trying to think of what to say to this man. Alex couldn't say what he wanted to say because he was here to help Hynes and himself. He couldn't say what he knew he needed to say because he thought that his mouth would betray him and he would end up blurting out what he was trying to hard to hide.
He sent up another prayer, quick and silent: God, help me. I don't know what to do!
* * *
Aimee and deputy Michaels, whom she found calling "Bill" to be quite easy, had taken a little walk. It was at Bill's insistence. He said he knew a place where they could sit, talk, and pray and the nosey reporters wouldn't dare follow after his little speech. They ended up sitting on a bench near the highway. It was on a pleasantly landscaped corner near the prison parking lot designed specifically for people to "escape the images of this awful place," as Bill put it. It faced the highway and the snow capped mountains beyond it, and away from the towers, walls, and barbed wire of the prison.
"Guards come here on their breaks sometimes," Bill explained. "It helps to get a new perspective on things. Staring at those walls and bars can be depressing, even if you get to go home at the end of the day."
"I fell sorry for the men who don't get to go home," Aimee remarked. She glanced back over her shoulder at the imposing structures of the prison. "I can't imagine living in that place... Or dying there."
"They deserve it, don't they?" Bill asked. He sounded amazingly cold, especially considering how friendly Aimee had thought he was. "They all earned their punishment."
"Yes, but..." Aimee trailed off. She was about to say, "but what about mercy," but something struck her so suddenly that she fell silent. For a moment, she had almost forgotten that her daughter's killer was behind those bars. Almost... She could feel sorry for an abstract number of men, most of them condemned to die in the place, either by lethal injection or the passing of their hundred or so year sentences. But then she thought about Hynes. She thought about how her daughter’s life had ended in that cold dark forest at that monster's hands and she thought that dying in this horrendous place was better than he deserved. "Victimless" crimes didn't receive a death penalty and very few of them garnered life sentences either. Every man in that prison had hurt someone or killed someone. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people like her, forever trapped in a prison of loss and grief. The killers in the prison had earned their punishments.
* * *
They had sat there staring at each other for nearly a minute, neither of them speaking. It felt more like and hour and Alex began to wonder what he was really doing there. Hynes was looking expectantly at him.
"I think," Alex began, grasping desperately at straws, "we should begin with a prayer."
"A prayer?" Hynes repeated.
"Yes," Alex said. "We're here to talk about God, right? Let's start off by asking Him to be here with us."
"I know He'll listen to you," Hynes said, "but I doubt He'd pay much attention to me."
Alex thought about that for a moment. Would God heed Vincent Hynes's prayer? The Bible says that God doesn't hear the prayers of those who harbor sin in their hearts. If that was the case, had God even heard Alex's prayers for the past decade? Hadn't he been harboring the sin of unforgiveness?
Alex had even preached on that subject once. He had come to the conclusion that there was one prayer that the Lord heard no matter who uttered it. That was a prayer of repentance. It was a prayer of a man truly seeking God. After all, the conversion experience was invariably preceded by what was traditionally called "the sinner's prayer." If the two of them, both harboring sin for so long, honestly came together and asked the Lord to cleanse them of it, if they asked for His guidance and redemption, He would listen.
"Tell me one thing, Mr. Hynes," Alex said. "Are you truly willing to seek after God today?"
"Yes," Hynes said, "I am."
"Then He'll hear you." Then he added, more to himself then to Hynes, "He'll hear both of us."
"Okay, then," Hynes said. "Let's pray."
Vincent Hynes put his cuffed hands out on the table and opened them as best as he could. As difficult as it was to come here and see this man, it was much more so for Alex to reach across the table and grasp the hands that had choked the life out of his little girl. He did so, and he held them tightly. Hynes bowed his head and closed his eyes, but Alex did not.
"Lord," Alex began, "we pray that You be here with us today. We are here to seek Your will and to find Your forgiveness. Father, we ask that You guide us through this difficult meeting and that Your will be done. We ask that You help us to see the things in our lives that we need to repent of and that You enable us to do so. Let Your Holy Spirit be in this place today. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen."
"Amen," Hynes repeated. He released Alex's hands and Alex resisted the urge to wipe them on his pant legs.
"So," Alex said, "why don't we begin with why you decided to write to me after all these years?"
"I'm gonna die in a week," Hynes replied. "Something like that really makes a guy think, you know? It's easy when you're sure you got years left the forget about the state of your soul, but when it's down to months, or weeks, or days you begin to really think about it. Like I told you, I read your letter every day. I have it memorized. When I was notified six months ago that my execution date was set, the words you wrote seemed to mean so much more, and I knew I needed to talk to you."
"So you want redemption?"
"No," Hynes said. "I told you, I'm not worthy of it. I just wanted to make peace with you before I die. There's no chance of making peace with God."
"Don't say that," Alex told him. "There's always a chance."
"The Bible says, 'No murderer has eternal life abiding in him,'" Hynes said. "I'm a murderer."
"So, you've read the Bible," Alex said.
"Parts of it," Hynes replied. "I don't understand much of it, but that part was clear. There is no hope for me."
"Are you so sure of that?" Alex asked, knowing that he had his own doubts. "Remember Moses? David? Two great men of God right? I mean, they wrote huge chunks of the Bible!"
"So what's your point?"
"They were both murderers," Alex told him. "Moses killed an Egyptian. That's why he ran into the desert. David stole a man's wife and had him killed. Would you say there was no hope for them?"
"That's different," Hynes said. "They only killed one person. I've killed a lot more than that. And I did other things too."
"I stole a stick of gum from a grocery store when I was eight," Alex said.
"Yeah, and?"
"And for that, I deserve to burn in Hell for all eternity."
"For stealing gum?" Hynes looked doubtful.
"For sinning," Alex replied. "Every sin, no matter how minor it may seem to us, is enough to separate us from God. We are no different in His eyes. We are all sinners in desperate need of salvation. Nobody can say they aren't going to Hell because their neighbor is a worse sinner than they are."
"If God'll throw someone in Hell over a stick of gum, what hope is there for anyone?"
"Let's look at that," Alex said, opening his Bible. While the pain of his daughter's loss, his hatred for Hynes, his reluctance to be there, and his doubts that there was any hope for this man all remained, he had hit his stride and he found it easy to speak. He was a gifted preacher. As long as he could detach himself from the immediate situation, as long as he could "preach" at Hynes instead of talking to him, this might actually work.
"Let's look at Luke fifteen," Alex said.

THE MEETING Part Three: Deputy Michaels

2006-07-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

Aimee Woods watched her husband disappear behind the prison doors. She silently cursed the reporters who were hounding him, those same reporters who had hounded them a decade before. Many of the names and the faces had changed, but the reporters had not. They didn't care about her or Alex or even Jessica. They cared only about selling newspapers and getting people to tune into their broadcasts. Maybe they would win an Emmy or a Pulitzer, or maybe they would get a promotion and a prime time special. If they had to further traumatize a few grieving people in the process, then so be it.
With a frustrated sigh, she looked away. She opened the tattered Bible that sat on her lap and tried to force herself to read. She opened up to Luke chapter fifteen. Aimee looked at the three parables there; the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. She wondered about Vincent J. Hynes and if he could possibly fit into any or all of those stories. She didn't know. The Bible said that there was much rejoicing in Heaven over a sinner who came to repentance. Alex used to say, "The angels are having a big ol' party now!" after an alter call. Well, if Hynes did repent, they may party in Heaven, but she probably wouldn't join them.
Because she was reading her Bible, and because her mind was quite literally an eternity away, she barely noticed the reporters. They, however, did notice her. Alex had purposely parked a good distance from the prison entrance so that he could approach mostly unnoticed. He didn't want his wife harassed while she waited for him. It almost worked, except for one reporter who had spent some time around the Woods home. He knew their car and when he saw Alex coming from the parking lot, he noticed the general direction from which he came. The reporter could tell by the look on Alex's face that he wouldn't give the vultures a thing, so while the rest of the reporters clamored around the dead girl's father, he headed off into the parking lot in search of the green sedan that probably held her mother.
Most average people might not have seen the young reporter and his camera man slip away, but these were reporters. It was their job to notice things, and they followed him. By the time Aimee had finished reading Luke 15, the car was surrounded by newsmen and women with video cameras and flash bulbs and note books and microphones. When she looked up and saw them she almost screamed.
Instinctively, she reached for the door locks, though she doubted that the reporters would actually stoop to forcing their way into her vehicle. They were knocking on the windows though, and pointing their cameras and microphones at her.
"Mrs. Woods!" the reporter who had first spotted her shouted, "A word please!"
The others joined him.
"Mrs. Woods, why didn't you accompany your husband?"
"Mrs. Woods, have you forgiven Vincent Hynes?"
"Can we please get a statement from you, Mrs. Woods?"
Aimee closed her eyes and tried to shut them out. It didn't work. She covered her ears, hoping the gesture would send a message to the reporters that she wished to be left alone. If they got the message, they ignored it. Why couldn't they just leave her alone? How could they be so calloused and uncaring?
Finally, a new voice, deep and authoritative, broke through the clamor.
"All right! All right! Break it up!" the newcomer barked. "Leave this woman alone or I'll have you all evicted from the premises!"
"This is a state prison!" one reporter replied. "That makes this parking lot public property!"
"You see this badge, Mister?" the newcomer said. "This makes me the man in charge. Now, leave this woman alone or I'll call my colleagues down at the police station and you won't like what they have to say!"
"What about the right to peaceful assembly?" a woman retorted.
"This doesn't look like a peaceful assembly to me, lady," the newcomer said. "This looks like harassment. I think my friends at the station would agree. Now, unless you want me to prove this to you, I suggest that you step away from this car now! If I so much as see one of you snap another picture of her, I'll have you arrested for harassment and we'll let the courts sort it out! Is that clear?"
Dozens of voices reluctantly agreed that the man had indeed been clear. Aimee, who had kept her eyes closed throughout the encounter opened hem to the welcome sight of reporters scurrying away. The newcomer turned out to be a large black man in a khaki sheriff's uniform. Large was an understatement; he was huge. He stood at least six foot five and must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds, mostly muscle. His back was turned to Aimee as he watched the reporters retreat back to their post by the prison's visitor entrance. Even from behind, Aimee could tell he was a man who meant business. So long as he remained, the reporters would not be back to bother her.
The cop turned to face her. For a moment, she saw the expression that must have frightened the reporters away. Then, the man's face softened into the warmest smile she had ever seen. He was handsome. His head was shaved and he wore on of those round, safari type hats that added three or four more inches to his already massive build. He looked about thirty.
Looking at him immediately put Aimee at ease. When he walked towards the car she realized that even though she had wanted to be left alone, this particular visitor was very welcome. The sun glinted off of something on his collar and as he got closer, she saw that it was a small golden cross pin. On his hat was another pin, this one an angel.
Aimee rolled down her window and the men bent over to speak to her.
"Are you okay, ma'am?"
"Yes, thank you, officer..."
"Michaels," he told her. "Deputy William Michaels. I'm here on a prisoner transport from Angeles County."
"Well, you came along just in time, Deputy Michaels," Aimee said.
"Just doing my job," he said. "I hate to see anybody harassed by those sharks in the media, Mrs. Woods."
"You know who I am?" Aimee asked.
"I do have a TV, you know," he said smiling. "I think it's just deplorable how the media will hound people who want to be left along just to get a story."
"Well, thanks for chasing them off, Mr. Michaels," Aimee said, "but I'm afraid that as soon as you're gone, they'll come right back out here."
"I guess I'll have to stay then, won't I?" Michaels said.
"Oh, you don't to do that."
"What does it say on this badge, Mrs. Woods?" The deputy pointed to the brass star pinned to his chest. "My job is to protect you and to serve you. Besides, my duties are done for the day and I have nothing to do today but drive back to Angeles County. I could use a little diversion. The department will understand. When does your husband come back?"
"In a couple of hours," she replied. "I promised him I'd stay out here and pray for him."
"Since I've been praying for you since I heard about you on the news this morning," Michaels said, "I'd love to join you. Would that be okay?"
With a genuine smile, Aimee said, "Yes. That would be more than okay, Deputy Michaels."
"Call me Bill," the deputy said.

2006-05-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

Just a small one. If anyone besides Wanderer reads the comments, they will see his comments to me on the first part of the story. While those comments were all very interesting, and thought provoking, as well as the exact things that he knows push my buttons and get me going on one of my rants he so loves to tear apart, I decided to simply let the story play itself out over the coming weeks and see how many of his questions can be answered that way. After all, this story is here partly because of those very same questions. Hopefully, Steve, and everyone else curious, the answers to your queries will show up in the story before its conclusion. When I type the words "The End" on this one, I fully expect that to be the beginning of another one of our famous discussions. Until then, keep commenting, and keep asking. The story is far from over, even in my handwritten draft from which I am typing this. Who knows? One of your questions could end up leading this thing in a direction I cannot now foresee.
God Bless, Arthur B Roberts
Part Three to be posted soon, but I am going to be extremely busy for the next few weeks, so, as usual, no promises.

THE MEETING part two: Reporters

2006-05-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

"Reverend Woods! Reverend Woods! Do you expect an apology from your daughter's killer?"
"Mr. Woods, why are you doing this?"
"Who initiated the contact?"
"What do you think your daughter would say if she knew you were here today?"
And a thousand other questions, all being shouted at him, overlapping each other and making it extremely difficult for him to keep walking forward. The distance between him and the prison's visitor entrance was no more than fifteen feet, yet Alex wasn't sure he could make it.
The media had been obsessed with the case ever since Jessica had gone missing that Monday morning. There was a call from the school at 9:00 asking where Jessica was. Then, at 10:00, after a little girl reported seeing a pretty blond dragged from the city bus stop to a waiting car, a call from the police. By noon, Alex and Aimee Woods were making passionate pleas to the kidnapper on local news stations. The media ran reports throughout that excruciatingly long week, and when rumors sparked that Jessica's disappearance may have been connected to a recent string of killings in the area, the coverage increased.
Then, that Saturday afternoon, a search party came across Jessica's body buried in a shallow grave in a nearby forest and all hell broke loose. Not only had the killer left Jessica's body in a rather obvious place, he'd also left behind some rather crucial evidence, including a well preserved shoe print and, for the first time since the disappearance of Katlin Jones, whose decomposed body hadn't been found until two agonizing months later, he had left both fingerprints and DNA. That, along with a police sketch derived from the memory of the little girl who had witnessed Jessica's abduction, led the police to Vincent J. Hynes. Jessica, being the most recent known victim, became the case's poster child. The media was calling the Woods' house every day asking for interviews, pictures, even a prime time special on one of the major networks.
All that Alex and his family had wanted was to grieve for Jessica and to see her killer come to justice. Newspapers, TV shows, magazines, and news radio hosts ignored that. They wanted a story. When they realized that the Woods family wasn't going to allow their mourning to become a public spectacle, the pressure eased considerably. At least it did before Alex again made headlines with his act of forgiveness at sentencing. Then, they were back in full force. They weren't satisfied with his statement: "What I said was between Mr. Hynes, myself, and God. Thank you." But he would give them nothing else.
Now, all he wanted was to get into that prison and out again without being bombarded with questions. That wasn't going to happen. He braced himself, looked firmly at the door and the sign that read: "ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN AND BE APPROVED. NO EXCEPTIONS!"
And he was in. He checked in immediately. The receptionist said that they were expecting him. He glanced back outside the glass doors at the intruders with their cameras and tape recorders and note pads and said, "No kidding." She laughed a little at that and then flushed red, realizing that there wasn't much humor in this situation. She took down his name, had him sign in, and then told him to wait for his escort who was due any minute.
After a cursory search by a bored looking corrections officers Alex was led to the visitation room. Standing outside the gray metal door were two men. One was a short balding black man in a white uniform shirt. His badge identified him as Lt. R. Mark. Alex couldn't guess at the man's first name and he would probably never find out. Men like Lt. Mark, whose expression conveyed the opinion that everyone else on earth was put there just to irritate him, rarely offered personal information to someone unless it benefited him. The other man, looking strangely out of place in his gray slacks, blue shirt, and gray tie, was Chaplain Joseph O'Brien. Alex knew this not only by his I.D. badge, but by the large Catholic Bible under his right arm, his obviously Irish features, including a mop of bright red hair, and the look on his face. He was the first person Alex had seen since entering the facility who looked like he actually cared for the inmates held there. In all the times Alex had visited prisons and jails he quickly learned that look was usually reserved for Chaplains or other religious workers and volunteers. The C.O.'s, wardens, and other employees couldn't give a rip for their charges, especially those in this particular branch of the system where the inmates had been deemed unworthy to live.
The bored C.O. dropped Alex off outside the door and went about his business.
"Reverend Woods, I presume," Lt. Mark said gruffly.
"That's right," he said, extending his hand. "Call me 'Alex.'"
Mark took the hand and gave it a shake that wasn't meant as a greeting, but as a challenge. Alex could almost feel his finger bones cracking and tried not to wince. He then shook O'Brien's hand and found it warm and friendly, a handshake to match his aged face.
"Reverend Woods," Mark said, "I've been told to inform you of the dangers involved with meeting with Hynes."
"I'm well aware of the dangers, sir."
"Yes, Reverend Woods, I'm sure that you are." Mark cleared his throat. "You will be alone with him, as you requested, but there will be two guards posted outside the door. Should the inmate at any time make you feel threatened, call to these guards and they will restrain the inmate. The meeting will end immediately. If either guard or another officer senses that you are in danger, they will end the meeting. This will be at their discretion, not yours!"
There was an implied question in the officer's tone which Alex answered with a quiet, "I understand."
"Good," Mark went on. "The inmate will be in both hand cuffs and leg shackles at all times. You will sit at opposite ends of the table and remain seated at all times. You will have exactly two hours, not a second more. You will be informed when you have fifteen minutes remaining. Is all of this clear, Reverend Woods?"
"Perfectly, Lieutenant," Alex replied.
"Good," Mark said. "I'll leave you to talk with the Chaplain while I retrieve the inmate. We will return in less than fifteen minutes."
"Thank you, Lieutenant."
Mark simply nodded and went down the hallway. He disappeared around the next corner.
"I'm sorry about him," O'Brien said.
"Is he always like that?” Alex asked.
"Today's a good day," O'Brien said with a smile that made the sixty-year-old look ten years younger.
The Chaplain took a key chain from his belt and opened the large metal door with it. The door led to the small private visitation room where Alex would sit and meet with his daughter's killer. Normally, inmates kept in solitary confinement, especially dangerous ones, would only be allowed to meet with a visitor over a short telephone connection separated by wire mesh glass, but this was a special religious visit and they had been granted the room reserved for such visits. There was one table, bolted to the concrete floor, and two plastic green chairs. Besides the camera mounted in the corner, that was it. The cinderblock walls were painted a pale, institutional blue.
"Let's have a seat, shall we, Alex?" O'Brien suggested. "I think we would talk before they bring Hynes in."
They each sat in one of the green chairs, Alex facing the door through which they had come. He could tell that the chair would be comfortable for all of thirty seconds. Furniture in correctional facilities was not chosen for comfort any more than the food was chosen for taste.
"I must admit," O'Brien began, "I'm surprised that you actually came here today. I mean, considering the circumstances..."
"Mark 11:25 and 26, Chaplain," Alex replied. "Are you familiar with the passage?"
"Not off hand."
"'And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that you Father in heaven may also forgive your trespasses. But, if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.'"
"So you're telling me that you've forgiven your daughter's killer?" Alex couldn't tell if O'Brien sounded surprised or impressed.
"Not exactly," Alex said. "In fact, I'm here because that's what I need to do. I've been praying at the altar with this in the way for far too long.”
"Well," O'Brien said, "in any case, you may find it a difficult afternoon, and not just because of Mr. Hynes' history with you. When he was first transferred here a year ago I tried meeting with him. I try meeting with all the new inmates. Something about coming to death row makes a person really look at their spiritual state."
"I can imagine."
"Hynes was... hostile, to put it mildly," the Chaplain went on. "I've had hostile inmates before, but few like this. He's a very angry person, and a lot of that anger is directed at God. Suffice it to say, one meeting was all we had and all that came of it was a black eye on my part."
"He hit you?"
"Yep. He told me to get the 'F' out of there. God hated him and I was wasting my time."
"But he requested this meeting," Alex reminded him.
"Something else which surprised me," O'Brien said. "I've been praying for him. Well, Saint Jude and I."
"The Patron Saint of Lost Causes?" Alex said smiling.
"It seemed appropriate," O'Brien replied. "I'm surprised that you know that. I thought you were Methodist."
"Free Methodist," Alex said, making a correction that had become habit. "But I do know a bit about my Catholic brothers."
"Well, just be prepared for hostility," O'Brien said, "and be prepared to duck."
"Thank you, Chaplain."
"Call me Joe," O'Brien said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do. I hate to leave you alone right now-"
"That's okay," Alex said. "I need a few minutes to pray. And to calm my nerves."
O'Brien stood and turned for the door.
"Hey, Joe," Alex called. O'Brien turned back. "If you find time during your busy day, say a prayer for me, would ya'?"
"Of course."
O'Brien left the room with a smile and Alex was alone. Vincent J. Hynes would not arrive for another ten minutes. It would turn out to be a very long ten minutes.

warning

2006-04-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

Warning! While this is a Christian oriented site, sometimes it isn't necessarily a family-friendly one. The following story contains some elements, including some violent imagery, that may not be appropriate for everyone. Please exercise discretion when reading it. Thanks.

THE MEETING Part one: Pictures of Jessica

2006-04-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

She was beautiful. She had such life in her big blue eyes and her perfect smile (a smile she was proudly displaying, her braces having come off a few weeks earlier) and it seemed that God had let a gorgeous blond haired angel out of Heaven. She wore a yellow dress, the sort of thing she used to romp around in as a little girl playing in the yard, and the dress, along with her youthful smile, created the illusion that she was still just a six year old girl running off to play with her friends and not the fifteen year old young woman she had become. She sat on a large rock under a tree posing for the camera as the wind blew through her long blond hair, forever frozen in the snap shot.
Alex flipped the little picture flap in his wallet over to the next photo. It was the yearbook picture from her sophomore year. It had been taken earlier that year, back when she still wore her braces. Though they didn't look too bad, she had been self-conscious and smiled with her lips tightly closed. She was still beautiful. She had picked the farmhouse background, which Alex always thought looked so fake. Why couldn't she just pick plain old blue like when he was a kid? he'd asked. Nowadays there were all sorts of different backgrounds. Her little brother Charlie had chosen a criss cross of red and green lasers and eight year old Chrissy had opted to be surrounded by pastel balloons. But those pictures weren't in Alex's wallet.
Opposite this shot was one taken about three weeks later which they had used for the Christmas card that year. Alex and his wife Aimee stood proudly behind their three children with a wintery background. Jessica stood between her younger siblings. All three of the kids had their mother's features, blond hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones. The only thing they'd inherited from Alex was their fair complexion. Like him, they wouldn't tan. They would burn and freckle. Chrissy was a younger version of Jessica, who was in turn a younger version of their mother. Even Charlie, who at twelve was just beginning to look more like a man than a boy, still very much resembled Aimee.
It was Charlie who had taken the next photo in the wallet. It was taken the morning after the one of Jessica at the park. The first picture was taken on a Sunday afternoon at a church picnic, and the roll of film had only two exposures left on it after the event. Aimee was planning on taking the film to be developed that Monday afternoon so she needed to fill up the roll. Charlie asked if he could take the last two pictures and Aimee let him. One picture was of Charlie's pet hamster Rex and other was a shot of Jessica as she groggily made her way to the bathroom from her bedroom that morning.
Jessica had been so mad at him. She chased him around the house for five minutes until Alex broke it up. He assured her that the picture would never be seen by anyone, that she could destroy it. The only reason Alex kept it now was because it was the last picture ever taken of his oldest daughter.
While she was alive, that is. There had been other pictures- People's exhibits B through G, and he remembered them all... all too clearly. He closed his eyes and tried to clear those images from his mind. As usual, he only succeeded in repressing them until they would come back again to haunt him.
He looked back at the photo in his wallet.
Even with her hair a mess and her unmade-up face a mask of surprised rage at her brother, Alex could see the life and joy that Jessica had been known for.
It was the life that was so brutally snuffed out by the man in the next picture. Alex wasn't quite sure he kept that other photograph. He told himself that it was to remind him to forgive. He was, after all, a pastor and he'd preached on the need for forgiveness many times. But that wasn't the reason. He kept the picture sometimes to have a focal point for his hate, sometimes to torture himself for somehow failing his precious little girl and allowing this monster to do what he did to her, and sometimes he just stared at it and pondered the words "Love your enemies" for hours.
It was an old newspaper clipping, faded with age and barely discernable anymore, but he didn't need to be able to see the picture to envision the man in it. He'd memorized the face years ago. It had been burned into his memory by a million nightmares. It was a black and white mug hot, barely an inch high, and the name below it ignited a rage in Alex's very soul that threatened to burst someday, proving to everybody that he had not actually done what he said. He hadn't really forgiven the man.
Vincent J. Hynes. Convicted in 1995 of raping and killing six women ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-seven. The youngest had been Kaitlin Jones, a girl from his church who used to sing like an angel and was scheduled to do a solo that Christmas that would never be sung. The oldest was a woman named Jenna Howard, mother of three and a preschool teacher. The last known victim was Jessica Woods. Hynes glared at the camera as they took his mugs hot. His left eye was swollen shut and he'd been dressed in a ratty old county jail uniform that was most likely orange.
The man, the murderous monster who had robbed at least six families of the daughters, sisters, and mothers, and was suspected in as many as ten more killings, had been convicted and sentenced to die for his crimes by lethal injection. After ten long years, that day was finally approaching, and now Alex sat outside the prison in the front seat of his car debating whether he would actually go in and see the man. This wasn't Hynes' execution day, that was still a week off. This was a visit that Alex himself had asked for ten years earlier.
Alex was pulled out of his thoughts by a choked sob from his wife, who sat in the passenger seat holding another photograph of Jessica. This was a baby photo. Nine month old Jessica was waving her chubby little arms at the camera and grinning as if she knew that moment would be forever frozen in time by the little black box with the flashing light on it. In a way, that was how he would always remember his daughter, as the little cherub with the big grin and curly blond locks.
Something else transposed itself on this picture and Alex tried to block it out, as he had tried to do unsuccessfully countless times over the past decade. It was another image of Jessica, one that plagued his nightmares even more often that Hynes' face. Alex saw her lying on that cold metal shelf in the morgue the day he and Aimee had been asked to come and identify her body. She was a sickly pale blue, the only other color being the red welts on her neck where Vincent Hynes had strangled the life out of her with his bare hands, and, of course, the blood. Her eyes were wide open and kind of bugged out of her head, her once beautiful blond hair was matted with mud and blood, and a look of sheer terror was forever frozen, like the baby picture, on her face.
He repressed the image as quickly as it came to him.
He placed a hand on his wife's knee and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"You okay?" he asked.
Aimee forced a smile. "No." She looked towards the prison. Barricaded behind razor wire and high cinderblock walls, her baby's killer awaited his punishment. "Are you sure about this?"
"I have to do this," he replied. "I don't blame you for not coming with me."
"I just can't see HIM again," she sobbed. "I can't go through that again!"
Aimee had only seen Hynes in person one time, at his sentencing. She couldn't bring herself to go to the trial, to hear the prosecutors describe what he had done to Jessica, or to any other the others, or to even look the man in the face. But she was at the sentencing, and she forced herself to get up and speak. She didn't get three words out before she completely broke down, crying there until Alex escorted her back to her seat. She had a whole speech prepared, but her tears said much more than her words ever could. She was a mother whose child had been stolen from her in the worst way, and her loss echoed through the silent courtroom and broke every heart there.
Every heart but one.
Vincent J. Hynes sat there like a cold stone statue, never moving, never speaking, never showing any sign of emotion. For over an hour, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, and friends told him how he had not only killed those women and girls, he had ruined the lives of all those who knew and loved them, but he didn't seem to care at all. Then Alex got up. He said only three words, but these three words finally brought a tear to the killer's eyes.
"I forgive you."
After he said this, he turned around, went back to his seat, and sat down next to his weeping wife. Forgiving Hynes was the Christian thing to do, and he was convinced it was the right thing to do. He had set an example for the other families and for his church. He did what Christ had said and offered forgiveness. He was reminded of the bracelet his daughter had worn on her left wrist. She was even buried with it. It was four little letters: W.W.J.D? "What would Jesus Do?" Well, he'd done just that. If Christ could forgive the men nailing Him to the cross, and if the Father could do the same, then surely Reverend Alex Woods could live up to His example.
Except that even as he said it, he knew he didn't mean it. He hadn't forgiven Hynes. He didn't think he could. Every time he tried, he would see the man raping and killing his little girl and the hate would rise up within him again. He tried to hide it. He tried to put on the good-little-Christian face with joy and love and peace when inside he was really just a steaming, hate-filled hypocrite.
Not even his wife knew that. Not until six months ago when they'd received that letter in the mail from Hynes taking him up on an offer he'd made just after the sentencing. Alex had written a letter to him saying that he would like to see him. Alex had meant to sit down with the murderer and tell him about the love of Jesus and about the forgiveness that he could receive. Alex truly did want to forgive the man, and he thought that if he sat down with him with an open Bible between them and saw Hynes come to the Lord; it would somehow help him to do so. But Hynes never replied. There was no indication that he had even received the letter and Alex didn't try to contact him again.
But, less than a week after they had seen on TV that an execution date had finally been set, a letter arrived in the mail. The return address read "Vincent J. Hynes," followed by the man's prisoner I.D. number and the address of the prison. Alex almost didn't open it. His hands were trembling as he held the small white envelope with his address in the middle and his baby's killer's address in the top left hand corner, but in the end, after a lot of prayer and discussion with his wife, he opened the letter. It didn't occur to him until later that he used the letter opener that Jessica had bought for him on her last Christmas.
The letter slipped out of the envelope and onto the desk in his home office. He and Aimee just stood there staring at it as if picking it up would give them some strange disease.
After a very long couple of minutes, Alex picked up the single sheet of paper and read the handwritten message:
Dear Pastor Woods,
I don't know why I'm writing this and I wouldn't be surprised if you just threw it out and went on with your life. I wouldn't blame you. I deserve it.
10 years is a long time. I've spent all of that time in solitary and I've had a lot of time to think.
You wrote me 10 years ago. Do you remember? Of course you do. You don't forget a thing like writing to the man who... you know. Anyway, you said you wanted to meet me. You said you had something to tell me that might help me. I crumpled the letter and almost threw it away, but then I remembered what you said at my sentencing. "I forgive you" you said. I kept the letter and I read it every day.
Something you told me- God still loves you- I can't believe it. I'd like to, but I can't. How can God love a man like me? How can anyone? I'm a rapist and a killer. I murdered young girls. My own mother hasn't contacted me in over 8 years.
I want forgiveness. I really do. But I don't deserve it. I know I'm going to spend forever in Hell, burning for my sins. I don't want to, but I can't change it. I know that.
You said you could help me. Of all the mail I've gotten over the years, yours is the only one I kept. It's the only one that doesn't tell me I'm evil or describe how I should be executed (I'd tell you how they say, but you're a pastor and I might offend you.) You said you cared about me and could help me. I think I'm beyond help. But I don't want to be.
I want help. If there's any chance for me, I need to know. I know it's been a long time, but if you still want to see me, I would appreciate it. You don't have to. You can tear up my letter and in six months rest easy that I'm dead. Again, I wouldn't blame you.
I unclouded the paper you need to fill out if you want to be on my visiting list. There's no one on it right now. I've never had a visitor. I don't know if they'll even let me see you.
Whatever you decide, I'll understand.
And I am truly, very sorry for what I did.
V.J. Hynes.
The visitation form sat on the desk another week while Alex and Aimee argued about what to do. Alex knew when he read the letter that he needed to go. He didn't want to, but he had to. Aimee didn't understand. As far as she was concerned, Hynes could just go to hell and never hurt anybody again. It was during those arguments that they both realized that they had been living a lie for ten years. They had plastered smiles on their faces like the man in those commercials for "natural male enhancement" but underneath, they were both festering cesspools of bitterness. How could Alex get up and preach every Sunday if he was still holding onto unforgiveness?
"Jesus said that if we don't forgive," he had told Aimee, "then He won't forgive us of our sins. Well, I haven't forgiven Hynes, and that scares me!"
"I haven't either," she'd replied. "Does that mean I'm living in sin too?"
He didn't answer her question. No matter what he said, it would have sounded like an accusation. "Look, we need to forgive him. That's why I need to see him. Plus, God does still love him. He wants to forgive him too."
Aimee had kept up the argument for another hour after that, but she knew that Alex had made up his mind. He was going, not only to try and save Vincent Hynes, but also to save himself. And she realized that she too had to find a way to forgive the man. She would go with Alex, but not inside the prison. She would stay in the car and pray; for her husband, for Hynes, for all of the other families hurting the same way, and for herself.
After about three months of going back and forth with prison officials, Alex was finally added to Hynes' visiting list. It helped that he was a pastor and had been involved in local politics, but Alex mostly thought that it was the hand of the Lord which actually pushed him through. They had intended to keep the meeting a secret, not even telling Charlie and Chrissy, both grown and away at college, but somehow the media got wind of it and Alex woke up one morning to find an old file photo of himself on the front page of the local paper with the headline: KILLER SEEKS REDEMPTION FROM PREACHER WHOSE DAUGHTER HE KILLED.
Things went crazy from there. Alex actually had to turn away reporters from CNN looking for an interview. He spent the next two months dodging the media and had uttered, "No comment," or some variation of it more times than he could count. There were angry phone calls from other victims' families and even half of his church urged him not to go. But he ignored it all. God have given him a charge and he would go, no matter what anyone, including himself, thought.
Even now there were reporters camped outside the prison awaiting his arrival. He planned on hurrying past them and through the front door without so much as a glance in their direction. He wasn't visiting Hynes for publicity or to make a point to anyone.
While he was thinking this, his watche beeped twice. He didn't have to look at it to know what time it was. It was one o'clock The visit was scheduled for 1:30 and he had been told to arrive half an hour early so as to be ready in case of any complications and to be briefed by prison officials and Chaplain Joseph O'Brien, with whom he'd become fairly well acquainted through phone calls, e-mails, and written correspondence over the last six months. He had visited people in prison before, but never one as "dangerous", and never one a week away from his scheduled death.
He looked at his watch anyway. 1:00 in a black digital display against a green background, the seconds ticking soundlessly away (5, 6, 7, 8) and he knew that he had to get moving.
He saw his car keys still in the ignition, dangling there, tempting him just to start the car and drive away. It would be easy, much easier than getting out of the car and walking that long sidewalk lined with a gauntlet of reporters from every major news market waiting for a sound bite, and then stepping into the prison and actually sitting down with Vincent J. Hynes. Yes, leaving would be so easy, and there wasn't a soul on earth who would blame him. Hynes had said he would understand, and he probably would. His own mother had deemed him unworthy of forgiveness; couldn't the father of his victim get away with doing the same?
In the world's eyes, yes. But it wasn't the world Alex was doing this for. It seemed the only person in the world who understood why Alex Woods had to go into that visitation room was Alex Woods, and even he had a lot of doubts.
The clock read 1:01.
With a sigh and a deep breath to calm his nerves (which helped until he had to take another one), he closed his wallet, put it on the dashboard, since he couldn't take it into the prison, grabbed his Bible, and reached for the door handle.
"I guess it's time," he told his wife."
"I guess so."
"Will you be okay out here?"
"I'll be waiting for you," she replied. Her response gave nothing away. Had he not been pressed for time, he would have talked further to her. They had ridden the hour and a half to the prison in relative silence and had spent the last fifteen minutes parked outside of it in much the same way. Instead, he opened the door.
"I love you, Aimee," he said. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. It was only after Alex had closed the car door and was a good ten feet away before she mumbled quietly that she loved him too.
To Be Continued...

author's note

2006-04-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

During one of Wanderer and my's back and forths, this one on another blog, about forgiveness, I said that I should probably write a story dealing with the subject. Forgiveness is one of the basic tenants of the Christian faith, and it is also one of the hardest to both understand and practice. I wanted to explain this in story form, which is easier than argument form, though not by much. In my brainstorming to figure out exactly how to do this, it occurred to me that I already had a story about forgiveness sitting abandoned and half finished in a composition book. Instead of trying to write a new story, I would simply pull out the old one, revise it, finish it, and type it up so I could post it here on Dawn. Well, I've revised it and typed it, but haven't quite finished it yet. Although, I do have thirty five pages done, so it will be weeks before I get stuck like I did with "Johnny". (Log on May 20th for my excuses as to why this one isn't done yet!)
This was/is a hard story to write, and I expect it will also be a hard one to read. Wanting to tackle forgiveness head on, I picked a sin that most people, even those within the Church who agree in principle with Christ's teachings on forgiveness (Matthew 18:21-35, Matthew 6:14,15, Luke 6:37, 38, Luke 15, Luke 17:3,4, John 6:37, among others), would find simply unforgivable. How could a loving God forgive one such as Vincent J. Hynes? Isn't there an exception to even this rule? If there was, a man such as Hynes would be it. But God makes it clear that He accepts and forgives ANYONE who truly repents, and that He wants us to do the same, NO MATTER WHAT! Sorry if that bothers you, but it's Scripture, not just the ramblings of Arthur B Roberts.
In the coming weeks the meeting between Alex Woods and Vincent J. Hynes will be played out here on this blog and hopefully everyone reading this (hi, Steve!) will learn something new, if not the hows and whys and whos of forgiveness, at least the Biblical principles of it. I know that writing this story is teaching me new things.
Does this story fit my self ascribed genres? It's not Science Fiction or Fantasy, and though there are some elements of Horror in it, it doesn't really qualify there either. But even the great Stephen King (whom I have mentioned on my site more than once) write outside of the genres that everyone tries to pin him in. Anyone who has read "The Body" or "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" or the book Dolores Claiborne knows that stories sometimes defy genre. I am certainly not comparing myself to Stephen King, though if I did it would be similar to comparing an etch-a-sketch drawing to the works of Da Vinci. But, there is no other writer who has taught me more about the craft than King, and I hope that I can move as flawlessly from genre to genre as he does someday. Until then, please enjoy my ramblings, and leave comments letting me know what you think. I think that this story should spark some discussion, and I would like that discussion to be more than me and Wanderer.
God Bless, ABR
And, a side note to those of you faithful readers who are always looking for reasons to pray: Please pray for my friend Martha, who recently discovered that she has M.S. Please keep her in your thoughts, and even more so in your prayers. Thanks.

commentary?

2006-04-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Just a little note to everyone. I know that there are regular readers of this blog. I know this because Wanderer cannot have possibly been here 745 times. Well maybe, but he does have a life. But it seems that Wanderer is the only one who leaves comments (Besides the spammers). Either nobody cares about what I have to say here, or I write so well that you are all so awestruck by my talent, wit, and personal charm that you have nothing to say. Okay, it's probably somewhere in between. But I must note that some of the most interesting things said on this blog are said on the comment pages. Wanderer and I have been arguing on one of these for the last week. Not really an argument, but the things we have written there are actually longer than most of the posts on his blog and the last one on mine. I encourage all of you regular readers to check out the comment pages and join in. It's fun! While I honestly would like some support on the "Christian" side of the "argument", I also wouldn't mind a few dissenting remarks.
Commenting on blogs is the best part of visiting them. Plus, when I write a story, I'd like some input on it. Was it good? Was it lousy? What should I have said? What shouldn't I have said? Something more than someone who just happens to be my best-friend-in-law telling me they liked it. Not that I doubt his honesty. One look at the comment pages will tell you that he can be brutally honest. But having a good friend say, "hey, that was pretty good," is almost the same as having your mother say she liked it. By the way, my mother happens to be my biggest fan, but that's beside the point.
God Bless, Arthur B Roberts.

PS. If you check out the comments you may notice something mean that I said about Leonardo DiCaprio concerning a certain scene in Titanic involving an Axe. If nothing else, please comment on that.

It's Holy Week, so I'll complain about ALIENS!

2006-04-12T07:45:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody.
I'm sorry it's been a while since I have posted anything on the blog. I'd like to say I have been busy, but that's not true. I have been lazy. But I'm back. Hopefully I'll be a little more faithful from now on, but I know that if I were to promise to write more regularly, I would find excuses not to, so I guess I'll just start writing and see what happens. I have a story in mind that I plan on starting as soon as I am done with this thing, and (no promises) I'll try to get the first part of it up this weekend.
Anyway, now to the thing that inspired me to finally get back behind the keyboard:
This weekend I caught a showing of the movie Aliens, the second in the Alien series. Although the movie doesn't provide much in the way of spiritual edification (unless you’re one of those guys who likes to tear apart every frame looking for the tiniest hidden message that was hidden so well even the writers didn't know about it), but I recommend it as a good movie. The special effects are amazing for the late 80's, the acting and the writing are excellent and it is a thoroughly enjoyable picture. That is, unless you've seen Alien 3. Let me explain. I like that movie too, but there was something about it that had bothered me ever since I first saw it. If you've seen Aliens, you know that a major part of the story is Ripley's relationship with the little girl named Newt. The writers do a great job making you like Newt's character. She is tough, but cute, able to survive alone on the planet for weeks with the aliens, but still vulnerable and even though she likes to act like she can handle anything, she is still a very scared little girl. I read a MAD MAGAZINE spoof on Jurassic Park 2 once that explained why Dr. Malcom's daughter showed up on the island. It was said that audiences like to see children in danger. That's true, as long as they survive in the end, which, of course, Newt does. In the end, Ripley is faced with a choice: get off the planet safely, which she could easily do, or go and rescue Newt, who has been captured by the aliens. She goes to save Newt in one of those countdown moments where the audience is one the edge of their seats knowing that they all get away, but still unsure how. But the writer's aren't completely heartless. They have Ripley save the child, herself, the only other character you really like, and even the android who is in pieces and barely operating, but manages to reach out and save Newt from being sucked into space. In the end, they all go into their stasis chambers to sleep until they get home to safety. A very nice and satisfying ending.
Then comes Alien 3 and in the first few minutes, a stowaway alien kills Newt! Remember how I said that the writer's weren't completely heartless? Well, it seems they were! They spend two hours making you fall in love with this helpless little character, and they make you hold your breath for the last half hour of the movie waiting to see if she survives, and then they make you sigh a huge sigh of relief when she does, only to kill her off in the first scene of the sequel! What is the point? I know there were certain plot points in part three that wouldn't have worked with a child running around the prison, and of course the actress would have been years older, but Newt's death seemed like a big let down. Why, you find yourself asking, would Ripley risk her own life and the lives of the others on the ship to save this little girl if she's just going to die anyway?
This reminds me of another movie series that did practically the same thing. This one has bothered me ever since I was a little boy. Anyone old enough to remember the Ewok movies that followed Return of the Jedi knows what I am talking about. It's been a while since I have seen these and the only character whose name I can remember is Wicket, but I'll tell you the jist of it. In the first movie, The Ewok Adventure, there are two human children whose family's star cruiser crashes on Endor and while the kids are taken in by the kind and gentle Ewoks (those teddy bear things from Jedi who help Han Solo and the others blow up the shield generator), the parents are taken by a gigantic monster who wants to eat them. So the Ewoks and the children spend the entire movie on a quest to save the parents, which they do in the end and everyone is happy. Until, of course, the second movie called The Battle for Endor or something like that. In the first scene of this movie, both of the parents and the older child are killed in a battle. I remember watching this movie as a child and getting very upset that the parents died. It made the whole first movie seem pointless.
Another example of pointless rescue is Titanic where Rose goes back down into the ship to save Jack and the two of them end up going down with the ship. Yeah, you can see how Jack saved Rose and saw her through the crisis, even finding something for her to float on while he freezes to death in the water, but if Rose hadn't gone back down in the ship, Jack would have died anyway (probably a much easier death too) and she would have been safe on a life boat. And don't tell me she would have ended up marrying that horrible other guy because she had learned so much from Jack during their two day relationship that she wouldn't have succumbed to the marriage. But, because I happen to despise Leonardo DiCaprio (okay, I know that's not Christian, and it's not the person I hate, but the concept behind the person. He's the Backstreet Boys of movie stars) I won't complain about this one.
My point is, why do writers do that? Why do they spend so much time in one movie making you care about a character and then kill them off in the first few minutes of the sequel, or even in the end of the movie itself? What if there was a sequel to Man on Fire where Pita gets hit by a bus in the first scene? It's like all of the hero's actions were for naught! It nullifies everything that the first movie accomplished! As a writer, I can't conceive of doing something like that unless I wanted to really tick off my readers.
But I have another point. For those of you who have sat and read this rant of mine waiting for whatever it is you know I'll eventually get to, here it is, and I'm going to warn you know, I know it's kind of tacky, predictable, and almost clichéd, but it was something that occurred to me while watching Aliens and I needed to write something to get back into the swing of things and to make sure that I could still produce a coherent thought after nearly six weeks of nothing.
What occurred to me was this: As Christians, we believe that Jesus came down to earth to die for our sins and to give us salvation. In essence, He came to rescue us. He not only risked His life, He gave it up for us. Yet, by our own actions, we nullify His heroic rescue. By recognizing what Jesus did for us and still going our own way, it's not much different then the pointless killing of Newt or the Parents in the Ewok movies. The real difference is that while those are just movies and those characters don't really matter in the long run, our lives, nay our souls, are infinitely more important.
This week, around the world, there are presentations of the Passion Play, which is the dramatic portrayal of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, mostly focusing on the death. I remember as a child growing up in Rochester, NY that it was a yearly tradition for our family to walk the Via Dolorosa, which a local church put on every year on the city streets. All I remember from that was watching a man dressed as Jesus walking down the street with a fake looking cross on his back while two other men dressed as Roman soldiers periodically hit the cross with short ropes that were meant to be whips. There were other people in costumes crying and hundreds of people turned up every year to watch. But, since I was so young and had yet to fully realize the significance of Christ's sacrifice, my main memories are walking around with my friends and looking for "treasures" on the street.
But later, especially after participating in a local production of a Passion Play for four years, it became more real, more personal, and more important. I realized that I couldn't just go on living in sin when that kind of sacrifice had been made for me. Of course that didn't stop me from sinning altogether, but whenever I begin to slip into my old life, I remember the image of Christ on the cross, His sacrifice, and His passion for my soul and I remind myself that if I continue in sin, I nullify that sacrifice. Although I know that nothing I can do can truly nullify it, in my life, it's like He never came to save me in the first place. I might as well have stayed in my sin. In my wallet I carry a thorn I found that is about two inches long. I imagine that this thorn is about the size of the thorns pressed into Jesus’ skull in the crown He was so cruelly forced to wear. The thorn is a reminder to me, as is the Crucifix I wear. I don't want to forget the price He paid to save me, because when I consider that, my sin becomes even less appealing to me. He died to save me, so I should live in such a way as to honor that sacrifice.
This week there will be many chances for you to witness the Crucifixion in one way or another. Whether you watch one of the many movies made about it (King of Kings, The Passion of the Christ, or even Jesus Christ Superstar) or go to see a dramatic presentation on stage (check and see if there's a Passion Play in your area. I recommend He’s Alive! the one that's currently going on in the Four Corners, Denver, and Las Vegas, among other places) please look at it as a hero sacrificing it all to rescue you. (Michael Tait's rock opera was aptly named Hero. Check that one out too) Then think about your own life. Are you living in such a way as to honor that sacrifice? Are you honoring His precious gift, or living as if it never happened?
That's all I wanted to say about this. I'll try to get a story up this weekend (next weekend by the latest. I promise!!!) Happy Easter. (yeah, Wanderer I know, but since this week is Passover, it is also the anniversary of Christ's death and resurrection, so it can be both!) But now, it's time to make the donuts.
Arthur B Roberts

JOHNNY (PART SIX)

2006-03-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

Johnny told Aimee everything. He was surprised how little time it took, even with his constant pauses where he would either search for the right word or pretend that's what he was doing when he was really trying to keep from crying again. It was hard to believe that it was only one day after he had climbed these steps to see his family. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours that it felt more like twenty-four days. But it took him less than two minutes to tell her everything, starting with his suspicions about Joshua, to finding the Bible in his shuttlecar, to Nanny's note.
When he had finished his story he looked into her face for some sort of reaction. Even though her father wasn't a police officer, he half expected her to pull out her cell phone and call Peter Neason on the spot. She would tell him everything, he would contact his police connections, and Joshua would be in jail that night. Johnny might even be in a bit of trouble for not reporting the Bible at once, but his career was the last thing on his mind.
"So," Aimee said after a long while, "what are you going to do?"
"I don't know," he said. "I have no idea what to do. I took an oath to uphold the laws and principles of the Enlightened Society and the ideals of Joshua Lewis, but this isn't just any religious fanatic we're talking about. It's my brother!"
"Yeah," she said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but couldn't find the words.
"It might have been easier if Nanny hadn't just died," Johnny went on. "My family's been through enough without having to deal with losing Josh too. I've been through enough."
"Are you absolutely sure about this?" she asked him. "I mean, couldn't you have made some sort of mistake? Maybe you're just overreacting."
"No," he said. "I'm sure. The Bible might have belonged to someone else, but Nanny's note confirmed it. Then there's the change in him."
"You said he seems happier?"
"Yeah," Johnny said. "But that's one of the tricky things about Christianity. The victims actually think that they have found something good and they seem happier and more fulfilled. At first. But soon they end up so caught up in the deviant beliefs that they lose touch with reality and forsake their families, and would rather go to prison or die than renounce the destructive behaviors. Some Christians are so conditioned and brainwashed that their leaders convince them to commit terrorist acts or kill themselves. To think that my brother..."
And then Johnny did start to cry. Aimee wrapped her arms around him and held him while he wept. She was crying too and Johnny realized that growing up almost like a sister to Kelly, Aimee had become like a member of the Cramblit family. It was as if her brother was lost too.
"What should I do, Aimee?" he asked. "I can't let him destroy his life. But I can't turn in my own brother, can I?"
Aimee offered no advice. She couldn't. The only thing that she could do was to promise not to tell her father about Joshua until Johnny could figure out what to do. Then she left him on the porch, feeling more alone than he had ever felt in his life.
The next morning he was determined to confront his brother no matter what, and no matter how hard the confrontation would be. He had spent the night tossing and turning, unable to get much sleep, and when he did sleep he dreamed of Joshua. In his dreams, he saw his brother in a prison jumpsuit or getting off a prison transport on Planet X. Finally, after three or four such nightmares woke him up almost screaming, he decided to forget about sleep.
He looked at his night table and saw that he still had Nanny's note to Joshua. Surely his father would call Josh to come by in the morning and pick it up. Johnny thought that he should probably just put it back on the nightstand in Nanny's bedroom and then intercept his brother on the way back out of the house. Then he had a better idea. He knew from his training that the best way to get a suspect to confess was to catch him off guard. He would hold onto the note a little bit longer.
Mr. Cramblit did call Joshua in the morning and he said he would come by after work that afternoon to get Nanny's letter. That meant that he would be there around five thirty and the family made plans to have dinner together. Johnny was pretty sure that after he talked to Josh, neither of them would feel much like eating. He spent the day just walking around town, checking in on old friends and old hang outs, and checking his watch about ten times an hour to see how close it was to five thirty.
At five he went home and straight up to Nanny's room. He had her note in his hands and he read it over and over to himself while waiting for his brother to come in. Twice he almost just put the note on the table and left the room thinking that he would rather spend the rest of his life pretending he didn't know about his brother's problems than confront him. But he loved Josh too much and knew that the only way he would be able to help free him from the trap of religious deviancy was to let him know that he knew and to force him to face the truth.
At five twenty-five by the antique digital clock on Nanny's dresser Johnny heard the door chime ring. There was some muffled conversation downstairs and he distinctly heard his brother's voice. Then one person came slowly up the stairs towards Nanny's room and soon, Joshua was standing in the doorway looking in surprise at his little brother who sat on his grandmother's bed holding a folded piece of paper and gaping at him with an awful look of betrayal and unbelief.
"Johnny?" he said. "What are you doing in here?"
"Waiting for you."
"Dad said that Nanny left a note for me," Joshua said. Johnny held up the note and nodded.
"It's right here, Josh," Johnny said. "She left one for everybody. Sit down. Read it."
Joshua looked scared as he sat next to his brother on the bed. Johnny had seen that look before. It was the look of a criminal who knew he had been found out. If Joshua was like any of the other lawbreakers that Johnny had dealt with, either through his training or just everyday life, his mind was probably trying to think up a hundred different explanations, excuses, rationalizations, or alibis. While most of them would have probably worked on Johnny the brother, none would work on Johnny the cop.
Johnny handed his brother the incriminating note and watched as Josh slowly unfolded it. Josh read the note silently and was in tears when he finally laid the paper in his lap and looked back at his little brother. They just stared at each other for a long moment and Johnny saw conflicting emotions in his brother's tears. Part of it was his sorrow over Nanny's death, part of it was the message that his grandmother had left behind (which even Johnny could recognize as emotional and powerful, even if it was evidence of illegal religious activities) and part of it was the knowledge that his secret had finally come out. This was a secret that would destroy not only Joshua's life, but have devastating effects on everyone around him.
Finally, Johnny broke the silence. "I read it."
"I thought you had," Joshua said.
"Well?" Johnny said. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"
Joshua took a deep breath and wrinkled the note in his hands as he spoke, "I suppose you want me to tell you that Nanny was a crazy old woman and that she was just ranting from her senile old mind. Or maybe you want me to say that I was only humoring her in her dying days but I never really converted to Christianity. Or maybe you want me to make some lame excuse or claim not to know what she was talking about."
"Yeah," Johnny said angrily. "Any of those would suffice."
"I'm not going to lie to you, Johnny."
"Then tell me what's going on!" Johnny almost yelled. He would have yelled had they been alone in the house, but his entire family was downstairs getting ready for dinner and Johnny wasn't quite ready to make this public yet.
"It's a long story," Joshua said.
"Yeah," Johnny said, "I bet. And that Bible in your car, what are you, holding it for a friend?"
"You know about that?" Joshua asked.
"Yeah, I know about that! Now, tell me the truth! Are you a Christian?"
"Yes."
Johnny was hoping, practically praying (although not to the God to whom his brainwashed brother prayed) that even after all that had happened, Joshua would have said that he wasn't a Christian. Legally, denying that one belonged to an illegal religious sect was enough, in most cases, to end the investigation. To many Christian, Jews, and Muslims, it was an affront to the faith to deny being a member. In the practice of law enforcement, it made arrests and convictions quite easy, but in this case, that little word was the hardest thing that Johnny had ever heard.
"How could you?" Johnny asked. "How could you throw your life away like this. You're a smart guy. You're a doctor, for God's sake! How can you believe in that outdated crap about sin and hell and..."
"...and repentance, and forgiveness, and redemption, and a loving God who gave up his own life for my sake?" Joshua finished for him.
"You know, I don't want to hear it," Johnny barked. He stood up and walked towards Nanny's window. After an agonizingly long five seconds, he said, "I can get you help, you know. You don't have to go to prison. If you just renounce the faith and agree to counseling, I can make it like this whole thing never happened."
"I'm not going to do that, Johnny," Josh said. "This is for real."
"Listen to yourself!" Johnny said, spinning around to face his brother. "Can't you see what those people have done to you? They've brainwashed you! They've taken your life away! They have ruined you!"
"No," Josh said. "They saved me. Jesus Christ saved me."
"He died twenty-two hundred years ago," Johnny said. "He can do no more to save you than Alexander the Great or George Washington. Great men, great leaders, but dead and buried and powerless! Our Cosmic Parent..."
"Has a name and a purpose and knows each and every one of us!" Joshua said.
"Shut up!" Johnny hissed. "Just shut up before I have you arrested!"
"Do what you have to do," Joshua said. "I won't change my mind."
"You could go to Planet X for this," Johnny said. "If you even survive that long. You know what they do to Christians in prison?"
"The same thing they do to us everywhere else."
Johnny lost it then. It was the way Joshua had said "us" instead of "them." He had identified himself with one of the most hated groups on the planet and had admitted his guilt to one of the most heinous criminal acts covered by the Enlightened Society's law. Johnny then did something that he had never really done in his entire life. He walked over to his brother and hit him squarely in the jaw. Joshua fell backwards onto the bed, holding his wounded jaw and looking up at his brother. Johnny expected to see anger and hatred there but he only saw love. Love and pity.
"So," Joshua said after another pause. "What are you going to do?"
"What I have to," Johnny said. "I'm a police officer, and you are an admitted criminal."
"If I could just explain to you what Christians really believe," Joshua began.
"Shut up before I hit you again!" Johnny snapped. "Or would you like that? I heard that Christian's thrive on that sort of abuse. Turn the other cheek or some sh__ like that. Some actually look forward to torture and imprisonment as if it's their goal in life."
"So," Joshua said, "are you going to arrest me?"
Johnny didn't say anything. He went back to Nanny's window and watched the snow falling onto the calm street below.
"Are you?"
"The only reason I haven't arrested you already is because of Nanny," Johnny said at last. "If she hadn't just died, believe me, you'd be sitting in a cell tonight. But I won't do that to Mom and Dad. I won't compound one tragedy with another so soon. But," he turned back to his brother, "I will arrest you. Nanny's funeral is in two days. You have that long to change your mind about this Christianity bullsh__, and if after that you still want to throw your life away, I'll slap the cuffs on you myself. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," Joshua said. "And let me tell you now that I won't change my mind. I would die before denying my faith, Johnny. And while you spend the next two days preparing to arrest you own brother, I will spend them praying for you."
"Every prayer to anyone other than the Cosmic Parent or Joshua Lewis is a fourth degree felony," Johnny replied evenly. "Get cleaned up, Joshua. Dinner's almost ready."
Both brothers were quiet and subdued during dinner, barely speaking to anyone and completely ignoring each other. The others assumed that it was grief and left them alone.
Johnny didn't see his brother for two days. The morning after confronting Joshua, he and Aimee went for coffee and he told her about their conversation. She agreed that he had handled it well and that it would be wise to wait until after the funeral to make the arrest. She told him that she hadn't told anybody (meaning, of course, her father) about Joshua.
Under different circumstances Johnny probably would have tried to get a little physical with her, but he was in no mood for anything of the sort. He didn't see her again until the funeral.
He spent the next two days in a sort of daze, hoping that he would wake up to find that this whole fiasco had been just a horrible dream. He waited for Joshua to come by or to call him and tell him that he had renounced his faith and was ready to move away from the deviant religion. He began to think seriously about just getting aboard a transport and starting his assignment early, leaving the whole situation to resolve itself. But on the day of Nanny's burial, he found himself dressed in his finest clothes and sitting in the State Church downtown where dozens of the Cramblits' family and friends had gathered to say their farewell.
Joshua sat with the family and was visibly distracted. He kept glancing over at Johnny and fidgeting in his seat like a little kid who knew he was about to be punished. Johnny tried to focus on the service. The clergyman was giving a moving eulogy and calling on the Cosmic Parent to take Nanny into his or her arms for her much deserved rest. Even though Nanny herself didn't believe in any of that stuff, it seemed inappropriate for Johnny not to pay attention to his words. He would deal with his brother later.
Nanny was buried in the Joshua Lewis memorial cemetery at two in the afternoon. The casket was lowered into the earth as the many mourners stood and cried together. Johnny stood a few feet from the rest of the group and cried his own tears, as much for Joshua as for his grandmother. He felt someone take his hand and looked over to see Aimee.
"You okay?" she asked.
He didn't respond. He just gripped her hand tightly and looked over at Joshua.
"You gonna go through with it?" she asked.
"I have no choice," he said.
"When?"
"Tonight," he said. "I hate to do it so close to the funeral, and I know that my family probably won't speak to me for the rest of my stay, but if I wait any longer, I won't be able to do it."
"Even if your family turns their backs on you," Aimee said, "I won't. I know this is hard for you, but you're doing the right thing."
"Am I?"
"He needs help, Johnny," she said. "And he won't get it unless he faces these demons. The best thing you can do for your brother and for your whole family is arrest Joshua and let him see the consequences of his choice. You know that over fifty percent of arrested Christians renounce the faith in less than a year. You could come back from your assignment on the ship and find him waiting at home for you completely recovered."
"Or I could come back to pick him up and take him to X," Johnny said.
Aimee kissed his cheek and went to join her family.
After Nanny was in the ground, people began to leave. About five minutes later, the only ones left were the Cramblits. Uncle Howard, Aunt Anne and Harold stood in one little group, Johnny's parents, Steve, and Kelly stood in another, and the two eldest Cramblit brothers stood about five feet apart on the other side of the hole. Eventually, without a word, everyone but Johnny and Joshua had left the scene, leaving the two standing there alone.
"Well," Joshua began. "What's the plan?"
"Have you changed your mind?" Johnny asked.
"No," Joshua said. "Have you?"
"No."
There was silence for about a minute. The Cramblits were loading into the shuttlecars and flying away. Johnny and Joshua had said that they planned on going to the house together in Joshua's car.
Finally, Johnny spoke again. "We're going to have dinner with the family. We're going to reminisce about Nanny and be there for Dad and Uncle Howard. Then, we're going to leave the house together. If you renounce Christianity, then we'll just go for coffee and talk about what to do next. If not, I'm taking you in."
"I understand."
"And if you try and run," Johnny began.
"If I was planning on running," Joshua said, "I wouldn't be standing here. Would I?"
"I guess not."
"Let's go," Joshua said, starting to walk to the parked shuttlecar. "We have a dinner to attend."
Johnny stood there for a long moment watching his brother walk away. Then, with tears in his eyes that had nothing to do with his dead grandmother, he followed behind him. Tomorrow at this time, Joshua would be in jail, his family would be devastated, and Johnny would be well on his way to the police facility on the moon waiting to depart to Planet X. Waiting a week in that cold building on that cold rock would be much more bearable than waiting a week with his family.
But for now, he had a dinner to attend.
The End

author's note

2006-03-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Well, we're finally at the end of this little adventure. Let me apologize for the delay. Those of you who know me personally know how crazy and busy the last few weeks have been, but I found the time and wrote the ending. I hope you all like it. I left it the way it is for a reason. It is obvious from Part One that Johnny arrests his brother, so there is no mystery there. But I ended it like that for a few reasons. First of all, it seemed fitting for them to leave the funeral and pretend like all was normal. I don't know why, it just did. Secondly, this isn't the last of Johnny Cramblit. This short serial is a prequel to a Novel I have written called The Fanatic in which Johnny Cramblit plays a pivitol role, and the events of this story are very important to that one. That novel now sits in limbo on a disk while I work on other projects, but rest assured, if I don't sell it withing the next two or three years, I just post it online.
The theme of brother vs brother is prevelant in Scriptures, and in Christ's predictions of the end times, He warns his followers that in the end, brother will betray brother to the authorities. If a future such as the one I describe in "Johnny" does come about, there will most likely be many scenarios like this one.
This story was hard to write in a lot of ways, but I hashed it out and finished it. I am a little disappointed with how it turned out, but I felt that this story was writing itself from the beginning (all you writers out there know what I mean) and it ended the way it wanted to. Sometimes a writer just sits back and watches a story take form almost independently of his vision. But finally, the story of Johnny is over (for now) and I can devote my time to other projects. Maybe another Dragon Slayer story, or I can finally get back to Pastor Stephen Markham or Danny Baker. We'll see what happens next time I sit down to type. Until then, God Bless,
Arthur B Roberts

Johnny (Part Five)

2006-02-07T21:30:00.001-07:00

Joshua and Johnny drove back to the Cramblit house in silence. They got there to find an ambulance parked outside. Its lights weren't flashing. Johnny knew that meant that there was no hurry. There was nothing that could be done. The person they had come here for was dead.
Joshua parked his shuttlecar on the other side of the street and they both went to the house. Johnny had almost forgotten about the Bible and his brother's problems. He was only focused on one thing: Nanny's death, and when he saw two paramedics walking out of the front door with a covered stretcher, he could think of nothing but the body beneath that white sheet. Nanny was gone.
Mrs. Cramblit stood in the front hall with Steve and Kelly. They were all crying as they watched the paramedics load Nanny's body and prepare to leave. Johnny and Joshua joined them in silent observance. Once Nanny was inside and the doors secured, the ambulance flew away.
"What happened?" Johnny asked his mother.
"Nothing happened," Mrs. Cramblit said, "she just died. The paramedics said that her heart just gave out. After breakfast she went upstairs and laid on her bed. She never woke up."
"I can't believe it," Joshua said.
"She was old, Josh," Mrs. Cramblit said. "She didn't suffer."
"I know," Joshua said, "but still. I never thought she would die. She was always so stubborn. I thought that death would come for her and she would just start arguing with it until it gave up and left her alone."
Despite their tears, the Cramblits all chuckled at that image. It was something Nanny would have done if given the chance. It was a family joke that Nanny would out live them all, and despite her age, on some level they had all believed it.
"Did you call Dad?" Johnny asked his mother.
"He's on his way home," she told him. "I asked the paramedics to delay taking her away until he could get here but they wouldn't. Regulations."
"Yeah," Joshua said. Both he and Johnny were familiar with those rules, but it didn't seem right that Mr. Cramblit couldn't see his mother off.
The family assembled at the kitchen table to wait for Mr. Cramblit to come home. Though nobody really wanted any, Mrs. Cramblit made a pot of coffee. They sat there drinking the coffee and waiting in silence for about twenty minutes. Then Johnny's father arrived at the house and the Cramblit's began to mourn together.
It wasn't until about an hour after Joshua had gone home that Johnny remembered that he was going to confront him about the Bible. But even if he had remembered earlier, he wouldn't have done so. With Nanny's unexpected death, the Cramblit family had enough to deal with without Johnny revealing his brother's deviant religious leanings to them all. At this point he couldn't see any circumstance before leaving for Planet X when it would seem appropriate to talk to his brother about what he had found in his glove compartment. Indeed, even if Nanny hadn't died, it wouldn't have seemed appropriate.
He was in his bedroom staring blankly at a TV monitor, not even caring what was on. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He wanted to mourn for his grandmother, but every time he began to dwell on those feelings he would remember the Bible and his brother's situation. Then, transversely, when he tried to think about that, he was overwhelmed with grief over Nanny's death and the conviction that he shouldn't compound this family tragedy with another. Then he would remind himself that Joshua being a Christian was a great tragedy and he needed to help him somehow, and the only person that he thought he could have discussed this with was lying on a cold slab in the morgue across town, which brought right back to where he started.
There was a knock at the door and he went to it. It was his father. His face was wet with tears and he stepped into Johnny's room without a word. He sat on Johnny's bed and looked up at his son. In his hand was a folded up piece of paper. Johnny sat beside him.
"I think she knew she was going to die today," Mr. Cramblit began. "We found this on her nightstand." He handed Johnny the paper. It was from his grandmother's diary. Paper was rare nowadays and most people kept all their records, both personal and official, on disc or in a computer database. Nanny had been old fashioned and insisted on writing her thoughts and all of her correspondence on paper. The diary this page had come from was a gift that Johnny had bought for her for the last holiday. It had been very expensive and hard to find, but Nanny had loved it.
"There was a note for each of us," Mr. Cramblit went on. "They were dated last night. All torn out of her diary and folded on the nightstand waiting for us."
"Have you read this?" Johnny asked.
"No, son," Mr. Cramblit said. "This is for you. My note was very personal and I know yours will be as well. Go ahead, son. I'll be downstairs if you need me."
Johnny's father left the room and Johnny stared down at the folded paper in his hands. His name was written on it with unique and very familiar handwriting that would never again be used. He flipped off the TV and opened the note.
Dear, Johnny
I wanted to tell you that I am proud of you. While I don't agree with everything that the government or the police do nowadays, I still think that you made a good choice in becoming an officer of the law. You've always made good choices. Ever since you were a little boy you have had a sense of justice and fairness. We all knew that you would be a cop years before you ever voiced the desire and the uniform looks right on you.
It's those good choices that will keep you grounded in your life. In your future you will probably be faced with many difficult problems where right and wrong don't seem to be as clear as you would want. Sometimes what the law says and what you know to be just and fair may not be the same. You may have to choose between what your duty requires and what your conscious tells you. In those times don't ask yourself what the law books or rules say. Ask yourself what's right. You're a good man, Johnny, and if you simply go with your heart, you won't go wrong.
I am sorry that I will not be able to see the fine man you will become, but seeing you now, in that uniform, I know what you will be.
I have been praying for you for years, and I hope that someday we will meet again. Until then, may God bless you. Not the Cosmic Parent or Joshua Lewis, but God. Now that I'm gone, I guess I can say that without fearing that Peter Neason will lock me up.
Trust your heart, Johnny. Good-bye.
Nanny.
Johnny had expected something like this. Nanny had always had old-fashioned views on politics and religion, and her final statement about God came as no surprise. But her other words, while meant to give him clarity and help him in difficult times, only served to further complicate things. Not only had Nanny somehow known she was going to die, she also seemed to know that Johnny would be faced with this sort of crisis. He wondered if she knew that it would involve his brother, but even if it hadn't, her last words to him seemed to be speaking to his exact situation.
Then he remembered that his father had said that Nanny had left a note for everyone. That included Joshua. Since Joshua had left before the notes were found, his would still be at the Cramblit house, maybe even still on Nanny's nightstand. Johnny got up and quietly went to Nanny's bedroom. He could hear his parents talking downstairs and he knew that the two younger children were down in the cellar trying to get their minds off of their grief so he was alone on the second floor of the house. He went into Nanny's room undisturbed and undetected, feeling strangely guilty even though he had nothing to hide.
The lights were off but the glow of the street lamp outside Nanny's bedroom window provided just enough light for Johnny. The bed had been made, probably by Johnny's mother. She had always dealt with grief or stress by finding some busy work. He went to the bed and looked down at the antique nightstand that had stood by the beds of three generations of grandmothers. Nanny's diary lay on the top with her old fashioned bic pen resting on its leather cover. Next to it sat a folded piece of paper with his brother's name lovingly written on it.
Johnny stared down at the note for a long moment. His grandmother's final good-bye to her oldest grandchild was written there and Johnny was reluctant even to pick it up. He felt like he would be violating something sacred. But Nanny had hinted strongly about some deviant religious beliefs many times and Johnny knew his brother well enough to know that if he had begun to lean towards Christianity, he would have most likely confided in her. Maybe she and her outspoken views had something to do with Joshua's current situation.
He picked the paper up and slowly unfolded it. He didn't realize it yet but he had shifted from a man concerned about his brother to a police officer conducting an investigation. What he held in his hand was not a letter of farewell from a dying woman, but evidence in a case of religious deviancy and when he read the note his worst fears were confirmed. He wanted to tear the thing into a thousand pieces and forget the whole thing, but instead he carefully folded it back up and put it on the table where he had found it.
He turned and left the room. He went downstairs to the kitchen and asked his father if he could borrow the keys to his shuttlecar. He told his parents that he just needed to get away for a while and would be back in a few hours. His dad handed him the keys without question.
Johnny went out the front door to find Aimee Neason walking up the stairs of the front stoop. They met half way and stood there looking at each other for a moment.
"Hey, Johnny," she said somberly. "Kelly called me about an hour ago. I'm sorry about your grandmother."
"Yeah," he said. "Thanks."
"I thought I'd come over and try to cheer her up," Aimee said. "Or maybe just sit with her for a while."
"She'll like that," Johnny said.
"Where are you going?" she asked him.
"Out," he said. "I'm just gonna drive around for a while."
"Oh," she said. "Well, if I'm still here when you get back and you think you need someone to talk to... well, you know."
"Yeah," he said. "Thanks."
She took a step towards the door, then stopped and looked up at Johnny again. Then she did something that he had always hoped she would do. She gave him a hug, held him for a moment, and then kissed him gently on the cheek. Under any other circumstances Johnny would have been thrilled, but all thoughts of his attraction for Aimee were lost in his need for comfort and he hugged her back, grateful for her presence. She went inside and he went to the shuttlecar..
He didn't think he was going anywhere specific, but without even thinking about it he found himself driving right up to Joshua's house. He parked the car across the street and stopped the engine. Then he sat there for nearly an hour staring at the modest one story home where his brother lived and trying to decide his next move.
I have been praying for our family for years and I was so happy to find that you finally turned your life over to the Lord. Now I know that when I am gone, you will be there to continue praying for them and trying to win them over. It won't be easy and the path you've chosen is a hard one, but your reward will be great. I go to mine soon. We will meet again.
The last paragraph of Nanny's letter to Joshua kept going through his head and he knew that he had to put a stop to his brother's deviance before it was too late. Nanny was old and stubborn and her deviant views had been something the family had tolerated knowing that she wasn't really hurting anybody and was too old fashioned and possibly even too senile to know better. Joshua was none of those things. And if Nanny had converted Joshua, she had hurt somebody.
Johnny wasn't even concerned that Joshua could possibly spread the deviant beliefs to others. He was more worried about his brother and his future. He had to help Joshua and somehow he knew that turning him in wouldn't help much. If Joshua was arrested, he would most likely see himself as a martyr and consider his persecution some sort of blessing and encouragement. Johnny had seen it before. But if he could reach his brother and turn him around before the law even got involved, maybe his life wouldn't have to be ruined.
Johnny opened the car door and got out, determined to deal with this once and for all no matter what happened. If he was forced to turn Joshua in, so be it. If he could help him, all the better. But as he walked towards his brother's front door he knew that one way or the other, this would end tonight.
He got to the door. The doorbell was probably working just fine but this felt like more of a knocking moment. He raised his hand to bring it down onto the wood of the door and froze. He couldn't do it. All of his police training, his newfound courage and maturity, and his determination to help Joshua vanished in a moment of complete panic. He had always respected his brother, almost worshipped him, and he didn't feel like a cop or even a man at that point. He felt like a little boy about to tattle on his big brother.
He turned and left Joshua's house and as far as he knew, his brother never even knew he was there. He got in the car and drove back home, no more sure of what to do about Joshua then when he had left. The only lights on in the Cramblit house were those showing through the cellar windows. That meant that at least one of his siblings was still awake. Maybe he could distract himself with a quick game of pool with Steve.
As he reached the door, Aimee was coming out.
"We've got to stop meeting like this," she said smiling. He tried to smile back but instead just broke down in uncontrollable sobs. In an instant he was back in Aimee's arms and crying on her shoulder as she held him and told him that it was going to be okay. It was strange that he would find comfort her. In spite of the crush he had secretly had on her for a while, she had always been just one of his little sister's friends. He had teased her and played pranks on her and traded insults with her, but he never imagined he would cry with her.
They found themselves sitting on the porch steps, both crying.
"I know you miss your grandmother," she said. She sounded like she was fishing for words, not sure what to say but feeling the need to say something. "She was a good woman. We're all going to miss her."
Johnny looked at Aimee. He wasn't even sure what he was doing or why, but he found that he couldn't help himself. The words were out of his mouth before he had even thought them through and he knew that there was no taking them back. He didn't know how she would react, but he found himself hoping that she was a little more open minded then her father. But even if she wasn't, he had to tell somebody. He hated being the only one responsible for his brother's future.
"It's not just Nanny," he said. "It's Joshua. He's... I think he's... a Christian."
To be concluded...

note this note...

2006-02-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, here it is. I am so sorry that it took so long. My theory (or is it an excuse?) is that since I told everyone in my last post that my New Year's resolution was to post something every week this year, I somehow cursed myself into writer's block. Nobody ever keeps their resolutions and I think I decided to break mine early and get it over with.
Anyway, I feel comfortable guaranteeing that Part Six will be up within the next couple of weeks. I'm also thinking about a poem or two and another dragon slayer story. But I've been busy, distracted, stressed out, and tired, and those are the writer's four biggest enemies!
But, enough about that. Nobody ever reads these stupid author's notes anyway, do they? It's like the preface of a book or the notes that Stephen King puts at the end of his short story collections about how his stories came to be. I think the only person who reads those things are other writers and those who like to think they're writers (like yours truly). And, now I've just about spent as much space explaining why nobody reads these things as I did explaining the story.
One more thing: Not to get off on one of my crazy rants, but I recently heard something on TV that made me chuckle. A commercial used the phrase "Valentine's Day Season" and I almost sat down to write a long spiel about Valentine's Day (which is actually a religious holiday, but few atheists seem to care) and the other major holidays of the season, including President's Day and Groundhog's Day, but then I thought better of it. It would only be a stupid joke and I thought it would be better as a foot note on an author's note that only Wanderer will read! (Hi, Wanderer!)
God Bless, Arthur B. Roberts.

Johnny (Part Four)

2006-01-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

Breakfast was quiet the next morning. The Cramblit family sat together eating omelets and sausage and trying not to bring up the subject of last night's unpleasantness. Nanny, who usually talked up a storm at the breakfast table just nibbled at her eggs and sipped her coffee without a word. Johnny didn't like it. He knew what was on everybody's mind. It was on his mind too. Unfortunately, he couldn't offer any new information about Joshua to his family without making them suspicious, so he kept his mouth shut too.
It was a holiday week and Kelly and Steve were home from school. The only person who had to be anywhere that day was Mr. Cramblit. He was a writer for a local newspaper and had to be at work at nine that morning. Everyone else had a nice lazy day planned. Kelly and Steve were still in their pajamas and both Nanny and Mrs. Cramblit were wearing robes.
Johnny had put on some of his old clothes he found in his closet, surprised that they were a little looser. Maybe the training had done something for his gut after all. Besides his father, he was the only other person with plans that day. He was both looking forward to his lunch with Joshua and dreading it. He didn't know what he would do if he found out that his older brother was involved in any illegal activity.
His father was about to head out the front door when he called Johnny to him.
"Son," he said, "I didn't get a chance to tell you this last night, but I am very proud of you."
"Thanks, Dad," Johnny said.
"My two oldest sons in two of the most respectable occupations in the Society," Mr. Cramblit said. "I must have done right by you."
"You sure did, Dad," Johnny agreed.
"You're having lunch with Josh today, aren't you?" Mr. Cramblit asked. "Tell him I said 'hi' and would like to sit down and talk with him soon."
"I will, Dad," Johnny said.
"And if you can," Mr. Cramblit went on slowly, as if not sure what to say next, "try and find out what's been bothering him lately. Your mother and I are worried about him. He always talks to you."
"I'll do my best, Dad," Johnny said.
Mr. Cramblit went out to work and Johnny went in to help his mother load the dishes into the dishwasher. Kelly and Steve had both gone up to their rooms and Nanny had also excused herself.
Johnny had a pleasant talk with his mother, both clearly avoiding the subject of Joshua, and when the dishes were all loaded they sat down for a cup of coffee together.
"So," Mrs. Cramblit said. "You got the posting you wanted for your training?"
"Yeah," Johnny said. "Prison transport to Planet X. I've always wanted to see it."
"I don't know why?" she said. "It's so desolate and dry. We have deserts here on Earth to visit."
"But, Mom, it's the first inhabitable planet we've discovered," Johnny said. "I don't care how ugly it is, it's still exciting."
"Just be careful up there," Mrs. Cramblit told him. "All those criminals. They only ship the worst of the worst to X, Johnny. I don't want to lose my son on his first assignment."
"You won't, Mom," Johnny said. She had voiced similar concerns before he left for the academy and even though she had spent six months worrying about him, he had come home safe and sound. "They train us well. There's plenty of guards on a ship and they keep the most dangerous criminals in solitary confinement behind bars and force fields. I'll be perfectly safe."
"I know, I know. But the thought of my baby up there with all those killers and perverts and religious nuts," Mrs. Cramblit took a nervous sip of her coffee. "Why couldn't you have just requested traffic control?"
Johnny laughed. "Dad's proud that I got transport duty."
"So am I, Johnny," she said. "But I'm your mother. I'm always going to worry about you no matter how old you get!"
"Yeah, Mom," Johnny said. "And if I had gotten traffic control, you'd be scared I'd be hit by an out of control shuttle."
Just then there was a knock at the door. Johnny went to go answer it. It was Joshua. He was about half an hour early, but Johnny didn't care. He had waited six months for a man to man talk with his brother. Joshua exchanged short pleasantries with Mrs. Cramblit and then he and Johnny left.
They got into Joshua's shuttlecar and flew off towards the skyway.
"Are Mom and Dad mad at me?" Joshua asked.
"Not really," Johnny said. "Just a little worried about you."
"Worried?" Joshua asked.
"Yeah," Johnny said. "And frankly so am I. What's up with you lately?"
"Nothing," Joshua said. Johnny had been reading his brother for eighteen years and knew two things. One, there was something up with him and two, he didn't want to talk about it. Johnny let it go for a moment.
"So, where do you want to eat?" Joshua asked him after a moment.
"I don't care," Johnny said. "Some burger joint or something. I haven't had a cheeseburger since last summer."
"Sounds good." There was a good place down town and Joshua steered the shuttlecar in that direction. They made small talk during the drive, mostly about the police academy and Johnny's upcoming assignment, and five minutes later they had parked outside of the restaurant.
They sat at a booth in the corner and ordered their meal. It came less than a minute later and Johnny tore into his food. There had been some talk recently about outlawing the eating of beef for health reasons (and because some believed that an "Enlightened Society" shouldn't dine on the flesh of lower animals) and Johnny hoped that the day would never come. Joshua ate more slowly. He didn't look very hungry.
"So," Johnny said between bites, "you gonna tell me what's up or not?"
"What do you mean?" Joshua asked.
"Well, first of all, you seem happier," Johnny said. "Did you meet a woman or something?"
"No," Joshua said. "I'm still a poor lonely bachelor."
"Then what is it?" Johnny asked. "And why all this sudden sympathy for fanatics?" He asked this last question quietly, glancing around to see if anyone had overheard him.
"I am a doctor," Joshua said, "I have sympathy for all people."
"Come on, Josh," Johnny said. "There's a difference between caring about another person's well being and the stuff you were saying last night. Look, I know you're not a sympathizer or anything, but with the way you were talking to Mr. Neason, anyone who didn't know you might have thought something different."
"Peter Neason is an idiot," Joshua said. "It's not the first time I've disagreed with him."
"Yeah," Johnny said, "about taxes or schooling or the prison system. Not about the treatment of Christians! You know that nobody cares about religious deviants. You told me a few years back that they deserve what they get."
"It's easy to say that when you aren't a first hand witness to their abuse," Joshua replied. "Of all the religious offenders, they receive the harshest treatment and they offer the least resistance. I've seen people as old as Nanny beaten to death just for praying to someone other than our 'Cosmic Parent' or Joshua Lewis. When you have to treat an old woman for internal bleeding or a concussion and they tell you that instead of being angry with their attacker they are praying for them... Sorry, I'm going off on one of those rants again. I better be careful."
"Yeah, you better!" Johnny said. "You better be really careful. You're lucky I'm the only one who's heard you talk this way. Peter Neason would report you in a minute."
"I know," Joshua said. Their waitress came by to check if they needed anything else. When they told her they were fine she placed the check on the table and left. Joshua reached into his pocket for his wallet.
"Oh man," he said. "I left my wallet in the car."
"I'll pay," Johnny said.
"No, you won't," Joshua said. "I took you out to eat and I'm going to pay. Can you go get my wallet? It's in the glove department."
"Sure," Johnny said, a little grateful that there was a short break in their conversation. Joshua gave him the key card and Johnny went out to the shuttlecar. He opened the passenger side door and then the glove box. He had once seen an old twenty-first century car at a museum as was amazed that even though many advancements had been made in transportation, very little had changed about the actual vehicles themselves. There were still bucket seats and car stereos and little compartments in the dashboard to store anything that couldn't be digitally stored. Joshua's wallet was right on top of the assorted papers, discs, and other knick knacks. Johnny grabbed it and was about to close the small door when he noticed something.
The glove box had a false back. Most people would have overlooked it, and Johnny himself would have missed it six months earlier, but a good portion of his police training dealt with smuggling and hidden compartments. He noticed the slight discoloration in the back of the glove department and its diminished size, barely noticeable to any casual observer, but not his trained eye.
Johnny knew that the shuttlecar had been bought used a year earlier. It was possible that its previous owner had used the secret compartment and Joshua wasn't even aware of it. Besides, having a secret compartment wasn't illegal. Maybe Joshua used it to store important papers or a defensive weapon. Still, it bothered Johnny and he couldn't help but check it out, especially in the light of his concerns over his brother. He reached into the glove box and easily popped open the false back of the glove box.
He let out an audible gasp when he saw what was hidden there. Apart from pictures he had only seen one once before. They had shown him one during his training in order to familiarize him with religious dissidents and their paraphernalia, and they wouldn't even let him open it and look inside. It's contents were considered too dangerous for untrained cadets to deal with. Now, he saw one sitting in his brother's glove box, hidden away, and confirming suspicions that Johnny hadn't even wanted to admit he was having.
It was a small black book with a leather cover. It was old, maybe a hundred years or more, and ragged, but still intact. On its cover were printed in faded but still legible letters two words: Holy Bible.
Johnny couldn't believe it. He didn't even want to touch it. He rolled his shirt sleeve over his hand, pushed the book back into place, and closed the false backing of the secret compartment. His own brother had a Bible in his car. Did he even know about it? Maybe it had belonged to the previous owner. As much as Johnny wanted to believe that, he knew that the book was Joshua's. It made perfect sense. Joshua was defending Christians because he was one. He looked happier because he was in the beginning stages of religious delusions before the false beliefs took over the victim's life and it was too late to get out. He was being secretive and avoiding his family because he was afraid of exposing his criminal beliefs.
Johnny almost lost his lunch right there in the parking lot. He took a deep breath, grabbed Joshua's wallet, and went back to the restaurant. He would wait until they were back in the car and then he would confront his brother. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Even if Joshua had become a Christian, maybe it wasn't too late for him. He could still be helped before he got himself too deep into the fanatic activities. There was therapy and treatment and reeducation that could steer him away from the destructive course. Johnny didn't want to arrest his brother. He wanted to help him.
He was afraid that Joshua would notice that he had spent a long time out at the car and become concerned, but that wasn't the case. Joshua was talking on his phone and apparently had been so distracted by his conversation that he hadn't even noticed Johnny's extended absence. Johnny sat down across from him not knowing what to say. He wanted to grab his brother, shake him and yell at him, try to bring him back to his senses. Then he saw Joshua's face. His older brother was in tears and looked up at Johnny.
Johnny had been planning on confronting Joshua on the ride home, knowing that it would be a very hard conversation and would probably turn into a horrible argument. He was afraid of what his brother would say to him and what he would be forced to do. A thousand thoughts were racing through his mind about what to do or say or how to respond, but all of those were gone in an instant when Joshua spoke.
"We have to go home," he said. "Nanny died."
TO BE CONTINUED

Year in Review

2006-01-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year, everybody!
This site has been in existence for about six months now and there are some who have faithfully read all of my short stories and essays since its creation. Then there are those who have come recently to the blog. I have written 11 (not counting author's notes and other commentaries) short stories and other various works since last summer, but most of those are now in my archives. Not many people want to go searching the archives for a story to read so I have decided to create this post so that anybody coming to the site now can easily link to any of my short stories, essays, and other stuff without having to search the archives to find them. It's sort of a Year in Review.
The following is a list of my previous posts, including a brief description of the work, and the titles are links to that post. I hope you find time to visit all of them and read them. Since I have classified this blog as a site for Christian Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, they will be listed under these categories, with a fourth category for "other" because some of the stuff here doesn't exactly fit nicely into one of those categories. Some pages in the archive contain more than one of the posts, so if the one you are looking for isn’t at the top, then scroll down until you find it. Posts currently displayed on the site have no link but are listed anyway for your convenience.

FANTASY:
"There is No Dragon" My first short story here and the first appearance of Jared the Dragon Slayer and his side-kick Zede the Ferocious. Jared and Zede come across a village plagued by a man eating dragon. The two heroes see this beast for themselves and decide to rescue the villagers, but upon entering the village they find that the people deny that a dragon even exists.
"Stikora" Jared and Zede are asked to help a man with a monstrous, flesh hungry half demon monster in his home. Jared agrees, but is sure that the man isn't telling him the whole story.

SCIENCE FICTION: (this category can be quite broad and for the purpose of this post I include one story that takes place in the near future and another modern day story that serves as a prequel to it)
"The Enforcers" A group of Christian fugitives hiding in a former pastor's mountain cabin are exposed and their hideout is raided by government Enforcers who plan on taking them all to prison.
"Tribulation Game" (currently posted) A prequel of sorts to the Enforcers, a youth group in a modern day church participates in a game at church that mirrors the persecution predicted in biblical "end times" prophecy.
"Johnny" (parts one, two, and three, currently posted.) An ongoing story about a man in the year 2189 who returns from training at the United Earth Police Academy to find that his older brother may be a religious deviant, specifically a Christian. (Part four to be posted on Wednesday, January 4th)

HORROR:
"The Old Man" A man recently liberated from a sadistic slave master finds that the old monster has returned to take over his life again.
OTHER: (Stories, poems, essays, and something else)
"Civil Disobedience" A pastor preaches a sermon against society and the Church's lax attitude towards sin. His sermons spark controversy and soon he has to choose between preaching the gospel or obeying a new law that makes his message a hate crime.
"Darkness" Somewhere between a story and a poem, this short piece is hard to describe, but I think it borders on horror! In any case, I liked it and I hope you do too!
"Prose into Poetry" A couple of poems.
"The Path to Everywhere" A response to a question from my friend Wanderer, I look at the question, "If God is everywhere, how can there be only on way to get to where he is at?" The first of my little rants and the post that caused my hit counter to climb more quickly than any other.
"XMAS" (currently posted) Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas? Yeah, the holidays are over, but the questions are still relevant. Happy Balloon Animals Day!

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year is to post something on this blog at least once a week. It will either be a short story, a poem, an essay, or something else, and if I actually keep this resolution, next year's Year in Review will be a whole lot longer. Johnny Part Five is coming soon. God Bless and Happy New Year,
Arthur B Roberts

Johnny (Part Three)

2005-12-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

The meal was finished around seven-thirty and the Cramblit's company stayed with them for a while talking in the family room. Johnny's parents, his aunt and uncle, and the Neasons sat together drinking coffee and discussing politics and current events, now more safely because Nanny had excused herself and gone off to bed. Joshua joined them, but kept quiet. Johnny also sat with them for a while. A few months ago he would have gone down to the cellar with the other teenagers to listen to music and play pool, but he didn't feel much like a kid anymore. Six months of training had changed him, matured him, and the uniform he wore made him feel out of place with the kids who were roughly his age. But he soon realized after about half an hour with the adults, that he didn't feel right there either.
It was a strange feeling, stuck between two ages and two very different worlds, and he found himself longing for the company of the other police cadets at the academy. It almost scared him to think that they were the only people he would ever feel comfortable with again, but it also filled him with a sense of pride. He was a part of something that the people in this room could never understand. He hadn't realized what the training and education would do for him.
But he stayed with them for most of the night, not because he wanted to join in their conversation, which he did to the best of his ability, but because he wanted to keep an eye on Joshua. He was concerned about the strange things that Joshua had told him, and while Johnny was sure that his brother was neither a Christian nor a Christian Sympathizer, he was afraid that if Joshua said any of those things around Peter Neason, or even Uncle Howard who was also very anti-religious, he could get himself into the trouble.
Whenever the subject of religious deviance came up, Johnny watched his brother closely. He didn't say anything to either attack or support the fanatics. There were times that Johnny was sure Joshua was biting his tongue to keep from saying something, but he was careful not to say anything at all. The others were so into their conversations that nobody noticed Joshua's silence. Johnny noticed, though. Joshua had never been a quiet person. He had always been respectful and polite, but never quiet. His opinions had always been known, except for tonight. Maybe he was worried that if he said any of the things he had told Johnny an hour before, the others might miscontrue his statements and attack him, maybe even report him.
Finally, Uncle Howard decided that it was time for him and his family to leave. He asked Aunt Anne to go down and get Harold, but Johnny, anxious to get away from what he considered to be a rather boring and redundant conversation, offered to do it. He went down to the cellar. Sure enough, loud music was blaring from the stereo and Steve and Harold were busy playing a game of pool. Steve was winning.
Johnny looked for Aimee and Kelly and found them sitting on the sofa at the other end of the large cellar talking and giggling in that annoying way that girls had. When they saw him come in, Aimee whispered something to Kelly. Kelly acted as if what she had just heard was disgusting, but Aimee looked at Johnny and waved. Despite feeling like an adult and proudly sporting his uniform, Johnny could feel his face flushing bright red.
Taking a deep breath and trying to ignore the girls, he went to the pool table.
"Harold," he said. "Your dad wants to get going. You better get on up there."
"Fine by me," Harold said. "Your fat brother's beating me anyways."
Harold took one more futile shot at the seven ball, scratched, and then went upstairs without saying another word.
"Awe man," Steve said. "I was kicking his a__!"
"Too bad," Johnny said. He turned to go back upstairs.
"Johnny, wait!" Steve called. "Can't you just finish out the game? We haven't played in six months."
Johnny looked at the table. Harold had been shooting solids and had six balls left on the table compared to just two of Steve's. Harold would have lost in two more shots, but Johnny was a little better than that. He picked up Harold's cue, grateful for a diversion from the boredom upstairs. It was Steve's shot, and after Harold's scratch, he had a good one. He sunk one ball easily and managed to set up the second shot nicely. Johnny was sure that he wouldn't even get a chance to play, but Steve missed and it was his turn.
"So," Steve asked as Johnny prepared to shoot, "how was the academy?"
"Not bad," Johnny said. "It would have killed you."
"That's why I ain't gonna be a cop," Steve said. "But it seems right for you somehow. That uniform looks right on you."
"Thanks," Johnny said, and he shot at the seven ball that Harold had missed. He sank it easily and went for the next ball.
"Yeah, and with Joshua as a doctor and Kelly getting a scholarship offer in her junior year," Steve went on, "mom's been on my case to start cracking down and do something with my life."
"You're fourteen," Johnny said, as he sank another ball. "You've got plenty of time."
"Yeah," Steve said. "But you knew what you wanted to be when you were five, and look at you. And Josh has always wanted to be a doctor."
"Your music..."
"Yeah," Steve said. "Mom's not too thrilled about that."
Johnny sank a third ball and then a fourth.
"Hey, does Josh seem different to you?" Steve asked.
"What do you mean?" Johnny said.
"It's like, oh I don't know. It's like he's changed or something. He's quieter, but he seems happier. Do you think he met a woman at medical school or something?"
"If he did," Johnny said, "I think he would have told us."
"Something's different, though," Steve said. "I can't figure it out, but I'm sure of it."
"He's growing up," Johnny said, sinking two balls in one shot and moving towards the eight ball. "We all are." As he said this, he glanced over at Aimee and he was sure that she was looking at him with a whole lot more respect and even affection than when they had last met. Johnny sank the eight ball.
"Good game," he said smiling. He put the cue on the rack on the wall and left the cellar. He probably would have stayed a while longer, but he was uncomfortable discussing Joshua with Steve. He wasn't the only one to notice, but he was probably the only one who had heard his opinions of Christians.
Back upstairs, Uncle Howard and his family had left and it seemed that his father's conversation with Peter Neason was coming to a close. Joshua was nowhere to be seen. Johnny went to look for him and found him at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.
"Hey," he said, sitting down across from his brother.
"Hey," Joshua said. "What's up?"
"Just wanted to get away," Johnny said. "You know, I thought I would feel more comfortable with the adults than the kids tonight, but I don't."
"I was the same way when I was eighteen," Joshua said. "Eventually you force yourself to act like a grown up, and soon you realize you aren't acting anymore."
The brothers sat there silently for a moment. Joshua sipped at his coffee, which Johnny could tell by the smell was Martian Blend. The soil on Mars was richer than that on earth since the terraforming experiments and things grown there had a distinct rich flavor.
"So," Johnny said, "Mom tells me you hardly ever come home since moving back the city."
"Yeah," Joshua said. "You know how it is. You leave home for a while and when you come back, it's not the same. Besides, that Peter Neason is here almost all the time now, and he's really getting on my nerves."
"He's harmless," Johnny said.
"You think so?" Joshua asked. "When I was working on those Christian prisoners there was this fourteen year old girl. She reminded me so much of Kelly, same hair, same eyes. Anyway, she had been beaten, abused, and raped. No one cared because she was a Christian and she was past the legal age of religious consent. It was like she didn't matter, all because people hate Christians. The cops justified their actions using words from Peter Neason's tracks! Now, tell me he's harmless!"
"The government tracks do not endorse the abuse of religious dissedents," Johnny said, "and I can tell you as a cop, neither do the police."
"Officially, no," Joshua said. "But unofficially... Johnny, you didn't see this girl! Her eyes were swollen shut, her nose broken, three ribs cracked, bruises all over, and... I don't even want to tell you the rest. I still have nightmares about it. And it was all done because of the anger and hatred against the religious deviants propagated by those damned government tracks!"
Johnny didn't know what to say. He was disgusted by Joshua's description of the abuse, and the girl's reported resemblance to Kelly only made it worse, but Joshua was scaring him now more than ever. If Johnny didn't know better, he would have considered his brother a Christian sympathizer. But Johnny did know better. Joshua wasn't talking as a sympathizer, he was talking as a doctor who had seen a human being in distress. That the person was a Christian or the distress caused by police officers wasn't important. Most doctors would react in the same way.
Johnny didn't have to say anything. His brothers outburst had attracted the attention of those in the family room and they had come into the kitchen to see what was happening. Peter Neason stood in the doorway with the others behind him. He was fuming and he glared hard at Joshua.
"What were you just saying?" he demanded. "How dare you speak against the governemt!"
"I am not talking against the government, Mr. Neason," Joshua said. "I'm talking about the beating and rape of a fourteen year old girl who almost died at the hands of people quoting your words!"
"It is not my fault people take my words out of context to support their own crimes!" Mr. Neason replied. "But the girl was old enough to chose her religion, and she knew the consequences of Christianity, didn't she? Everyone knows that some cops can be a little harsh in their treatment of prisoners."
"A little harsh?" Joshua yelled. He stood up from the table and took a step towards Peter. Johnny could see his face clearly, and he looked like he was about to take out all of his frustration over the girl's abuse on Mr. Neason. On instinct, he stood up and grabbed his brother's arm. Mr. Cramblit stepped in front of Peter, who also looked ready to fight.
"Peter," he said, "I think it's time you left. Sorry about all this."
"You're right," Mr. Neason said. "I'm sorry too. I know that Josh didn't mean any harm."
"And neither did you," Mr. Cramblit replied. "Johnny, can you go tell Aimee it's time to go."
"Yeah," Johnny said, looking to make sure his brother had calmed down a bit before releasing his arm. "No problem."
He let his brother go and went back down to the basement. Steve was in one corner with a VR helmet on his head, playing a computer game, and the girls were still on the sofa.
"Aimee," Johnny said, "you're parents are leaving."
"Okay," Aimee said. She hugged Kelly, who had always been her best friend, and got up. She came over and stopped by the stairs and looked up at Johnny. "What's going on up there? I heard yelling."
"Nothing," Johnny said. "Just a little political discussion."
"Oh," Aimee said. She was well aware that her father's views often caused conflicts with even the most loyal citizen of the United Earth. She didn't move to go upstairs.
"Aren't you going to leave?" he asked her.
"In a second," she said. "I haven't talked you in six months."
"You barely talked to me before then," Johnny reminded her.
"I know," she said, "but I always wanted to. You look good in that uniform, Johnny. It suits you."
"Thanks."
"Maybe we can get together sometime before you ship out," Aimee said. "I'd like to catch up with you before you leave for another year."
"Yeah," Johnny said. "I'd like that."
"You got my number," she said. "Give me a call."
She went past him, touching his arm as she left, and went up the stairs. Johnny stood there smiling for a moment before his sister came over and punched him in the arm.
"I don't know what she sees in you," Kelly said. "It has to be the uniform, cause she never liked you before!"
Johnny ignored her. He went back upstairs to make sure that Joshua and Peter Neason didn't end up attacking each other before the Neason's left. The Neason's left without incident and Mr. and Mrs. Cramblit immediately began scolding Joshua for turning their holiday dinner into a big fight. He didn't yell back at them. He just sat there for a few minutes listening to their shouts, and then got up, apologized quietly, and, it seemed, insincerely, grabbed his jacket and left the house.
Johnny went out too, catching him on the porch before he got to his car.
"Josh, wait up!"
"What?" Joshua said. "You want to yell at me too?"
"No," Johnny told him. "I just wanted to make sure that this wasn't the last time I saw you before I left Earth. Let's meet for lunch as soon as you're free."
"I'm off tomorrow," Joshua said. "I'll pick you at eleven."
Johnny nodded and Joshua got into his vehicle without another word. As Johnny watched him fly away towards the skyway, he was more concerned than ever. Even if it turned into a huge argument, he decided then and there that during the next day's lunch, he would find out once and for all what was going on with his brother.
TO BE CONTINUED

To Many Debates?

2005-12-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

It seems that more and more of my time is being spent writing some of those nonfiction essay things that somehow get more traffic and comments (albeit, most of them from Wanderer) than my short stories, poetry, and that weird Darkness thing. I want this blog to be a showcase for my fiction, not a place for me to rant and rave about the world around me! But I love to rant and rave about the world around me! It's fun! Many writers love to do it, and I am no different. Sometimes I can just write a short story, poem, or song about an issue (such as "Stikora" or "Civil Disobedience"), but there are times when only one of my longwinded angry rants will do. Then, a good portion of my site is used up on that and my stories get pushed to the background. People come to this site, read those little essays like "The Path to Everywhere" and "XMAS" and don't even realize that I am writing fiction here. Besides, "Dawn is Coming" is classified as a site for Christian Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror stories (so far the only real "horror" story is "The Old Man", but "Darkness" comes close) and those essays do not fit into the category.
I do not want to stop writing them though, so I have a dilema. It's a small dilema, but it is there. So I ask you, faithful readers (Wanderer and the other two of you) this question: Should I continue to waste space on Dawn with my satirical nonfictitious rants, or should I create a new blog just for that and my author's comments (does anyone read those? To me, they're about as important as the stories)? Should I make a new blog where I can complain about society, comment on Christian and religious issues, and just go off on stuff like I sometimes happen to do? Let me know what you think? It would be interesting to see which of the two gets more traffic? Let me know! Comment and tell me what you think. And I may have a sort of "Name that Blog" contest or something if I do make one.
God Bless, ARTHUR B ROBERTS
And please hurry up and let me know because I am preparing one on Intelligent Design and my fingers are just itching to start typing away at it! Where should I put it!
Merry Christmas!

XMAS

2005-12-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

I am about to go off on a tangent here. Before I do, let me assure all of my faithful readers (and by all, I mean Wanderer. Hi!) that I have not forgotten about "Johnny" and will continue it soon. It's just that "Tribulation Game" and this post both seemed more important to me at this time. This is another short essay, not a story, poem, or whatever the heck "Darkness" was. And, timely enough, it's about Christmas, the holidays, and the pointless controversy surrounding them. I say pointless because I think that the problems surrounding the holiday season are ridiculous. I say "Merry Christmas!" And I will continue to say it.
At the risk of sounding like an old man at twenty-five, I remember a day when you could hear "Merry Christmas," on television and see the greeting in every store window and in people's decorations. I remember when Thanksgiving marked the day when you would start hearing religious music at the mall and on every radio station because everyone recognized that the Christmas season was about the birth of Jesus Christ. Yes, I am aware that many of our Christmas traditions have their roots in paganism (hi again, Wanderer!) and that Jesus was most likely not born on December 25th. (In "Back to the Future" when Doc Brown entered that date in the time machine it made for a good joke, but had he gone back in time on that day, there was no way he would have seen the birth of Christ. Especially in Hill Valley, California.)
But for all the inaccuracies and non-Christian elements that have seeped into the holiday, and the distortion of the story of St. Nick, Christmas remains a religious celebration of the birth of a man who, despite what you believe about Him, had a lasting impact on the world. He changed it. I would challenge any historian to prove that Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or any other person whose birthday we celebrate (are there any more? I don't remember) had a bigger impact on the world. In fact, it can be argued that without the teachings and influence of Jesus Christ, those other three people I mentioned wouldn't have amounted to much. If we just chose to celebrate this man's birth as a national (actually international, but we'll get back to that) holiday where the banks and schools close and the television stations ran Happy Jesus Christ's Birthday ads on TV, many people would have a fit. Somehow, forcing people to celebrate the birth of a president or a civil rights leader is okay, but forcing them to celebrate the birth of arguably the most influensive person in history is crossing the line. On the other hand, imagine celebrating President's Day without making any mention of America or the presidents themselves. Yeah, you get the day off of school or work and you can spend time with your family, even throw a party, but if you so much as mention Lincoln or Washington, or say the word "America" you have somehow infringed on somebody's freedom! How offensive would it be to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday by suddenly making it improper to talk about equality or speak out against racism? Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it. I am offended even thinking about it and I'm the one righting this. But something very similar has happened regarding the birth of Jesus. We can celebrate His birthday as a national holiday, take the day off, spend time with our families, exchange gifts, but it seems to be more and more improper to mention Jesus Christ, to sing a song specifically about his birth, or even say the name of the holiday as it appears on nearly every calendar on the planet! Does that make sense? There used to be signs hanging everywhere saying, "Jesus is the reason for the season!" When I was a kid, I saw these everywhere (one lady left her sign up until May or June one year and when asked about it she said, "Jesus is the reason for every season." Whether she was trying to make a point or just making an excuse for laziness I don't know, but in either case... AMEN!). This year I have seen it one time! ONCE! I remember when the fight used to be over Christmas vs Xmas. Now, even Xmas is offensive because not everyone celebrates it. By that reasoning, we shouldn't celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday because we might offend racists, and we should avoid President's Day because some poor anarchist might get his feelings hurt.
But what about Hanukkah or Kwanzaa? Shouldn't we use an all inclusive phrase like "Happy Holidays" so as not offend anybody celebrating a different holiday? Sounds fair. But let me point something out. Christmas is a universal holiday celebrated in some way by a majority of the world. You can find Christmas celebrations in Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, and the Americas. And not just among Christians. Atheists celebrate it every year as the family holiday I described above, even picking that one day a year to sing songs about a God they don't believe in. Even though it isn't Jesus' actual birthday, billions of people choose to celebrate His birth on that day. In fact, most people who celebrate Kwanzaa also celebrate Christmas, so they really wouldn't feel too offended to hear the word Christmas. And as for Hanukkah, and I speak as a person who ethnically is mostly Jewish (long story, but trust me here), considering that Jesus (or Yeshua) is the only Jewish person in history whose birthday most of the world decides to celebrate, shouldn't we Jews be at least a little proud of it regardless of what we believe about Him? Maybe not, but it's a nice thought.
Back to the question. Wouldn't a more politically correct term like "holidays" be more appropriate? I am not about to claim that this is a Christian nation and therefore should celebrate a Christian Holiday, nor am I going to sound like some ignorant redneck and say something like most people celebrate Christmas so the others can just shove it up their... noses and go back to Israel or something. I do not believe either is true. What I do believe is that we can be all inclusive without being exclusive. We can say Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa as well as happy Balloon Animal Day, if such a thing existed. Would I be offended if somebody wished me a happy Kwanzaa? Not at all. I don't celebrate that particular holiday, but I wouldn’t go filing a lawsuit or anything.
Which reminds me of a story I heard on the news today. A town had a long tradition of decorating a Christmas tree down town and celebrating Christmas officially as a town. Then a few years back a menorah was put there as well. Now both the major holidays of the season were covered. Nice and inclusive, not offending anybody but the stray Midwest Nazi or ignorant redneck (Can you tell, I take issue with Nazis, rednecks, and also cheerleaders, but I don't know how to work them into my ranting here). Then, this year, someone decided to include a nativity scene. Then there was controversy. Somehow putting a nativity scene on city property violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. What? How in the world can anybody in their right minds equate an image of a historically documented birth with congress passing a law that establishes a religion? Let me say this here, because most people like to tout their opinions on the First Amendment without actually realizing what it says. In order for the "Establishment Clause" to be violated, Congress would have to convene and pass an official bill making Christianity or Islam or Buddhism the national religion. It would have to publicly declare, and pass a law, that makes one religion official while the others would range from deviant to illegal. Short of that, the Establishment Clause has not been violated. There is absolutely NO part of the Constitution of the United States that makes it illegal to have a Christmas pageant in a public school, or restricts school prayer, or even keeps the President from using the name of Jesus in a national prayer. Unless a law is passed that either promotes or restricts any or all religions, the First Amendment has not been violated. In fact, any government endorsed restriction of speech, religious or otherwise, is a violation. Anybody out there realize that banning prayer in school violated the First Amendment? Just a thought.
Anyway, back to the menorah. The candle holder isn't just a symbol of the Jewish race, it's a symbol of the Jewish faith. Hanukkah is a religious holiday, as is every other Jewish holiday, and there are a lot of them. So placing a menorah next to the Christmas tree was a celebration of the Jewish faith, and one that might not exactly please a lot of people (although I sure hope that none of those displeased people would be Christians! After all, Jesus regularly worshiped in a Jewish temple complete with menorahs!). So how come the image of a baby in a manger is offensive while a menorah is not? Why are Americans so offended by this display, when statistics show that a majority of people believe that the Christmas accounts in the Bible are literal and accurate, but the display of a religion that a small minority of Americans celebrate is perfectly acceptable.
Perhaps the real question is "What is so wrong with Jesus?"
Perhaps it was the Jews who were offended. I have already spoken about the fact that the world is coming together to celebrate a Jew’s birthday. But most Jews really don't care if we celebrate Christmas, and as long as we include Hanukkah in our greetings, which really isn't that hard to do, there should be no problem. The problem is that there are people who think that the Jews might be offended. I say this because a few years back when there was a big controversy about the monuments of the Ten Commandment being publicly displayed, someone made the statement that a display of the Ten Commandments would offend Jews. To any educated person, this is the most ignorant statement possible! Any Jew who would be offended by the Ten Commandments is a moron, considering that they only appear twice in the Bible, both of which occur in the "Old Testament." In fact, they are in the writings of Moses, the foundations of Jewish faith. So how would such a display offend Jews? It wouldn't. But liberals in the media seeking to attack Christians any chance they get (okay, Nazis, rednecks, cheerleaders, and the liberal media) picked a minority religion and invented an offense.
This "Happy Holidays" thing is getting ridiculous! I recently saw a commercial that featured drunken ginger bread men (a Christmas staple, of course) at a Holiday party. My first question is how many of these ginger bread men were Jewish? Okay, stupid question, and one I really don't want an answer to. But one of these drunk cookie people stood up on a table and loudly yelled, "Happy Holidays!" Now my second question: What drunken ginger bread man is going to remember in that moment to be politically correct? Okay, also a stupid question.
It seems that we can put up all sorts of displays and Christmas decorations (sorry, holiday decorations. I forgot how important decorated pine trees and dancing snowmen are to the Hanukkah story) and sing all sorts of Christmas songs like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" but the true meaning of Christmas (please refer here to the end of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special) is somehow taboo! Nativity scenes are offensive and hateful. Christmas is just one of many (3) holidays celebrated this season, and to single it out would offend countless people (about 5% of the population, who probably don't really care anyway).
This tangent is just about over. I really want to get back to real writing. But let me say to everyone, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" "HAPPY HANNUKAH!" "HAPPY KWANZAA" and just to cover all my bases, "HAPPY BALLOON ANIMALS DAY!"
May your holidays, whatever ones you celebrate, be blessed this year, and remember: Jesus is the reason for the season!
ABR

Tribulation Game

2005-12-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

It had been a long day. Danny Baker had gone to school at 8:00 am, taken three very difficult tests, had a grueling hour and half long soccer practice, and had barely made it home in time to shower, dress, and head back out the door. He was not happy about having to head back out again, but his mother insisted that he go to church every time she did and it was Wednesday night and she was going. Instead of sitting back and relaxing, and watching TV, he was going to youth group. He would have stayed home, but he was only thirteen years old and had very little choice in the matter.
It wasn't that youth group was boring. He actually quite enjoyed it, as long as he was feeling up to it. He had been a Christian since he was four years old and had said the sinner's prayer in Sunday School and he loved Jesus with all of his heart. Well, most of it anyway. And the youth group wasn't that bad. The music was cool, almost as good as a real rock band. The other kids were friendly, though a little tame for his tastes. The youth pastor, Pastor Rick, was very cool. He was about thirty years old, but he knew how to act like a teenager. He never wore a suit or tie, he listened to rock and punk and hip hop, said things like "dude" (and sounded genuine when saying them, not like some other poser adults trying to sound cool), and even had an earring. If Danny was feeling a little more rested, he would have really wanted to be there.
But this night he wanted nothing more than to just stay home and watch some mindless sitcom. Instead, there he was in the fifth row in the youth room singing and clapping and trying to look like he was enjoying himself. The church was pretty big, averaging about a thousand people a week, and there were over a hundred teenagers in the room. The youth room was about the size of his school's gymnasium with a small stage at one end on which the praise team was playing, ten rows of chairs all filled with worshiping kids, and couches, chairs, and a couple of pool tables in the back.
He sat between his friends Larry and Kevin. They were his church friends. He went to a public middle school and they both went to a private school. He only hung out with them at the church, but while he was there they were his two best friends. The worship team was playing an upbeat chorus and Danny was getting into it, almost forgetting the stress of the day. Sometime during the second or third song he really began to feel what he believed to be the presence of God and he knew that something important was going to happen that night.
It was during the fourth song that it happened. Pastor Rick practically ran onto the stage, grabbed the microphone that was waiting for him on the small wooden pulpit between the worship team's lead singer and the bass player.
"Stop the music," he said into the mic. A couple of the five musicians on the stage looked at him strangely, but they kept playing. "Stop! Stop the music!" The first one to stop was the bass player. Then the acoustic guitarist, the keyboardist, and finally the electric guitarist and drummer awkwardly stopped playing when they realized they were the last two. They looked confused by Pastor Rick's actions. Everyone in the room looked confused. He had never done anything like this before and he wouldn't have interrupted worship for no reason. Something must have been wrong.
Pastor Rick looked out at the more than a hundred teens in the youth room and said, "The tribulation has begun. Persecution has started. This church is closed." He dropped the microphone on the floor causing a loud booming noise and the brief whine of feedback, and walked off the stage, leaving a hundred kids with a hundred questions.
Danny suddenly felt sick. Was this for real? Had things happened so quickly that the Antichrist had taken control and outlawed Christianity during the half hour between his leaving his house and Pastor Rick's announcement. It didn't seem possible, and he soon realized that even if that had happened, Pastor Rick would have said more than those three short sentences. He would have given more information and instructions. This must be some kind of game or a lesson or something. But that didn't quell the sinking feeling in Danny's stomach. He was actually scared.
"You heard the man!" the worship team's singer told the kids. "This church is closed!"
They didn't know what to do. The youth just stood there for a moment staring blankly at each other.
"What's going on?" Kevin asked Danny. "Is this for real?"
"I don't think so," Danny said. "I think it's some kind of lesson."
"What do we do?" Larry asked. "Do we leave?"
Everyone was asking the same questions. A few were actually headed towards the door. Then a girl about seventeen years old stood up and approached the stage.
"What are you doing?" the singer asked her.
"I won't leave," she said. "You can close the church, but you can't stop me from worshiping!"
Every eye turned to her and most of the kids fell silent. The ones who were leaving turned back to watch. She walked right up to the stage, which doubled as an alter, and bowed down. She assumed a posture of prayer. A few other kids joined her. Danny and his friends were about to go up as well when an older boy came up to them.
"Hey, guys, looking for a place to go to church?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah, I guess," Danny said.
"A few of us are meeting back at the pool tables," the boy said. "Come join us. But keep it quiet!"
As Danny, Kevin, and Larry followed the senior boy to the back of the room Danny realized that this was indeed some sort of lesson, and the seniors, or at least a few of them, were in on it. The boy, a blond skater named Nick, led them to a spot between the two pool tables where half a dozen kids were already in a circle on the floor with their open Bibles in their laps. Feeling a little silly, Danny and his friends joined them.
"Let's open our Bibles to John chapter three," Nick said. They did. Nick began to read about Jesus and Nicodemus in a hushed voice as if he didn't want to be overheard. Danny noticed three other such groups forming around the youth room. Two of them were also led by a senior member or two, but one was formed completely of middle schoolers and Danny guessed that they just decided to form their own group after seeing the others.
"What are you doing here?" came a gruff voice. Danny looked up to see the bass player from the praise team, a large black man named Jeff who was usually very friendly. He looked downright angry and he was standing over them with his arms folded. Even though he knew he was doing nothing wrong, Danny suddenly felt guilty.
"We're just reading," Nick said. "Is there a problem?"
"You're reading a Bible!" Jeff barked. "That's illegal! We're going to have to confiscate those books! Give them here!"
Jeff reached down and took Nick's Bible from him. Then he collected the other Bibles from the rest of the group.
"Break this little group up before I have you all arrested!" Jeff yelled, and he walked over to another circle of kids.
"What do we do now?" Larry asked Nick.
"We pray," Nick said. "Join hands, everyone."
Just a moment after the kids had all joined hands and bowed their heads Jeff returned. He had put the Bibles somewhere and now his hands were free to reach down and yank Nick to his feet.
"You're under arrest!"
Nick didn't resist. Jeff was very convincing as he dragged their leader off towards the door where the sound equipment was stored.
"Don't stop praying!" Nick said. "Don't give up! Keep the faith!"
"Shut up, you Jesus Freak!" Jeff shouted, and he threw Nick into the storage room. "Anybody want to join him?"
There was a commotion at the stage as two other youth leaders were "arresting" the girl who had refused to leave. She too was put in the storage room, along with a few others.
Danny was really getting into this. He knew that it was just a game, a sort of what if scenario about what the members of the youth group would do if the persecution described in Revelation suddenly hit them, but it seemed very real to him for some reason. He had totally forgotten not wanting to come to church that evening. Now he was totally immersed in the fantasy and he could tell by the actions and attitudes of the other kids that most of them were too.
"What are we supposed to do now?" a girl in their circle asked.
"Keep praying," Danny said. "Come on. They can't stop us."
They bowed their heads and began to pray. The scenario was false, but their prayers were real. They all prayed silently, and while Danny couldn't know what the others were saying to God, he felt called to pray for the people around the world who were already facing the reality of the persecution that they were only playing at.
He wasn't sure how long he had been praying, but he was pulled out of it instantly when he felt two hands grabbing him from behind. Jeff had come back to their little underground church (and he was surprised to find that he really thought of it in that way) and had chosen him this time to make his example.
Jeff was dragging him towards the storage room. Before they got there, Larry had run up to the stage and grabbed the microphone.
"Listen to me!" he said. "Everybody listen to me! We have something that they can't destroy! We have faith! They can arrest us! They can beat us! They can even kill us, but..."
"Larry!" it was Pastor Rick. He had unplugged the microphone and was swinging the end of the cable in a circle. "Sorry, but you're dead."
"What?" Larry asked.
"You were just executed for speaking out against the state," Pastor Rick said. He ushered Larry through the double doors that led down the hallway to the youth classrooms. "Anybody else want to join him?"
Danny didn't see what happened next. He was thrown into the storage room with the other kids who had been imprisoned in this little game. There were about twenty in there by now. Half of them were just sitting around waiting for the game to end so that they could leave, but the other half were standing in a circle praying. Danny decided to join them. He moved towards the circle, but the door to the storage room opened again and two of the senior youth members, a boy and a girl, came in. They went right to the circle and broke their way in.
"Who started this little prayer circle?" the girl demanded.
"I did." It was the girl who had first refused to leave.
"Come with me!" the senior girl said. "You are to be executed for inciting a riot in prison!"
"A riot?" another kid asked. "Does this look like a riot to you?"
"Him too," the girl told the other senior. They took the two kids out of the storage room. Before they left, the boy turned back.
"If we catch anybody praying in here again, you'll be killed too!"
As soon as the door was closed, the circle reformed, with Danny now a member of the group. They began to pray, glorifying and worshiping God, and once again Danny felt led to pray for those around the world suffering the same abuses in real life. He also couldn't help but think about what he would do if something like this really happened to him. Would he as brave when threatened with real imprisonment or execution? He could only hope so.
After a few minutes, the kids in the fake prison heard the sound of singing from out in the youth room. Dozens of voices were joining in and singing the song that had been interrupted about a half hour earlier by Pastor Rick. They could also hear the youth leaders and some of the seniors yelling at them to be quiet and disperse, but the singing only got louder.
"What's going on out there?" someone asked.
Then the door opened and two more prisoners were thrown in. The seniors who had arrested them went back out to the youth room without closing the door behind them and those in the storage room went and looked out. Even though Danny knew that this whole thing was pretend, he didn't think that he had ever seen a more beautiful sight. There were about sixty kids who hadn't been arrested or killed and they had joined in a circle around the youth room. They were all holding hands and singing praises to God while those kids and youth leaders who were playing the authorities in this scenario tried to stop them. They were moving around the circle yelling at the kids, but they were ignored. A few were taking kids out of the circle, but whenever one was arrested the circle just closed around the gap and the singing got louder.
Short of arresting and/or killing every kid in the room, there was nothing that the authorities could do to stop it. The frustration in the faces of the authorities, even though they were all faking, was evident as they lost control of the situation. But one man stood on the other side of the room looking very pleased. It was Pastor Rick, and he was smiling at his young congregation as they came together against their adversaries. Finally, he went up to the stage, grabbed a microphone, and stood behind his pulpit.
"Okay, everybody," he said. "That's enough. You can all take your seats again. Somebody let the kids out of the prison, and go and raise the dead while you're at it."
This caused a bit of laughter (though more than half of the kids were in tears) as the prisoners were released and the kids in the hall were let back into the youth room. Everyone sat down and faced Pastor Rick expectantly. He smiled down on them.
"I'm proud of you all," he said. "You did very well in this game of ours. Even better than I had hoped you would. I'm sorry that I sprung this on you without warning, but it was more effective that way, wasn't it?
"Some day the game that we played here today may become a reality for all of us. Even now, all over the world, there are those who face persecution and death for their belief in Jesus, and things are happening here in America that seem to indicate that our own personal tribulations may not be that far off. If the persecution does begin in our own country, there will be many who are imprisoned or killed for their refusal to deny Jesus. Sadly, there will also be many who chose to deny Christ in order to save their own lives. But, I have confidence that if it really did start tonight, most of you kids out there would react the same way you did tonight, by joining together and refusing to renounce your faith."
The youth began to applaud this statement. Danny clapped as hard as he could, wondering what really would happen if he was faced with persecution. He would like to think that he would remain faithful, but tonight's lesson made him question his faith as he had never done so before. He decided then and there to make an effort to make sure that his faith was strong and true. He would much rather be ready to face trials with an assurance of where he stood, than to try and make the decisions when faced with them.
"And one more thing happened tonight that I didn't even plan on," Pastor Rick continued when the applause died down. "I think that we all saw the power of a church that comes together in unity. While you were all meeting on your own and making your individual stands, you were showing your faith and initiative, but you were easily dealt with. Only when you all came together as one and refused to stand down were we powerless to stop you. That's an important lesson for all of us, and one I didn't even expect to have taught tonight.
"And finally, I know that there's a question on some of your minds. Many of you have been taught that the Church will be raptured before any of us have to face some of the things we played out tonight. I'm not going to get into a rapture debate, and personally I believe that we will be gone before the Tribulation, but as a leader I would be very irresponsible if I didn't prepare you for the chance that it may not happen that way. There is some question to it, and you will never hear me preach a pre-trib sermon from this pulpit because if we are all still here in those days I don't want anyone coming to me and saying that you were never warned. Also, even if we are taken away before the last days, we may still face some sort of persecution some day, and I want all of you to be ready for that eventuality.
"Now, if the worship team will come back up here," he finished, "I believe that we were in the middle of a song!"
Danny had forgotten all about not wanting to go to church that night. Now he was very happy that he was there. He had learned more from that little game than he would ever learn from a sermon. He knew that the youth group would be talking about this for a long time to come. Now, as he began to worship again, he knew that no matter what happened in the future, he would remain faithful to his God.
Pastor Rick went to the back of the youth room where the senior pastor, Stephen Markham, was waiting for him with his four year old daughter Meghan sleeping in his arms.
"Well," Pastor Markham said, "how did it go?"
"It was awesome," Rick said. "I think that they really learned a lot."
"Something tells me, Rick, that very soon these kids will have to put what they learned her into practice," Pastor Markham said. "Well, it's getting late and I have to get Meghan to bed. Good night, Rick."
"Good night, Stephen."
Pastor Markham left for the long drive to his cabin near the mountains and Rick stood and watched the youth worship God for a long while, pondering what the pastor had said.

A Very Long Author's Note

2005-12-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

This is not Johnny Part 3
During my teenage years I had the fortune to be blessed with some very talented and devoted youth ministers and pastors. More than one of these men and women have left lasting impressions in my life, and their inspiration and love have gotten me through some very rough times. But nothing has stayed with me more than what my first youth pastor did one night when I was thirteen years old. It happened much like the story. In the middle of worship, when everyone was getting "in the spirit" to use a charismatic term, and without any warning, he went up front, grabbed a microphone, and told the worship team to stop playing. "Tribulation is here," he said. "The persecution has started." And that was all he said.
After that, we all began to play it out much the way the characters in the story did. At first, we broke up into small groups of five or six and had what I guess amounted to underground house churches. The youth leaders played the part of the police and they came by and took away our Bibles, broke up our groups, and told us that if we didn't stop, we would be arrested. So, we went to the front of the youth room (this being sort of a mega church there were over one hundred youth and the room, which doubled as the fellowship hall, was larger than most other churches I have been in) and began to publicly proclaim the name of Jesus and announce that we wouldn't be shut down. I got right up on the stage and began to declare that nothing that the "government" could do would shut us up. "They may arrest us, beat us, kill our bodies..." that's as far as I got. I was interrupted by the youth pastor. I had the honor of being the first to be martyred in this little scenario and had to spend most of the evening in the hallway adjacent to the youth room.
The hallway was very long and led to an exit, which led someone to quip, "We're dead, we're in a long tunnel, there's a bright light at the end, and it says 'exit!'" Someone later said that they were disappointed that nobody went and laid hands on the door to that hallway to resurrect the martyrs (I was the first, but hardly the last), but nobody did.
We did peak out and watch what was happening though. Eventually the rebellious band of Christian rebels that we had become joined together. A circle was formed and the ones who hadn't been sent into the martyrs' hallway stood hand in hand unmoving. They had come together in unity and that was when the "authorities" became completely powerless. They couldn't stop the Christians and if it was possible to win at that little game, we did. I say we because even though I was "dead" for most of this game, I was still a part of that force.
I can't help but think about what it will be like some day in the future when we as Christians will be faced with a situation much like this. The American Church takes our religious freedom for granted, but for nearly two thousand years all over this planet Christians have been persecuted, arrested, mistreated, and killed for their beliefs. The majority opinion seems to be that we will all be raptured into Heaven before such atrocities reach the western world. Personally, I do not believe in a pretribulation rapture, at least in the way that it is usually presented. I tend to think that many of the warnings in scripture about the last days, the antichrist, the persecution of believers, and the plagues described in Revelation are intended for us, not for some group of post rapture believers who suddenly realize that Christianity was right all along when the Christians disappear.
I don't want to start a debate, and you are free to disagree. We can argue all night long about when the rapture will happen, have completely opposite opinions, and still both go to Heaven. It's not that I don't want to be raptured, nor will I, if it does happen as is popularly believed, argue with God and ask Him to send me back, but I have searched the Scriptures and have come to this belief based on that search. Maybe I'll write about that in another post, but not today. Right now, before anyone calls me a heretic for believing in a mid-to-late-tribulation rapture (as some actually have) let me remind everyone out there in cyberspace of an old saying: Unity in what is essential, liberty in nonessentials, and in all things charity. If we as Christians lived by that simple rule, there would be a lot less conflict within the Church and we might even have a better reputation in the world.
I may have gone off on a tangent there, but my little "please don't start arguing" disclaimer actually fits right into my point here. I learned at the age of thirteen in that youth room in Rochester, New York, that when the body of Christ comes together and works together, we will be undefeatable! If someday in the future it is illegal, even in America, to worship God, do you think that it will matter to anyone if you are a Baptist, a Methodist, a Catholic, or a Messianic Jew? (For more on this, go into my archives and read "The Enforcers." This story is kind of a prequel anyway) Do you think it will matter if you believed in predestination or used grape juice instead of wine? Do you think it will make a difference when we are being arrested for calling on the name of Jesus if we believe he was hung on a cross or a tree? If it will, if our little disagreements that have distracted the Church for centuries from the message of the Cross of Jesus Christ (or the Tree) will continue to divide us when we are being hunted down and chased from hideout to hideout, then I think the Church has lost all hope of being what Jesus intends it to be. How many theological debates do you think were going on among the prisoners waiting to be killed in the Coliseum?
We need to come together in these last days, not drift further apart. Yes, there are a lot of false doctrines out there, lies that come from Satan intended to derail the Salvation of many. But there are also many disputable things that have divided us for too long. If you believe in the Biblical Jesus Christ, if you believe that He was God in the flesh, if you believe that He lived without sin, was crucified, died, and resurrected on the third day, and if you believe that it is ONLY by His shed blood that we are saved, then I agree with you, and I don't care if you speak in tongues, believe in predestination, go to church on Saturday, or have electric guitars or organs in your worship service. Jesus said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. We as the Western Church are divided. If the day comes, and I fully believe it will, when we must choose between our faith and our lives and the powers that be try to destroy the Body of Christ on Earth, if we are still bickering over the nonessentials, we will be easy pickings.
One more example: America is currently at war. What if instead of fighting the terrorists, the Marines suddenly decided to attack the Army, who was too busy shooting down Air Force and Navy jets because they didn't like their uniforms? If the different branches of the United States military were destroying each other, what would be left for our nations enemies to do but sit back and watch? Why should Satan attack our churches when we're already doing the job for him?
Anyway, like I said, of all that I have learned in churches and Christian schools over the past twenty-five some odd years, nothing has stayed with me like that night. Maybe it's because of the lessons I learned. Maybe it's because that was my first youth group and my first youth pastor. Maybe it's because that was the first time I ever really thought about the end times. I can't describe the feeling I had when the youth pastor told us that the persecution had begun. I can only imagine that if I live to see the antichrist come to power, the feeling would be the same. Or maybe it's because Christian recording artist Michael Peace was playing drums in the praise band. He was the only famous man I had ever met. (I know, most of you are probably saying "who?" but he was a rap artist who had a Christian recording contract long before the likes of Pigeon John and KJ52, both of whom I have also met, but I doubt either of them remembers me). But I was thinking about that night recently and decided that if I fictionalized it and changed it up a bit, it would make an interesting story. I hope you all enjoyed it!
Sorry that this little author's note turned out to be so long. I just felt that some of the above things needed to be said. And part three of "Johnny" is coming very soon. Keep checking back!
God Bless, and Merry Christmas (are we still allowed to say that? Don't get me started, it's getting late and my hands are getting tired)
ABR

Johnny (Part Two)

2005-12-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

Johnny got off of the transport shuttle outside of his family home. He had somehow expected it to look different to him, but it was exactly the same as it was when he had left six months earlier. It was a large, two story, late twenty first century house with a big porch. He climbed the stairs and stood on that porch awash with thousands of childhood memories before ringing the door chime. He hadn't told his family when he was coming home because he had wanted to surprise them. It was December twentieth, the anniversary of Joshua Lewis's famous speech and the Enlightened Society's biggest holiday and he knew that there would probably be a few family members there to greet him, but he wasn't expecting Joshua to answer the door. He lived about thirty miles away on the other side of town and according to his mother's communications he hadn't been to the Cramblit home much since moving back to Capitol City.
"Johnny!" Joshua said. "I didn't know you were coming home!"
"Hey, Josh," Johnny said. He embraced his elder brother and then came into the house.
"I see that the academy didn't do too much for that belly of yours!" Joshua laughed, patting Johnny on his rather ample gut. Johnny was in pretty good shape for a man his size, but he was very overweight. It had been a concern during his training, but he had surpassed all expectations and had proven to his instructors that his big belly was not going to hinder his promising career in the least.
"Shut up, Josh," he said. "What you are referring to is my greatest weapon! Remember how I used to beat you up all the time?"
"You never beat me up," Josh said, "you just sat on me until I couldn't breathe anymore."
"Exactly." Johnny looked closely at his brother, remembering again the respect and admiration he had for the older man. He had had a good childhood, and most of the best memories of that childhood involved Joshua Cramblit. Now, they were both men in respectable positions in the community with nothing but a bright future before them. It was hard to believe that the boy who once held him down and shaved his eyebrows on a dare was now a doctor, and the boy whose eyebrows had taken two months to grow back a police officer.
Johnny noticed something else about his brother. He looked happy for the first time since Johnny could remember. The brothers knew each other better than anybody, and Johnny knew that even though Joshua hid it well behind a friendly personality and a broad and convincing smile, he was not a particularly happy person. Johnny had never said anything about it, though. He allowed his brother to put on the charade, always wondering what Joshua believed was missing from his life that would make him happy. The Cramblits were well off, well adjusted, and powerful people in the Enlightened Society. The children had never been neglected or abused. They had had everything they needed and most of what they wanted. Joshua was popular, good looking, successful with women, and still none of it seemed to satisfy him.
Now, Johnny looked at him and saw a man who seemed happy. Perhaps getting his medical degree and establishing a practice had finally given Joshua Cramblit what he thought he needed. He had always wanted to help people. But maybe it was something else. He would have to ask him about it later, though, because now the house's front room was being filled with family members and a few friends who had heard him come in and were racing in to greet him.
"Johnny!" It was his mother. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly. "Let me look at you, boy! You look so good in that uniform!"
"I'm surprised they found one that fit," his little brother Steve said from the stairs. Fourteen year old Steve wasn't much thinner, but he was known within and without the family for his often mean spirited sense of humor.
"Stop it, Steve," Mrs. Cramblit said. "You would do well to follow your bother's example. Either one of them."
"No thanks, Mom," Steve said. "You don't have to go to college or an academy to be a musician."
"But you do need talent," Johnny shot back, making the dozen people in the room laugh. Johnny sniffed the air. "Is that turkey?"
"Dinner's almost ready," Mrs. Cramblit said. "I suppose we could find enough in the kitchen for one more plate."
"Good luck with that, Mom," Steve said, racing towards the dining room.
"Things haven't changed much around here," Johnny laughed.
Johnny sat at the dining room table between his two brothers and across from his sixteen year old sister Kelly. His father sat at the head of the table and his mother sat on his left. His uncle Howard sat between his wife Anne and their son Harold, who was almost twelve. His father's best friend Peter Neason had also come over for the holiday dinner with his wife Sarah and their seventeen year old daughter Aimee, who Johnny had always thought was both very pretty and very out of his reach. The last person at the table was Johnny's grandmother, simply known as Nanny. She was over eighty years old, growing slightly senile, and very outspoken about a lot of things. Her age protected her, because if a younger, more rational person had shared some of the same opinions publicly, they would have been accused of crimes against the government.
"Shall we say grace?" Mr. Cramblit said when the food was all on the table and the people all seated. Everyone bowed their heads. "Dear Cosmic Parent, we thank you for this food and for the time that family and friends can gather together to celebrate each other. We thank you also for our son Johnny and ask for his protection as he goes to train in two weeks. May this time be pleasant for all. May we all grow to recognize those parts within us that can become so like you in your cosmic love. In the name of Joshua Lewis, the son you sent to guide us to enlightenment, Amen."
"Amen," repeated everyone at the table. Almost everyone. Johnny noticed a strange expression on Joshua's face during the prayer, almost as if he was disagreeing with their father's words, and he didn't say "amen" after the prayer. But he had no time to think about that. He was too busy piling turkey, stuffing, and vegetables onto his plate.
Dinner was great. His mother's cooking was much better than the food provided at the police academy, and knowing that the food on the prison transport ship wouldn't be much better than that, he was going to enjoy all the good food he could get before it was too late. Conversation was pleasant at first. Everyone asked Johnny questions about his training and about his assignment. His parents, Kelly, Joshua, and even Steve were looking very proudly at him as he answered all the inquiries, and he even thought he saw Aimee looking at him in a new way. Maybe his uniform helped her to see him in a new light. He hoped so.
But conversation soon turned sour when Peter Neason, who wrote some of the propaganda tracks for the government, mentioned a piece of current events that was sure to spark a lively discussion at the Cramblit's dinner table. Mr. Cramblit had often warned him not to bring such things up, especially with Nanny around, but Peter rarely listened.
"I'll bet you're itching to get back to Earth and start enforcing some laws, eh Johnny?" he said. "They probably could have used a man like you down town this morning."
Johnny, who had been on a transport shuttle and out of the news loop, asked, "What happened down town today?"
"They busted up a church service," Peter said. Then he sneered, "Christians! Meeting in an old subway tunnel. There must have been fifty of them!"
"What were they doing?" Steve asked. The last group of religious offenders to be rounded up had been planning on assassinating Capital City's mayor.
"Singing," Peter said. "They were singing one of those old songs about how we're all evil and only Jesus can save us, or some sh__ like that. Pathetic. You would think after fifty years, such ignorant hate speech would be gone!"
"So they weren't hurting anybody?" Nanny said. "Since when is it illegal to get together and sing? What's next, raiding karaoke bars?"
Even though Johnny thought that the subversive and out of date teachings of the old Christian Church were dangerous and needed to be squashed, his grandmother's comment caused him to laugh.
"There were children there!" Peter replied to the old lady. "Little kids being brainwashed by those fanatics to hate the government and try and destroy everything that Joshua Lewis brought to our world! They were hurting people!"
"He's right," Uncle Howard said. "You know that when Lewis first came on the scene, many Christian fundamentalists called him the Anti-Jesus, or something like that."
"Antichrist, dear," Anne said.
"Yeah," Howard said. "And they said that with Lewis in charge, the world would be gone in seven years! They're about forty three years too late for that."
"Not everyone said he was the Antichrist," Nanny said.
"Yeah," Peter said, "the ones who didn't call him that joined the government church! The very fact that we're still here proves the Christians wrong!"
"Peter, that's enough," Mr. Cramblit said.
"No!" Peter said. "Something needs to be done! Now that you've got a cop in the family, maybe you can finally do something about those fanatics!"
"There are many laws that need enforcing, Mr. Neason," Joshua said. "Johnny may not be assigned to the religion task force."
"If I were him," Peter said, "I would request to be. There's no greater threat to the Enlightened Society than those fanatics and their backwards views. They blew up the Golden Gate Bridge last year, remember?"
"That was Muslims, not Christians," Johnny said. "There is a difference."
"They teach you that at the academy?"
"Actually, Mr. Neason, they do," Johnny replied. "A big portion of our studies involves the differences and similarities in deviant religious groups and how to deal with them. Muslims are more combative, more prone to violence. Their threats are much more tangible than the Christians. Most Christians wouldn't resort to violence, but their message is what's the dangerous part. It's sneaky and non threatening, but if allowed to spread, it would greatly damage our society."
"So they must be stopped!" Peter said. "Johnny agrees with me!"
"We all agree with you, Peter," Mrs. Cramblit said. Nanny snorted, but they all ignored her. "But this is hardly appropriate dinner conversation. Let's talk about something else."
"Fine," Peter said. "Joshua, how are things down at your office?"
There was no reply. They all looked to see that Joshua had left the dinner table. Nobody notice him go.
"Maybe he's in the bathroom," Kelly said.
"Anyway," Mr. Cramblit said, "Krista, you've outdone yourself this year! Dinner is excellent!"
And they went back to eating. They began talking about pointless and noncontroversial things like the weather and the new class of transport shuttles. When Joshua hadn't returned to the table after five or ten minutes, Johnny went looking for him.
He found his brother sitting on the back porch. It was getting dark and thick snow was falling, but he wasn't wearing a jacket. He was bent over, his head cradled in his lap.
"Hey, Josh," Johnny said. "What happened to you? You okay?"
Joshua looked up. "Yeah, Johnny. I'm fine. I just couldn't listen to that conversation anymore."
"Yeah, Mr. Neason can get a bit annoying at times," Johnny agreed, sitting on the porch steps beside his brother. "I guess it comes from writing all those government tracks."
"How can he sit there and spew all that hate about people and then call them haters?" Joshua almost yelled. "It's ignorant! I know Christianity is illegal, but if you know anything about what they teach, they don't promote hate!"
"Peter Neason writes literature about Christians for the government," Johnny said. "I think he knows a little about them. Besides, wasn't it Christians who used to lynch homosexuals and blow up abortion clinics?"
"Some of them, maybe," Joshua said, "but if you got to know them, you would see that there's so much more to Christianity than gay bashing and murdering doctors."
"If you got to know them?" Johnny asked. "When have you gotten to know Christians?"
Joshua looked at Johnny with an expression he'd seen many times before. It was the look he had when he realized that he had just said something that was going to get him into trouble. If Joshua was associating with Christians, it would be enough to imprison him for a year. But the expression was gone as soon as it had appeared.
"A couple of years ago," he began, "while I was in med school, we were called to an emergency situation. There was a government raid on a church group meeting, a lot like the one Mr. Neason was talking about today, and a few of the prisoners had been wounded. They needed medical attention. They didn't want to waste the resources and time of any licensed doctors, so they took a few students and killed two birds with one stone. They got their prisoners treated, even though they would probably be mistreated for the rest of their lives anyway, and they gave us some valuable field training. I spent almost a week there with them, and I saw how they are. They aren't the hate mongers that Peter Neason tries to make them out to be. They're actually quite friendly."
"You know as well as I do that that is their biggest weapon," Johnny said. "They are deceptively friendly and talk about love and peace and all that stuff, but in the end they snare you. You find yourself wrapped up in their bizarre beliefs and rejecting everything that the Enlightened Society stands for."
"I know that," Joshua said. "But I still think that denouncing hate by spreading more hate is ridiculous."
"You almost sound like a sympathizer," Johnny said. "Maybe you should read one of those tracks again."
"Maybe," Joshua said. He stood up. Johnny stood up as well. "Let's get back to dinner. We probably need to stop Nanny from stabbing Peter with a salad fork or something."
Laughing, the brothers went back inside. Joshua went into the dining room first and sat down as if nothing had happened. Johnny stayed back and looked at his brother for a moment. Some of the things that Joshua was saying had scared him. He hoped that nothing was wrong with him, but he would have to keep an eye out for any further signs. If Joshua was in trouble, Johnny wanted to help him before it was too late.
TO BE CONTINUED

yet another

2005-12-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

author's note:
Just a short note about this story...
There is a point where a character in this story uses profanity. I edited it, the literary equivalent of a bleep, because this is a Christian oriented site, even though there is precedent for mild profanity in Christian writings. C.S. Lewis used some in his space trilogy and he is still considered one of the greatest modern Christian writers. Bodie Theone also uses it rarely. But I chose to edit it rather than use the word in its entirety so as not to offend anyone. I could have gotten around it another way. Frank Peretti is pretty good at that, once saying that a character "muttered something about the sanctity of manure." Clever, funny even, but I think most Christians are mature enough to see the words. They hear them everyday in the real world anyway. I hope I didn't offend anybody!
Enough about that. I wrote this story because I wanted to continue the story of Johnny. There will be more of these soon, probably four or five parts, and then I'll probably do another dragon slayer story, so keep checking. Also, since my friend Wanderer was so interested, I felt obligated to continue it. Can you see where it's headed yet? I even named a character after him to keep him happy. And finally, I did it so I could prove that I can still write. I recently submitted a short story for publication to a magazine and it was rejected. For about five seconds my feelings were hurt and I felt like quitting, but that's just dumb. I guess I'm official now, I've gotten my first rejection. Second actually. "There is no Dragon" was rejected by an online magazine because they were looking for Christmas stories. I don't know if that counts. But I wrote this story after the rejection letter. So please tell me you like it or I really will quit! Just kidding.
Anyway, hope you like it. Look for part three in about a week!
God Bless,
ABR

Johnny (Part One)

2005-12-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

Johnny Cramblit had always wanted to be a cop. He believed in law and order, and he believed in the ideals of the Enlightened Society, and ever since he was a young boy he had planned to devote his life to the enforcement of the principles that he believed had saved planet Earth from a terrible fate. So, the day after his eighteenth birthday, he went down to the recruitment office and signed up for the police academy. After six months of intensive training and a year or two of on the job training working at a prison, or as he hoped, a prison transport ship, he would take his place as a proud officer of the United Earth Police Force.
In the year 2150, after years of war, disease, poverty, and division among mankind, a new order brought peace to the embattled planet that most historians believed was about to be destroyed by the human creatures who had recently come along after millions of years of evolutionary progress and decided they had the right to treat the world like they owned it. A great man arose after the last war. There were three wars before it that were each called a war that would end all wars, but what became known as World War IV actually accomplished this. Sort of. Peace was called when the New United Nations Secretary General Joshua Lewis made an emergency pronouncement to the world saying that if an immediate cease fire wasn't called, the entire planet would be destroyed.
Over two and a half billion people, nearly a third of the population, had already been killed and the twenty eight planets that had nuclear capabilities were all threatening to be the first to launch their missiles. The last war had ended when the missiles were launched, a two year winter that killed billions followed, and the peace that came afterward was just long enough for nations to build themselves up again, develop more weapons, and pick up where they left off. Nobody wanted to go through the nuclear winters, radiation sickness, and the years of recovery that would follow a second holocaust, if anybody even survived it, so the war raged on for nearly a decade with only one nuclear blast on a lunar colony which nobody claimed and to which nobody retaliated. But the war was getting more brutal and another mass launch of missiles seemed imminent.
That was when Joshua Lewis came on the scene. He had been elected Secretary General when the previous one had been assassinated by a Christian Fundamentalist Terrorist. The New United Nations, reformed after World War III, was little more than a loose organization of countries and large city states that was lucky if even a third of the members sent delegates to any function and was more likely to erupt into a multinational riot than accomplish anything towards its official goal of world peace and unity. But Joshua Lewis stood up his first day on the job and delivered a short, but profound message to any human being in the solar system who would hear him.
"My fellow human beings," he began, his face and voice being broadcasted to the entire planet, the three remaining lunar colonies, the colony on Mars (which had remained neutral since the beginning of WW III) and the two dozen space stations in the solar system, "we are in a very dangerous place here on Earth. Humanity is once again approaching annihilation and if we do not do something immediately, this war will destroy every human on the planet, and eventually kill every living thing in the known galaxy! Peace is not only desired, it is essential to our survival as a species! Even now, twenty-eight nations on Earth are threatening to launch nuclear weapons, and other WMD's have already been used to catastrophic results, killing billions! We must put aside our differences, whether they are cultural, racial, or spiritual, and finally come together in unity or else our entire existence will come to an end in a fiery ball of radioactive futility! Whatever you may have against your fellow human being, is it worth the irradiation of every life on Earth to prove your point? So, I am pleading with the leaders of the countries of Earth and the armies now raging against each other, cease the warfare and let us come together to seek peace! The floor of the N.U.N. is open and I will not leave this building until every nation is at peace! Please! For the sake of humanity!"
The same plea had been made countless times by nearly every other Secretary General and millions of peace activists, but there was something different about the man delivering this speech. No one could quite put their finger on it, but for some reason Joshua Lewis seemed to connect with every race, every culture, and every religion. The fighting stopped that very hour and a day later, thousands of the world's political and religious leaders were gathered and finally discussing peace. With Lewis's leadership and radical new philosophy, it was achieved.
The N.U.N. worked for nearly a year, during which there were few instances of organized, government-condoned violence, and came to a consensus on everything from a global economy to a religion that would take the best parts of every faith and create a new one that would satisfy the majority of humanity. That last point was the most important to Joshua Lewis. He believed that World War Three and the follow-up World War Four were begun by religious differences and fanatical fundamentalists who had taken over the major faiths. America's War on Terror, which raged for decades under different presidents and different names, was perceived by many as a war on Islam. With Christian's killing Muslims, Muslims killing Christians, everybody else starting to kill Jews, and even the peace loving Buddhists and Hindus getting involved, Lewis believed that organized religion in nearly every form was dangerous and corrupt. If mankind could only come together and agree on spirituality, then ninety percent of wars would cease. Of course he also came up with solutions to the economic and energy problems, but his biggest accomplishment was the unification of all faiths into what he called The Church.
When The Church was endorsed by most religious leaders, including the Pope, the Dalai Lama, the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Mormon leadership, to name a few, all other faiths were declared outdated and dangerous. The Church leaders proclaimed to their respective followers that the old ways were dying out and the new order was the true path. They anathemized anyone who held to the old ways. While most of the so-called new agers and many of the Eastern religions joined in whole heartedly, there were hardliners from the monotheistic faiths. Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike all declared that their God said that He was the only God and that lumping Yahweh and Allah in with Buddha and Brahma would be blasphemous.
These hardliners were excommunicated and discouraged, but tolerated for the first few years. Lewis explained that it would take a while for the new religion to win everybody over. But when Muslim, Christian, and Jewish terrorists began to attack any organization that endorsed The Church, one Christian even making an attempt on Lewis's life, any faith not adhering to The Church was outlawed. A citizen didn't have to become a member of The Church, but they couldn't follow any other religion either. Leaders of the three main monotheistic religions denounced both the terrorists and The Church, but most believed that they were only attacking the terrorists for political reasons and secretly endorsed them. Soon, prisons were filled with Christians, Muslims, and Jews who had refused to join Lewis's Church.
In the same year that the term Enlightened Society began to gain popularity, a space exploration mission discovered a stable wormhole a few hundred thousand kilometers past Pluto. It was large enough for ships to travel through and it opened up about three days journey from an inhabited planet that was nicknamed Planet X. The name stuck, especially when it was discovered that the environment was quite harsh and barely livable. Nobody wanted to settle there. There were plants and many animals, but the planet was basically three continents of desert. Lewis had a brilliant idea that both dealt with the ever growing prison population and the seemingly useless planet. Criminals deemed too deviant or dangerous to return to human society would be sent there and left to their own devices. X became a giant penal colony, and a large portion of its population were religious offenders.
Johnny Cramblit knew this history. Forty years after the end of the war that truly ended all wars the Enlightened Society that Earth had become was a thriving global community that was unified, peaceful, and happy. He wanted to help keep it that way. He joined the police academy and spent six months training at the Martian colony, and returned home to his family proudly wearing the black and green uniform of United Earth Police Force. He had impressed his superiors and had been granted the assignment he desired for his on the job training. He would be a guard on a prison transport ship taking prisoners to Planet X. He would serve there for a year and then be assigned a more permanent post.
But he would first spend two weeks at home with his family. The leave was granted to all those who would be sent off planet for their first assignment, and he was looking forward to spending time with his family, especially his older brother Joshua, named after Joshua Lewis. He had always looked up to his brother and had wanted to be just like him when he became a man. Joshua had decided to become a doctor and had left for school when Johnny was ten years old. He had come home rarely, but had just moved back to Capitol City (formerly New York City) a month before eighteen year old Johnny had left for the academy. He had barely gotten to catch up with him and was planning on spending most of his leave doing just that.
Little did Johnny know when he walked through the door to be greeted by his older brother that the man he was embracing would be the first man he would arrest.
TO BE CONTINUED...

author's note

2005-12-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

I told you I would get back to the stories.
This story is actually a prequel to a novel I am working on called The Fanatic. Johnny Cramblit is an important character in that book. A little note about the content: the story is written from the point of view of a man who has bought into the ideals presented by the so-called Enlightened Society. His views of Christianity and religion in general have been molded by that education and "are not necessarily the views of this author". The story will probably have two or three more parts so that the history of this future world (which has existed only in my jumbled mind for three years) can be further explored and explained.
This isn't an end times story exactly. Joshua Lewis is not the anti-christ, nor does he represent him. Personally, I believe that if you look through history, you will see what I like to refer to as sort of dress rehearsals for the end times where Satan is working out his kinks and figuring out exactly how he will end up taking over the world. This is not scriptural and I would never teach it as doctrine, it is simply an opinion. Maybe men like Julius Caesar, and more recently Adolf Hitler, are just practice runs for what the real antichrist will look like. According to this theory, which again is just a wild imagining of an aspiring writer, I have created Joshua Lewis, who according to the time line I have worked out in my mind, may be the last practice run before the real thing. Yeah, I know that in my story the world has been united and Christianity outlawed, but neither of those things is a new concept. A united earth has been the dream of countless world leaders, though most of these sought to bring it about by conquering the whole planet, and Christianity has been against the law in parts of the world since its beginning 2000 years ago (before then, actually- read John chapter 9).
I hope you enjoy this story. If you like it, recommend this site to a friend or two!
God Bless,
ABR

Why I probably won't continue the argument:

2005-12-02T19:55:00.000-07:00

While it isn't really an argument, the discussion between Wanderer and myself can easily become one of two things: an interesting ongoing debate about the nature of "god", the universe, and life in general, or a mean spirited fight that can alienate anyone who reads it from either point of view. Not that I would get mean spirited, and I am in no way implying that Wanderer would either. I know the man, and while I do not agree with his views on what many would call religion, I do respect him and know that he respects me. The mean spiritedness could come from third party commenters who may want to join in. Sadly, I believe that most of those people looking to pick a fight or be insulting to the other side would be those who agree with me. Christians, for all our love and peace and goodwill towards men, tend to be very combative, spiteful, and downright rude more often than not.
But that isn't exactly why I want to stop this potential storm before it starts. You see, the debate has been raging for years between Christians and (for lack of a better term) non-Christians, and as intelligent as Wanderer is, and as intelligent as I would sometimes like to believe I am, there probably isn't anything new that the two of us can add to it. All that will happen, whether this becomes a long debate or a bitter fight, is we will continue for days, weeks, months, maybe even years in this point, counterpoint, until eventually, we have exhausted all that our finite little human minds can fathom about God and neither of us will be any closer to changing our minds. I am a Christian and will always be a Christian because I am one hundred percent sure that I have chosen the true path the God and nothing will shake that. And though I do not agree with Wanderer, he is also sure that I haven't. Most likely, there is nothing that I can say to convince him that Jesus is the one and only way to Heaven. He knows the scriptures very well (if you doubt it, try a debate of your own with him...) and has chosen a different path. I have often said that there is nothing that anybody can say that can convince anyone of the existence of God or the exclusivity of the Bible's claims. Debates rarely win souls.
Yes, I have heard the stories of those who set out to disprove Christianity's claims and in the end became devout Christians simply on the basis of the facts, and the life of Jesus is a historic fact, as is his resurrection, according to many historians, both Christian and secular (though some of the secular ones try to explain it away). But such occurrences are rare. I couldn't say anything to convince an atheist of the truth of Jesus Christ and his claims, but I could do plenty. Jesus told his disciples that men would know that they were his followers by their love, not by their ability to win debates or their logical reasons for their belief.
Debates have their place. Many Christians find that they learn more from debating their faith with an unbeliever than they do in just regular Bible study or hearing a sermon. When confronted with a hard question (like Wanderer's question that inspired my last post) we search for answers that we didn't even know we needed. But "The Path to Everywhere" failed to convert Wanderer to Christianity, as I knew it would. Am I convinced? Yes. And I learned more about my faith from writing that little essay than I did in Church last week.
But if Wanderer and I were to devote even a small portion of our time and efforts trying to convince each other, it would do no good for either of us and all that anyone who happened to find their way in the middle of our discussion would find is an argument in the name of God, which I believe is a misuse of his name. I recently had to tell a friend of mine who follows what I consider to be a cultic version of Christianity that I would no longer publicly discuss religion with him. While neither of us believes that the other is actually saved and our sole and loving intent was to bring the other to repentance, all that anybody who didn't understand what we were doing would see is two Christians fighting about God, and that would turn off many unbelievers.
So the debate ends, at least here on Dawn. While I will gladly answer any comments and will probably leave a few more on Wanderer's site, and I won't commit myself to never again posting something like "path", I will not use this blog as a place to argue about religion.
This blog is set up for me to showcase my writing, to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ through fiction, and to present Christian principles and issues in a new, hopefully entertaining, format. Another reason I do not want to spend hours debating this is that I do not have the time. I have written a novel (426 pages by hand!) and am currently typing it up so I can submit it to a publisher. Every time I sit down to write a five page essay on doctrine that's five pages of my book that I haven't typed. BTW, if and when I finally sell my book, the title "Dawn is Coming" will make more sense.
God Bless everybody,
Arthur B Roberts.
And please go and see the Narnia movie! As a fan of Christian fantasy fiction, I hope it does well! I only hope that the producers do Lewis's classic justice.

The Path to Everywhere

2005-11-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

Hello, everybody.
Usually, I write fiction here and then comments and notes about that fiction, but I recently saw a posting by my good friend "Wanderer" http://lessonsunlearned.blogspot.com/ that sparked what promises to be a long discourse on God. Wanderer and I go back about ten years and there were times when he and I would get into one of these interesting discussions and his wife and mother would just sit back and laugh at us. He posted a very interesting piece on prayer called "My Role in Your Life", most of which I really liked and would gladly pass along to others who had questions on prayer, but a short statement at the end caught my attention and being the skeptic that I am, I couldn't get past that. It's like if somebody gave me a meal that had all good food, meats, breads, cheeses, great desserts and beverages, but in the middle of this meal was a cyanide capsule. Knowing that, would I eat the whole meal, ignoring the assurance of death because the vast majority of what was presented to me was edible? No, of course not. So, what I say to any Christian, and any other person as well because believe it or not, the rules do apply to everyone, search out all that you are given and test it according to scripture. As Jesus said, a little leaven works its way through the whole lump of dough, and a little falsehood wrapped up in a lot of truth will eventually pervert that truth until it is just another lie. That being said, I would like to remind Wanderer and everyone reading this that we are friends and if I didn't care, I wouldn't say anything. Thanks for giving me stuff to sharpen my spiritual teeth on, and I hope that some of my comments and the stories below do the same for you and many others.
Anyway, the nature of the argument isn't that important to this particular post and if you want to read it, go to Wanderer's blog and look around for a while, you'll come across my statements sooner or later. But the question that he asked me that prompted me to sit down and stray from my usual short stories and poetry was this: "If God is everywhere, how can there be only one way to get to Him?"
Like I told Wanderer, that question may take a while to answer, not because I do not know the answer (though to say that I have the final and authoritave answer myself would be arrogant. I believe in the Bible, and the Bible gives me the answer, and since the Bible claims to be the word of God, then I believe that God himself answered the question thousands of years before Wanderer, myself, or anybody else even thought to ask it) but because it is such a profound and thought provoking question that to give a pat answer like "Jesus says..." would do it disservice. Although if you keep reading this you will discover that in the end, for me, that is what it will come down to anyway. But let me spout off and rant for a while. I'm a writer. I love to do that.
I want to try a philosophical, a-biblical answer, if possible. The question starts with an if. "If God is everywhere..." So we must establish that God is indeed everywhere before we can begin to answer the question. Is God everywhere? What if there was a place, in this plane or another, where God wasn't? If such a place could possibly exist, and (to bring yet another if into the equation) if our sole purpose in life, or even if one of our many purposes in life, is to find and be with God, then wouldn't it behoove us to avoid the place or places that he isn't? Then a journey would exist, even if it is a very short and uneventful one, to get out of the place where God isn't to get to the place where he is. But if God is everywhere, in everything, in everybody, the only journey becomes finding him in those things, including ourselves. Then, God is in the searching, God is in the finding, and everything we do, whether we know it or not, is part of that journey. After all, ignorance of something doesn't make it untrue or nonexistent. I could know nothing of gravity or even claim not to believe in it, but if I jump off a bridge or a cliff or a building, I would still fall. (Anybody who thinks otherwise, try it, and let me know, hopefully only from a hospital and not from a morgue, how it goes. On second thought, I don't want to get sued, so don't go jumping off of anything and blaming me. Trust me, gravity will take you down, I would not be responsible!) In the Christian philosophy, many would define HELL as "separation from God." So the Christian faith seeks to find God and be where he is, because where he isn't is quite literally Hell. Let's not get too biblical here though, because the question still remains, is God everywhere? (see why I said it would take a while? If you get bored, feel free to scroll down and read a story or two. I recommend "The Old Man" and "Stikora") I can't answer that without quoting the Bible. Sorry. But let's just assume that God is omnipresent. That being the case, why look for him? Why try to find him or go to him? If he's already there, why do we have to jump through hoops to get to him? Muslims travel to Mecca at least once in their lifetime, Buddhists and Hindus also make many treks (I traveled one of those roads myself a while back in Tibet) and many other faiths have some sort of pilgrimage, albeit the journey may be more spiritual than physical. Why do we journey if we don't at some level believe that there is some "where" where we need to be? Why do we try to find meaning in life if we don't believe on some level that there has to be a "why"? Why do literally billions of people of all faiths strive to find and please and fellowship with what they call "God" if at some level we don't know that there is something beyond ourselves. Only a true atheist, and those are very rare indeed, would disagree that there isn't a some "thing" beyond us, even if that beyond is actually contained within us.
Allow me to digress a bit. On one of my favorite TV shows (and I will now reveal to all of blogdom what a nerd I am) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine there were ongoing discussions about gods and "prophets" and faith. Three things came to mind while I was writing this. One character, a Cardassian, was arguing with a Vorta. The Cardassian mentioned a race called the Bajorans (sorry, non trekkers) who believed that the aliens who live in a nearby wormhole are gods. The Vorta scoffed at that, even though the Vorta believed that the Changlings (or the Founders), another alien race, were gods. When the Cardassian pointed that out, the Vorta said, "That's different. The Founders are gods!" The second one also involves that Vorta. His race was genetically engineered to believe that the Founders were deities. When this was pointed out to him, ironically by a Changling, "Did it ever occur to you that you believe the Founders to be gods because they engineered you to believe that?" (or words to that effect) the Vorta replied, "That's what gods do." And the third and last of these displays of nerdity, involves the Bajorans again. There were too races of aliens fighting for the wormhole, both claiming to be the true gods of Bajor and both gaining followers. One follower of the Prophets said to a follower of the Pa Wraiths, "The problem is, we both can't be right." Just a few thoughts about the nature of God from a science fiction show. (BTW, the last paragraph shows exactly why I believe Christian Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror should exist.)
But let's get back to the question at hand, if anybody out there still remembers it. If God is everywhere... So let's say he is, just for the sake of argument. He's everywhere. Does that mean we believe in a pantheistic everything is God philosophy? If God is in the water, is God the water? Is the water God? If God is in the stone or the wood or the birds or the air, is any or all of those things God? To some, they are. To others, that is blasphemy. To the God of the Bible, it is a ridiculous question. You see, my God is not above sarcasm. A quick paraphrase of Jeremiah 2:27,28 would read, "If the stones and wood are your gods, fine! When you're in trouble, ask the stones and sticks to help you. See what happens!" To a pantheist, cracking a stick in half will help you find God. God is in the stick, God is in the cracking. (pretty Zen of me, huh?) To a Christian, a Jew, or a Muslim, this is idolatry and a waste of your time, effort, and a good stick. But who's right? A monotheist says God made the stick, a pantheist says that God is the stick. If he's everywhere, isn't he both the maker of the stick and the stick? Not according to some belief systems. But that's a whole other argument there.
Let's take a different approach. The God is everywhere thing is very big and almost uncomprehendable, much too big for a simple man like me to figure out. So let's focus on the journey aspect. Wanderer himself used the words "...way to get where he is." I know what he was trying to ask and he'll probably be a little upset at me for twisting his words against him, but that's also something I love to do! Sorry...
Get to where he is. Let's say for the sake of argument that God is in Heaven and our goal is to get there. Heaven isn't a physical place we can find in a space ship or burrowing underground (although some believe it is, but this is for the sake of argument), it's a spiritual place, another plane if you will, and the journey to get there doesn't involve physical motion like an earthly trek, but a spiritual movement, spiritual growth, spiritual lessons, etc. But, to put this in human terms, let's assume that instead of getting to Heaven, we want to get to Albuquerque (my pastor used this today and he used that particular city as an example, so I'll go with it. Besides, it didn't seem to be a coincidence to me that the pastor talked in length today about the question Wanderer asked me, even though to my knowledge he never even read that specific post. God, if there is a God, is funny that way...). Albuquerque is a specific place in a specific location. To get there, first you have to move in the direction it is located in. For me where I am, I would go south. To someone in Mexico, the direction would be north. Wanderer would move west while someone in Phoenix would go east. So, we're all traveling in different directions to get there. Could it work that way with heaven? Could it work that way with God? Could four people travel in entirely different directions and still arrive at the same place? Keep reading...
Then, say the man from Mexico decides to ride a motorcycle to get to Albuquerque. Then I, going south, would ride a donkey. Wanderer hops aboard a jet plane and flies. The man from Phoenix decides to take a river raft, carrying it on his back between rivers. So now we have four different people traveling in four different directions and using four entirely different modes of transportation. Could that work the same way with God? Can we all get to heaven using different modes of transportation moving in different directions?
I could go on! Say the Mexican uses a map to direct himself northward on his motorcycle to Albuquerque. Wanderer trusts the pilot of the plane and his radar system to guide him. I, having been there, only use my memory as a guide. The man from Phoenix asks directions from everyone he meets and they guide him along the way.
Throw in a hundred different variables and a hundred different people using a hundred different modes of transport with a hundred different guidance systems, and still, they will all reach Albuquerque, right? Of course, if one thing is the same for all of them: that they are actually headed towards Albuquerque.
Let's say the man from Phoenix asks directions from somebody who has never been to the city, or maybe even from somebody who doesn't want him to get to Albuquerque. That person tells him that from Phoenix, he should head west a few hundred miles until he reaches the ocean and then take his raft out there and follow the north star or maybe even tie his raft to the back of an oil liner headed to Asia. Now, no matter how much this man wanted to go to Albuquerque, no matter how prepared he was, no matter how good his intentions were or how detailed his plan, if he follows that advice, he is not headed to Albuquerque.
Or what if Wanderer gets to the airport in Rochester and asks them, "Which plane goes to Albuquerque?" and they tell him, "Just get on any one of them. It doesn't matter where they are headed. As long as you are a good passenger, obey the fasten your seatbelt light, and are polite to the flight attendants, you'll get to Albuquerque." "But," says Wanderer, "You have a hundred different planes here, all going to different places. I want to go to Albuquerque." And they say to him, "Whichever plane appeals to you, that's the one you should take." So Wanderer sees a big shiny 747 sitting on the runway and thinks that such a big fancy plane has to be going to Albuquerque. He gets on board, obeys the fasten your seatbelt lights, is polite to the flight attendants, orders the fish, keeps his headphones low so as not to bother the other passengers, and sits back for a nice relaxing flight to London. Is he going to Albuquerque?
Wanderer used the example of heading North. If you head north and if I head north, no matter what path we take, we'll both eventually reach the North Pole. True, but what if we're both not heading north? Just because the North Pole is in the same direction for both of us, if I head East and you head South, neither of us will get there. Yeah, I know, you go south long enough you're going north again and then you'll reach the north pole, but what about poor me wandering around in an endless circle around the equator always believing that if I travel long enough, I'll reach the north pole? Just like Albuquerque, where you can travel towards it from a hundred different directions, or the North Pole, where you can take a million different northward routes and still reach it, one wrong turn, one detour in a different direction, one boarding of the wrong plane or taking the wrong advice, and you can get so far off track that finding your original destination may seem impossible! What if finding God, or finding the place where he is, is the same way? What if we can take a wrong turn or board the wrong plane and find ourselves moving away from him and not towards him, always hoping to find him and thinking that if we travel long enough, even in the opposite direction, we will find him?
Think about that for a while. When it comes to things of God, this, as with all other analogies, falls far short of the deep and mysterious spiritual mysteries and revelations. But, while you ponder that little philosophical rambling of mine, let me go on to another point.
There are some who would say that all religions are true in and of themselves and that all pathways are equally valid. "God", whatever he/she/it/or they happens to be, has revealed himself/herself/itself/themselves in many different ways to many different peoples, cultures, and religions in whatever way he/she/it/they fell that that culture needed at that time. A Hindu friend of mine (yes, I'm a Christian, but I have many friends of many different faiths. We almost always "argue" with each other, but usually come away better for those arguments.) used this argument on me. Also, a Buddhist friend said something similar. Makes sense to their point of view. After all, the Hindus believe in a god that didn't create, he became creation and all of creation is a part of him and all of creation will be a part of him again. So, for that philosophy, god is as much in Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and Buddha as he is in Hitler, Ganges Khan, and Pauly Shore. That philosophy of everything is true for somebody and nothing is true for everybody works fine until someone throws a wrench in it. That wrench was thrown in by whoever came up with monotheism. I say whoever because, still for the sake of argument, whether it was God himself or some misguided man, the classic monotheistic religious world view creates a path way to "God" that isn't compatible with the concept that every path is valid. Back to Star Trek for a moment. If anyone remembers the Original Series episode "Mudd's Women" they no doubt remember when a simple illogical statement was used to make an android's head explode. The android, a machine and therefore purely logical, was told two things. First, he was told that everything that Harry Mudd said was a lie. Once he had accepted this, Harry Mudd himself told him, "I am lying." The android concluded that if everything that Harry Mudd said was a lie, then if Mudd said "I am lying," then Mudd must be telling the truth. But how could Mudd tell the truth if everything he said was a lie? The android literally burned out trying to answer that question. It's a paradox. How can two entirely opposite ideas be true? The above concept of "God" states that every path is equally valid. So, along comes Judaism, then Christianity, then Islam, and then about a million and three off shoots all claiming to be the one and only path to God. If every path is true, then what these three religions and their many branches claim is true, but if the three of them say that they are the only path, then every path is no longer true. Anybody's head exploding yet? Let's say that a god does exist according to that philosophy who wants everyone to find him in their own way. That god would be the god who explained to the Hindus about reincarnation and to the Christians about heaven and hell. Okay, I can accept that. It makes sense according to the cultures. But, that god would want everyone to get along and love each other, right. One precept common among most faiths from Mormonism to Islam is the love of God and the desire for peace on Earth. So that god, while revealing many different paths, would make those paths work together and not against each other. After all, a Buddhist, a Christian, and Muslim, and even an atheist would all be headed to the same place, just in different ways. So, this God says to the Buddhists, "All ways are valid." and says to the Christians, "No man comes to the Father (God) except through me (Jesus)." There is a conflict. Not a very big one, mind you. They both can be enlightened, happy, and holy people. So let's look at another conflict: Jesus says many things in the gospels that literally equate him with God. Many so-called scholars look back at this and try to reinterpret his sayings, edit them, or say that he didn't mean what we are trying to say he means. But, his statements were understood by his audience, the Jews. One example is John 10:30 where Jesus says, "I and my Father are one." (NKJV) The Jews immediate response was to pick up rocks and prepare to stone him for what they considered to be blasphemy. Jesus makes many other such claims, and the rest of the New Testament is filled with even more. So, Jesus claims to be the Son of God, claims to be God, and claims to be the one and only way to fellowship with the Father. Then, a few hundred years later, God reveals the Koran to the Prophet Muhammad. The Koran says, among other things, "In blasphemy indeed are those who say that God is Christ the son of Mary" (Surah 5:17.) and "They do blaspheme who say: 'God is Christ the son of Mary.' But Christ said: 'O Children of Israel! worship God, my Lord and your Lord.' Whoever joins other gods with Allah, Allah will forbid him the Garden, and the Fire will be his abode." (5:72) So now we have two different revelations from that same God-being we talked about that each say that the other will spend eternity in hell because of their beliefs. The Koran actually calls for the death of anyone who ascribes a partner to God. How can these two statements, which, whether justified or not, have sparked thousands of years of war, come from the same God who revealed to the Hindus that every path was valid? Every path is right, true and equally valid, which means that everything Jesus said is true and everything Muhammad preached is true and everything I'm saying now is true and it is entirely plausible that Pauly Shore or Charles Manson can lead you to heaven if you just sincerely believe them! Right? If everything is true, then what Jesus said is true, and then everything is not true? Now my head's exploding!
Like I said, it would all come back to "Jesus says..." I know that there is nothing that I or anybody else can say to anybody that will prove the existence of any god, or prove the correctness of my particular path to him. But I take it on faith. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) He says in John 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Can I prove it? No, but that doesn't nullify it. Am I wrong? Although I believe with all my heart and soul that Jesus is the only way to God, I guess logically, I could be wrong. But that is what faith is all about. God is everywhere. I believe that also. So one path to everywhere may seem to be a paradox that my finite human mind cannot begin to figure out, but then so are the Trinity, the virgin birth, the resurrection, or how a Holy God can give his life so that an unholy wretch like me can find salvation. Even if God is everywhere, there is only one door to him, and the key that opens that door is Jesus Christ. Take it or leave it, believe it or don't. Morpheus in "The Matrix: Reloaded" was reminded that not everyone believed in the same things he did and he replied, "My beliefs do not require them to."
Sorry about this little rant of mine. I am working on new stories and poems. They'll be up soon.
God Bless you all!
ARB
And, if anyone out there wants to argue with me, please do. It's fun! But please watch your language as you do so, or I'll have to delete you!

Stikora

2005-11-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

It had been a rough three months since Jared the Dragon Slayer and Zede the Ferocious had seen their homes. They had left on a mission to free some merchants who were being held captive by a herd of monstrous creatures the likes of which even Jared had never seen. Jared and Zede arrived in time to save most of the merchants and, as usual, denied all payment. They were heading back home when they were side-tracked by a troll who was ransacking a small village, a gang of goblins who had taken refuge in a dark cave and were dragging travelers from the road to either enslave them or eat them, depending on their size, and as the lead goblin had said, their tenderness, and finally a dragon had sought them out when they were about a week from their village, seeking vengeance on a relative they had vanquished a few years earlier. So, they were eager to get home and rest for a few days before their services were required again, and they were not at all pleased when they were yet again side-tracked.
They had camped out on a hill that was within sight of the small house they shared outside of the village of Chan, planning to make the final stretch of the journey at dawn. No sooner had Zede begun roasting his catch of rabbit meat over the fire when they heard a man desperately calling out Jared's name as he ran towards them on the road.
"Jared!" he shouted. "Thank heaven, it is you! You have to help me!"
He reached the fire and the ever suspicious Zede had him tackled and pinned before he could catch his breath. Jared went over and told the dwarf to release him.
"It could be a trick, Jared!" Zede protested.
"It's not," Jared said. This was good enough for Zede, who was well aware of Jared's ability to sense evil. Jared sensed something strange from this man, but nothing dangerous. Zede stood and the man got up and brushed himself off.
"I've been looking for you for days," he said. "The villagers told me that you were gone on a mission, but that you would return soon. I've been waiting nearly a week."
"What can we do for you?" Jared asked him.
"My name is David," he said, "and I am being terrorized in my own home by some sort of demon or monster."
"In your home?" Zede asked.
"Yes!" David said. His eyes were wide with terror and he looked around warily as if whatever was haunting his house could hear him. "It's huge and monstrous and it's demanding flesh! I've been able to ward it off with animals like dogs or goats, but it told me that it wants human meat and if I don't find something to feed it soon, it will eat me."
"How did it get in your house?" Jared asked him.
"I...I don't know," David said. "I just woke up one night and it was there!"
Jared pondered this for a moment. It wasn't unheard of for such creatures to come into a home unannounced and uninvited and start terrorizing the occupants. He had heard the same story dozens of times. But this time something was wrong. He could sense something from the desperate man begging his help that told the dragon slayer that David knew exactly how the monster had gotten into his home. He wouldn't say anything yet. If it proved important, he would press David for answers later. Right now, the priority was to rid the house of the monster and, if possible, kill it before it harmed anyone.
"Where do you live?" Jared asked. Zede sighed. The dwarf had been hoping to get home soon and sleep in his own bed. But they had a job to do and Zede knew that they must do it.
"About a day's journey to the north," David replied. "Will you please help me."
"Of course," Jared said. "We'll leave in the morning. Now, my friend here has caught us some dinner, if you would care to join us."
Zede split the meat between the three of them and when they were done eating, David curled up a few feet from the fire and fell into a fast sleep. Zede sat next to Jared.
"Blasted monster!" he grumbled. "I want to go home!"
"So do I, Zede," Jared said. "But you know the life we've chosen can be inconvenient at times."
"Aye," the dwarf said. "What kind of beast do you think this is?"
"I don't know," Jared said. "But one thing I do know is that David isn't telling us everything."
"You think he's in league with this beast?" Zede asked.
"No," Jared said. "I would have sensed that. But there is something. He feels guilty about something. He knows how that monster got into his home, and if it does harm somebody, he will feel responsible."
* * * * *
The next morning they set off away from Chan to the north. David described the monster as they traveled. From its description, Jared was quite certain that it was a Stikora, a cave dwelling creature, half demon and half bear, which fed on human flesh and was purely evil. It would also be very difficult to kill. Jared didn't mention it to David, but he knew that Stikoras hardly ever ventured from their caves. These enchanted creatures were all but invincible in their own lairs and quite vulnerable outside of them. No Stikora would venture out of its cave unless it was in desperate need of food. Unless David lived so close to a cave that he could spit into it from his back porch, Jared was sure that this monster didn't just wander into his house one night while he slept.
"And it's how big?" Jared asked.
"Ten feet high at least," David said. "It was smaller when...it was smaller before, but since it made me start feeding it, it's grown very quickly. It's filling my entire front room now. Do you think that you can kill it, Jared?"
"We've killed bigger things," Zede said proudly.
"And since it's out of its cave," Jared said, eyeing David closely for a reaction, "we should have no trouble with it."
"Yeah," David said, turning away slightly as they walked. "That's good."
"David," Jared said, "is there something you should tell me?"
"No," David replied. "No, nothing. I've told you everything."
Jared let it rest again, but he was convinced now that whatever David was hiding would be essential to this monster's defeat. Zede knew it too, and the usually chatty dwarf became very cold toward their companion, barely answering his questions with a grunt.
They reached a small cottage in a clearing about twelve hours after they left and David said that it was his home. It looked normal enough from the outside, but Jared knew immediately that a great evil was inside. He could sense its total depravity and an almost overwhelming hunger. He also sensed something else that frightened him. He had come across Stikoras before, and whenever he found one away from its own cave it was always on edge, very cautious, even afraid in its vulnerability. Jared sensed nothing like that here. What he felt inside that house was a completely secure beast, unafraid of anything. The Stikora considered David's home to be his lair, and judging by its strength and power, it was right.
Jared had never tried to vanquish one inside its cave before. They were no threat as long as no one wandered in or they didn't come out for some reason. He wasn't sure if even he could defeat a secure Stikora.
"Well," David said, almost pleading, "aren't you going to go in there and kill it?"
"We sure are!" Zede said, sword drawn, but Jared put a hand on his shoulder and stopped the dwarf's charge.
"Wait, Zede," Jared said. He turned to David. "There is something that you haven't told me, David, and unless you are completely honest with me, I cannot help you."
"What?" David asked. Jared turned to leave and Zede, obviously disappointed that there would be no bloodshed that day, followed. David ran after them. "I told you everything!"
"Do not lie to me," Jared said, never turning back. "You know of my power. I can sense your dishonesty."
"But, Jared!"
Zede turned around and grabbed the man's shirt collar. Pulling him down so that he could look into his terrified eyes, "If Jared says you are lying, then you are lying. And if you are lying, we cannot help you. Now, if you're in league with that beast-"
"I'm not!" David shouted. "I swear it!"
Jared turned then and said, "Then what is it I sense? Why does the Stikora consider your home its lair?"
"I don't know," David said. "Maybe because it's been there since..."
"Since when?" Zede demanded.
David looked at the ground and sighed. When he looked back up again, there were tears in his eyes and Jared sensed that he was about to be completely honest with him at last.
"Since I brought him there."
"Since you what?" Zede asked.
"Of course," Jared said. "It makes sense now."
"What makes sense?" Zede asked. "Are you going to tell me what's going on here? Are we going to kill something or what?"
"Calm down, Zede," Jared said. "If David tells us the truth now, we may indeed kill something today."
Zede smiled. "Go on, then," he told David, "and pray it's not you we slay tonight!"
"About a year ago," David began, "I was visiting a friend in a nearby village. On my way home I was caught in a rainstorm and spent the night in a cave for shelter. I had checked it out and it seemed safe. I was woken up in the middle of the night by something small and furry scurrying against my leg. I looked down, and there it was."
"The Stikora," Jared said. David nodded.
"And you didn't know what it was?" Zede asked.
"I knew exactly what it was," David said. "I had seen one before when I was a child. In fact, I barely escaped it. But this one was so small and helpless. Just a baby. It was actually kind of cute."
"Cute?" Zede asked. "That beastly thing? Those monsters would gladly eat a nursery full of babies for a midnight snack, and you thought it was cute? Well, I'll be a fairy princess!"
"It was so small," David repeated. "I thought I could tame it. I thought that if I raised it from a baby and only fed it small animals, it wouldn't grow into a man eating demon-beast."
"You thought that you could control it?" Jared asked.
"I did for a while," David said. "I thought it actually liked me. As long as I provided it with mice and small birds, it would let me hold it, pet it. Then it started growing. I had to feed it rats, then cats, dogs, sheep, and goats. A month ago it was no longer satisfied with anything smaller than a full grown cow. I used to have livestock here, but as you can see," he pointed back to his house, surrounded by an acre of empty land. There was no animal to be seen. "It still acted like it liked me though. I hadn't realized it yet, but it was controlling me. My life was spent finding food for it. I could still pet it and play with it, though it was bigger than me, and it still looked kind of cute to me.
"Two weeks ago, it spoke. It had never done that before. I was almost proud of it, especially when it called me 'father,' but it told me that it was tired of animal meat and it wanted human. It told me to bring it a human child within a week or else it would eat me!"
"And so you left to find us," Jared said.
"Not yet," he said. "I spent a day or two trying to figure out where I would find a child."
"You did what?" Zede yelled, reaching for his weapon.
"I told you, it was controlling me!" David said quickly. "It didn't cast a spell on me or anything, but it might as well have! I loved it! I wanted to please it. I thought that maybe just one child wouldn't be terribly missed and then it would get its manlust out of its system and return to cattle."
"Don't tell me you-" Zede began.
"He didn't, Zede," Jared said. "I would know."
"He's right," David said. "I didn't feed it a child. I came to my senses and my own thoughts scared me. I realized that what I had in my house was no longer a cute little pet. It was a full grown demonspawn monster and it was pure evil. I couldn't control it, I couldn't satisfy it, and I if allowed myself to continue serving it, I would be no better than it was."
"So then you came for us?" Zede asked.
"Not yet," he said again. "I told you, I loved it. I didn't want to lose it. So I tried to reason with it. I told it that I couldn't bring it a human child, but I would get whatever else it wanted. I tried to remind it that I had brought it up since it was a baby and that it considered me its father. I hoped that I wouldn't have to get rid of it. It turned on me. It told me that the house was his lair and that I was a guest there. If I didn't feed it, it would feed on me. I told it to get out, but it didn't obey me. For the first time since I brought it home that day, it didn't obey me! It did this to me..." he rolled up his left shirt sleeve to reveal a freshly healing wound that Jared immediately recognized as the bite of a full grown Stikora's six inch fangs.
"And that's when I left to find you."
"Thank you for your honesty," Jared told the man, "but you know that you are a fool. No man can tame a beast like that. What made you think you could control it? Especially knowing exactly what you were dealing with!"
"It was so small!"
"Yeah, well it grew, didn't it?" Zede said. "Monsters and demons like that always do. You should have left it in that cave. You should have dragged it out and killed it. Instead, you raised it, loved it, and before you knew it, had become its slave!"
"I know!" David cried. "I know! And I know I don't deserve your help! But please, I don't know what else to do. Can you kill it?"
"I don't know," Jared admitted.
"Can you at least get it out of my house?" he asked.
"We'll try," Jared said.
"What?" Zede asked his friend. "Are you daft, man? A full grown Stikora in its own lair? You might as well go against as army of dragons with nothing but a wooden spoon! That man took the thing into its home. I say that we leave it there. He got himself into this mess, let him get himself out!"
"We've never turned away from someone who asked for our help," Jared told him. "We've even helped those who have refused our help. I agree that David got himself caught up in this through his own folly. He's admitted that himself. But now he realizes his mistakes and is willing to do whatever it takes to rectify them before somebody gets killed." He turned to David, "Are you not?"
"I am!" David said. "I swear it by the stars themselves! Whatever it takes!"
"Good," Jared said. "Let's go."
He started heading back to the cottage and the other two followed. The evil and the power coming from that small structure was almost overwhelming Jared as he approached and for the first time in a long time, he felt real fear. But, for the first time in a long time, he knew that he wouldn't have to face the monster himself.
"Zede," he told the dwarf, "start a fire."
"You want to eat now?"
"Not for food," Jared said. "Start a fire and bring me a torch."
The good wizard who guided the two dragon slayers and had provided them with their magic arrows had also given Zede a bag of seeds that when broken sparked. If that spark came across any combustible material, it would catch fire. He did this now on a small pile of leaves and soon a good sized fire was burning. He took a branch from a nearby tree, set its tip ablaze, and brought the torch to Jared.
"What are you going to do?" David asked him.
"Nothing," Jared said. He held the torch out to David. "You are going to burn your house to the ground."
"What?" David asked. "I've lived here for twenty years!"
"Unless you want that beast to control you for the rest of your life," Jared told him, "you will burn the house down."
David didn't take the torch. He stared at the flames as if he had never seen fire before. "Do I have to do this? Isn't there some other way?"
"It's not your house anymore," Jared said. "It's the Stikora's lair. You can always rebuild. You can rebuild the house and your life, but not if that thing is still there. Stikora's are powerful, and once they have a grip on you, you can never be free. You must kill it, and in order to kill it, you have to get it out of its lair."
"Then get it out of there!" David yelled. "I'll kill it myself if you can get it out!"
"I can't," Jared said. "It's power is greater than anything I can do while it is in its own home, especially since you invited it in and gave it free run of the place. But if you take away the lair, the monster is as weak as an ordinary animal and can be defeated." David still hesitated and the flame was almost flickering out. "You said that you would do whatever it took. Now, do it!"
David took the torch from the dragon slayer. Slowly, he approached his cottage. A deafening roar came from inside as the Stikora realized what was about to happen. The roar seemed to penetrate David's heart as a child's cry would his mother's, but he still held the torch to the straw of the cottage's roof. Seconds later, the roof was aflame and the fire would soon consume the entire building. The monster continued to roar in rage and they could make out its frightening shape among the flames as it thrashed about. The flames wouldn't kill it, but being connected to the home as it was, its destruction was agonizing to the beast, as was the knowledge that once the house was gone, so would be most of its strength and power.
"Are you sure this will work?" David asked.
"All Stikora's were defeated in a glorious battle centuries ago," Jared said, though this knowledge was common, especially to a man like David who was familiar with the creatures. "That is why they are stuck inside their caves. That defeat robbed them of their power and their control over anyone who doesn't willfully give it over, like you did. Away from the shelter you provided it, it will be just another defeated monster awaiting the final blow."
"Which I have to give?" David said. This was only half a question. Jared nodded and reached for the dagger he kept on his belt. He handed the weapon to David.
"Zede and I will subdue the beast," he said. "Then, you strike. Since it is your master, only your blow can kill it. Are you ready?"
"No," David said, looking sadly at the blade in his hand, "but I'll do it anyway."
The house burned for about half an hour, then was nothing but ash. David watched as everything he had was consumed in the flames. In the center of the ashes was what looked like a gigantic bear with blood red horns on its head and along its spine. It was curled up in a ball, growling in rage.
"Now, Zede!" Jared said. Jared and Zede approached the monster. In its cave, it would have been invincible. With its protection gone, it had the strength of any other bear its size, which was still great, but nothing that Jared and Zede couldn't handle. When they got close enough to strike at it with their weapons, the thing rose up and gave a roar that shook the leaves in the nearby trees. It swung at Zede, who rolled out of its way and struck at it with his sword, wounding its arm. It then turned on Jared, who held his axe ready. Knowing that he was incapable of killing the animal, he brought the axe down, burying it in the giant head. It fell under the blow and lay there moaning. Zede came to it and stuck his sword deep into its back.
Had this monster not had a human slave, it would have been dead. But in controlling David, it had given him a small portion of its power. Now, that slave had to make the final decision to free himself from the demonbeast. David came slowly to the animal with the dagger in his hand. He raised it high over his head, ready to strike the beast between its shining red eyes, and paused.
"What's wrong?" Zede asked. "Kill the blasted thing!"
"I can't do it," David said. "I still love it."
The Stikora looked up at David and said in an almost childlike voice, "Father? I love you!"
"Don't listen to it!" Jared told him. "It doesn't love you! It would eat you in a second if we hadn't beat it down! Now, kill the monster, unless you want to be its slave for the rest of your life!"
"Father?" the monster said again.
"I am not your father," David said, and he brought the knife down hard, driving it between the Stikora's eyes. "And I am no longer your slave!"
The Stikora let out a hideous shriek as its massive body shook, throwing the dragon slayer and the dwarf from its back. Then, it burst into red flames and was consumed, leaving nothing but smoking red dust. It was dead.
David fell backwards to the ground and began to weep. Even Jared with his magical sense couldn't tell if David was weeping for the lost beast or because he was finally free. Maybe it was both. He stood and walked to the man.
"You did well," Jared said. "You lost everything you had, but that is the price you had to pay for this folly of yours. Now, you can rebuild your life. But remember, next time some little demon comes across your path, you cannot control evil. Try, and it will control you. Had you rid yourself of the Stikora a year ago, or better yet, had you never invited it into your home in the first place, you would not have had to suffer so."
David nodded. He handed the dagger up to Jared. It was stained with black blood and smoking. Jared took the blade and threw it into the Stikora's ashes where it also was consumed with red flames and disappeared.
"Come, Zede," Jared said. "Let's go home."
The two left David in the clearing besides the remnants of his life. They could hear the sound of his weeping for about half an hour. When they finally got away from the sound, Zede grunted.
"That fool," he said. "What would make him think he could handle even a little demon?"
"Evil is deceptive," Jared said. "I have no doubt that the baby Stikora was indeed cute. He honestly loved that monster too. I wouldn't be surprised if he went out in search of another one."
"You don't think he learned his lesson?"
"I hope he has," Jared said. "Only time will tell. But if he does give his life over to evil again, I don't think anybody will be able to help him."

author's note

2005-11-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

Before anybody starts leaving comments about any doctrinal problems with "Stikora"... No allegory is ever one hundred percent perfect. That's why Jesus told so many parables. If he could have explained the entire "Kingdom of God" in one short story, he would have. Like the other dragon slayer story, this one deals with sin. Instead of denying that sin is there, like the villagers in "There is no Dragon," the man in "Stikora" admits it's there and wants to get rid of it. Like so many of us (all of us actually, if you look at it completely honestly), he actually invited the sin into his life thinking that he could handle it. He knew what he was dealing with, but thought that somehow, this little monster would be different, or that he could control it, but he became its slave. And, like many of us, he loved it. It's not easy to be freed from sin, no matter how much we hate it or are afraid of what it'll make us do. I touched on this in "The Old Man" asking the question, "How can I be free from a prison I love?" Well, Jesus can free us. We may still desire our sinful lives, which is perfectly normal (read Romans 6-8 if you don't believe me), but as long as we are willing to let go of it, give it and the rest of our lives to God, and never go back, we can be free.
No one can really control evil, no matter how strong you think you are or how minor you think the sin is. Sooner or later, you will find that your sin is controlling you. The Deliverer can and will save you, though. All you have to do is ask...
God bless, Arthur B Roberts

Civil Disobedience

2005-10-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

The law was passed, in part, because of him and his sermons, so Pastor Alan Richards wasn't at all surprised when he showed up to church the next Sunday to find a media circus waiting for him. The usual protesters were there, as they had been since word got out that the young pastor at New Hope Community Church was standing behind his pulpit every week to declare openly that such things as abortion, homosexuality, extra-marital sex, and other acts that society had decided to tolerate, sometimes even embrace, were now and always had been sins. Now that such statements had been ruled to be hate crimes by the state government every news crew in the state, as well as a few national media outlets, was camped out in New Hope's parking lot. The nation wanted to see if Alan Richards would change his message in the light of the new legislation and the threat of a minimum of eighteen months behind bars.
He had known this was coming. It had been brooding for nearly a year and he knew that the bill, dubbed by the media as the "Hate Speech Ban," would pass. Public outcries had erupted across the nation and around the world and while some religious leaders had stood up to support him, many preachers, teachers, TV hosts, and other pillars of the religious community had joined in condemning him and his "out of date" teachings. He had not stopped. As saddened and disappointed as he was by the attitudes of those defaming him and his message, he wasn't surprised by anything that had happened since that first controversial sermon.
He had felt for a long time that God was laying it on his heart to speak against society's attitude toward sin. He had seen enough of the world's acceptance of those things that the Bible clearly condemned. He was sickened by the government's "protection of rights" to engage in sinful activities. The government defended the daily murder of thousands of innocents; unborn children sacrificed on the alter of the god of convenience. The state defended the rights of people to live in a lifestyle that God called an abomination, calling for tolerance and declaring that anyone who had an opposing opinion was homophobic, hateful, and ignorant. Everywhere at every time the media bombarded the nation with images of sex, violence, drugs and alcohol. But the one thing that weighed the heaviest on Alan's heart was the Church's acceptance of those very same things. "God is love," many would quote, completely ignoring two other messages of the scriptures: God is holy, intolerant of sin, and God doesn't change. While Alan was convinced by the scriptures that God loves every homosexual, abortionist, pervert, liar, and murderer, He would never tolerate sin in the name of that love. In fact, it was God's love for mankind that caused Him to so adamantly condemn evil in all its forms.
Alan was just one man preaching in a small church in a mid-sized city. His congregation was barely a hundred people strong on its best week. He was not expecting the sermon to change the world, just to change the hearts of those few who would hear it. He stood up before his small flock and delivered a message that he had entitled "Sin is Still Sin!" The sermon went well and was well-received, even applauded by most of the church. Alan had noticed a few people who had sat rigidly, unmoving, glaring at him, and one young woman actually got up and left the sanctuary with a haughty look on her face. Those who had glared at him never set foot in New Hope Community Church again, but this young woman, Sarah Mills, had been there the next week. She and about half a dozen of her friends from the nearby college campus were standing outside the church doors with large hand-painted signs on poster boards that read: "God is LOVE!", "Closed minded bigots preach HATE!", "21st Century Church has no room for 3,000 year old prejudice," and similar slogans.
Alan made no apologies. Instead, he improvised a new opening for his sermon that week. "If I offend you this morning, I forgive you. If I step on your toes, get them out of my way!" The congregation applauded. His message didn't change that week, or the next week when there were over twenty protesters, or the week after that when local news crews showed up to report on the growing controversy, or even the week after that when the church building was vandalized. Some members of the church decided to leave rather than deal with the pressures of the protesters and the media, and some even turned on him. He remembered one man in particular who warmly shook his hand that first week telling him that it was about time someone said those things. A mere five weeks later he was standing with the protesters holding a sign that read: "Rebuke hate!"
But Alan was undaunted. While he didn't believe himself to be a prophet, he couldn't help but relate to men like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, or other Biblical figures who had stood in the face of a sinful society and a complacent Church to remind them that a holy God was still watching them. Many in his church encouraged him, some making signs of their own calling for America to repent and saying things like, "God will NEVER change!" Soon, his little sermon on sin was sparking controversy around the world.
A few weeks later, Alan was interviewed by a local news station. He laid the message out plainly, supporting his statements with scriptures, admitting that he knew his words wouldn't be popular, and calling the Church to repent. When he watched the report the next evening he was angered, but not surprised, by the way the reporter has edited his comments and twisted his words to make him sound like the hateful fanatic they were trying to make him out to be. He expected the same thing from the other local channels and the national television shows and magazines that requested interviews, but he did them anyway. He figured that he would rather have some of his message get across than only to hear some reporter's editorializing about his declination of an interview.
The day after his highly publicized, and predictably slanted appearance on a national TV news program, Sarah Mills hade her own appearance on national television denouncing his actions, comparing him to Adolph Hitler and Osama Bin Laden, and demanding that something be done to silence Alan Richards and his "fanatical, hate filled rants."
"But what about free speech, Miss Mills," the interviewing reporter asked her. "Doesn't the Constitution guarantee that men like Alan Richards have the right to say whatever they want to say, regardless of how offensive the rest of us may find his comments?"
This was an obviously scripted question that the reporter read with little conviction. The answer was equally scripted and if Alan's sermon three months earlier had sparked a wildfire, then Sarah Mills's answer to this question fanned those flames, creating an inferno that would burn across the nation and around the world.
"Free speech has its limits," Sarah said, sounding incredible reasonable. "When bigots like Alan Richards are allowed to spread their hatred and ignorance, people get hurt or killed. Apart from what men like Alan Richards say, God does not hate gays or women who have abortions or anyone who has sex. Pastor Richards' message is the same as that of those who would bomb a women's health clinic or lynch a homosexual teenager. I am a Christian myself, and I love Jesus. I know that He sheds a tear every time men like Mr. Richards spew their bigotry in His precious name. Alan Richards and all those like him need to be stopped before fanatical Christians begin doing what fanatical Muslims have been doing for years."
"So what do you suggest be done about this?" asked the reporter.
"Congress should pass a bill banning such hateful rhetoric by any teacher, preacher, or other leader, religious or otherwise," Sarah replied. "Anyone advocating hatred, racism, sexism, or homophobia, as well as those attacking women who chose to exercise their God-given right to make decisions about their own bodies, should be charged with a hate crime!"
"You're asking Congress to limit free speech?" the reporter asked, another scripted question.
"I am asking them to ban hatred."
While Congress did not take up the call, many state governments did. Twenty-three states had drawn up some version of the so-called Hate Speech Ban within a week, including Alan's home state. National polls showed that the bill would pass in nineteen of those states by an overwhelming majority and the other four states were too close to call. Politicians and preachers alike not only condemned Alan, but advocated for the legislation, calling for it to go national. Anyone trying to expose the dangers of the bill or to explain Alan Richards's true motives was portrayed as a lunatic, a conspiracy nut, or a bigot themselves. With the state elections a few months away, the media made mention of the bill daily. Every story was slanted and every dissenting statement distorted. Nobody doubted that soon sermons like the one that Sarah Mills had walked out on would be illegal.
About a month before the elections Alan woke up to see a terrible story on every morning news program. A young gay man had been found murdered. His body was horribly mutilated and he was hanging by his neck from a tree in front of the state capitol. Hung around his neck was a crudely painted sign on a piece of cardboard. It read: "God bless Alan Richards."
He immediately phoned one of the local news stations and soon was connected to a national morning show. Expecting to be attacked and his words to be twisted, he adamantly condemned the murder.
"But, Reverend Richards," the news anchor said, "Don't you believe that you are at least partly responsible for this horrific crime? After all, this murder was committed in your name!"
"I do not approve of this action," Alan replied. "I do not condone it! If the people who killed that young man had the slightest idea of the message I actually preached-"
"Mr. Richards, you said, and I quote, 'Homosexuality is a sin! Times may change, but God's words never changes. His laws and His judgments are just as valid today as they were thousands of years ago!' Are those not your own words?"
"They are," Alan admitted, "but-"
"Doesn't the Bible, God's law as you would call it, say in Leviticus 20:13, and again I quote, 'If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them?'"
"It says that, yes," Alan said, "but that is the Old Testament. That is the Law that we are no longer under."
"But your own sermon said that God's law never changes," the anchor said with a note of triumph. "Now you're contradicting yourself."
"I don't expect you to understand," Alan began.
"So now I'm ignorant?" the anchor asked.
"God's law and His standards do not change," Alan said, "but when Jesus came, He made it possible for us to approach God in our imperfection."
"So Jesus made it okay to sin?"
Trying no to get angry, Alan took a deep breath and said, "The Old Testament also calls for the execution of anyone caught in adultery, but when Jesus was-"
"So now you're calling for the murder of adulterers as well?" the anchor interrupted.
"Listen, sir," Alan said, finally allowing his frustration to enter his voice. "I'm never going to be able to explain this with your constant interruptions and your obvious attempts to twist every word I say."
"Reverend Richards-"
"Let me finish, please!" Alan snapped. "This week, I will be preaching concerning this horrific murder which I, and anyone who truly understands Christianity, condemn. Bring your cameras and reporters. Listen to what I have to say. I think you'll see that if I am allowed to speak without any interruptions or editorializing, the whole hate speech controversy will be laid to rest."
"Are you finished?" the anchor asked.
"One more challenge," Alan said. "In the interest of fairness, and in order to show that your news reports are not biased or slanted, broadcast my sermon in its entirety, no interruptions, no editing. Anything else will just prove your own prejudice."
And with that, Alan hung up the telephone and sat down to prepare his sermon for that Sunday. He knew enough about the media to know that he would be preaching to a sanctuary full of news cameras and reporters, but his message would have been the same even if he were only preaching to the three dozen or so people who hadn't yet abandoned his church. He was horrified by the actions of those who had killed that man, and even more sickened that those actions were done in his name. He knew that he would have to speak out against it, without the constant distortion of the media, before a rash of other atrocities was done in his honor.
Indeed, during the three days between the murder and his sermon an abortion clinic was bombed, another homosexual was found dead, and a prominent gay politician received a death threat. Needless to say, New Hope Community Church was filled to capacity with media representatives, surrounded by protesters (and a few hate mongers who had showed up to support a man that they obviously didn't understand), and the police had been called out to make sure that the tension didn't erupt into violence.
Alan felt like a televangelist getting up to preach before that room of cameras and reporters, except that unlike so many TV preachers of late, he would be speaking the truth. Not even his own congregation could find room in the packed sanctuary, but knowing what was going to happen that week they had decided to spend the hour in the fellowship hall praying for Alan and for all who would hear him that day.
Alan stood up behind the pulpit, forgoing the usual worship and church announcements, and after an opening prayer he began to preach to his audience of millions.
He opened his Bible to John chapter eight and gave the message that he was intending to tell the news anchor three days earlier. He talked about the woman caught in adultery and about how she was deserving of death according to God's law. But when she was brought before Jesus, He called into question her accusers' motives and, without denying that she indeed deserved to be stoned to death, He gave the famous challenge to "he who is without sin." But Jesus went on, after forgiving the adulteress, to condemn the sin itself. "Go, sin no more." Not once did Jesus' love, grace, or forgiveness make sin acceptable in the eyes of God.
"From this pulpit," Alan said, "I have preached against sin, but never once did I pass judgment on a sinner! That is not my place. I am not God. But my place is to condemn sin. Calling for repentance is not condemning sinners. There is an old saying: 'Love the sinner, hate the sin.' Jesus loves sinners! The people that He chose to associate with while on Earth were thieves, prostitutes, and 'sinners.' While He did not condone their sin, He would also not approve of any hateful talk or violence against them!
"Every since I first stood up to call this nation to repent, my words have been twisted, my message distorted, and my love of the sinner turned into a hate crime by the media, and very soon by the state as well. I believe that the only finger that Jesus ever pointed was at a pointed finger, so let me follow my Lord's example and address those responsible for the recent atrocities committed in my name. You are wrong! I do not approve of your actions and neither does the Lord. Such actions are indeed hateful, but God is love! So please, in the name of God, stop doing these things!"
Knowing that his words would again be twisted and creatively edited, Alan closed the sermon with a prayer for the families of the crime victims, and left the pulpit.
Two networks played his sermon live, so he knew that a lot of people had heard what he needed them to hear. The others merely played portions, piecing together parts that were completely unrelated, and again he came across as a hateful fanatic. Even the networks that had been brave enough to play his message in its entirety spent the next week reinterpreting the twenty minute sermon to fit their biased opinions.
Somehow, though, his point had been made. Polls reflected that in a few states the Hate Speech Ban might be struck down and no more hate crimes were committed on his behalf. The media left him alone after that, relegating the issue to a few short reports or articles, until a week before the elections. Then it was all the TV, radio, papers, and magazines. Sarah Mills or one of her supporters was spewing her lies in nearly every report.
The church was vandalized again. Every window was broken and profanities were spray painted on the walls. And another abortion clinic bombing was allegedly dedicated to Alan.
Ironically, New Hope Community Church was a polling place. The property was crawling with protesters and journalists, and while the signs and statements of those in support of the bill were prominently featured in every report, not one showed the vandalism against the church, nor did anyone take a statement from those opposing the ban.
Every member of New Hope cast their vote early and then met at Alan's home to spend the day in prayer. Nobody was surprised that night when the polls closed and the bill was passed in all twenty-three states. That Sunday, if Alan preached another sermon on sin, he would be guilty of a hate crime.
"What are you going to do now, Alan?" somebody asked.
"I must obey God rather than man," Alan replied. "Let's keep praying."
And so that Sunday, Alan Richards once again walked past camped out reporters and angry protesters into a sanctuary filled with cameras and stood up behind his pulpit to do what many expected to be an act of civil disobedience.
"Dear Lord," he prayed as he approached the pulpit, "please give me the strength to say what You want me to say. Thy will be done."
The crowd fell silent with heavy anticipation when he took his place in the front of the church. A hundred flash bulbs lit up as he opened his Bible. He cleared his throat, adjusted his microphone, and began:
"Good morning, everybody."

Darkness

2005-10-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

I wander through this void, the darkness of my own soul, searching, looking, feeling around for something to grab onto, anything to hold. There is nothing. In the distance I hear someone weeping. It is my own cry. I try to find myself, to comfort myself, but the cry is far too distant and this world is far too dark. I am lost in my own darkness.
I see a light before me, like the sun shining through, and I run towards it. It is forever out of reach and by the time I get to where I thought it was, it has vanished.
The cry, my cry, echoes off of unseen walls. I spend what seems like an eternity searching for the source of my pain until I realize that the darkness hindering my search is the very source of my despair.
In the dark, something grabs me. I feel it pulling me down. Claws tear at me, fists punch me, feet kick me, and my painful screams only echo across the chasm. I try to fight back, to free myself, but my futile attempts only seem to intensify my torture.
"What have I done to deserve this?" I cry out, although something tells me that I deserve far worse.
The only response I get is laughter. Thousands of voices, hideous, demonic, laughing as I am left to die in my own wicked heart.
I try to stand, but cannot. I crawl on my belly across what feels like broken glass and nails. Every moment is an eternity, every movement brings more pain.
I go on like this for minutes, hours, years, centuries- I don't know. The only thing that I do know is that when I can finally stand and walk again I can no longer remember if I have ever done so before. My whole existence, and every memory, is the pain.
Yet, in the distance, I see the light again, so far away, yet seeming so close. I hurry towards it as fast as my aching body and dark soul will permit, but with every step I get farther and farther away.
Now, my physical pain has left me, but my emotional agony is greater. The crying in the distance is closer, louder, and more intense. It comes nearer to me every second until it reaches me. I am covered with my own misery. My own tears overtake me and I begin to weep.
It's long before this dark place is flooded with my very tears. I am drowning. The salty sorrow that engulfs me pulls me down and will not release me. I try to scream, but the echoes just mock me.
I try to stay afloat, to keep my head above the flood, but all the emptiness I had collected weighs me down.
"Oh my God!" I scream. "What have I become?"
I sink.
I hit bottom.
I give up.
I decide to lay there until I drown to death in the darkness. Death would be a release. I have no idea how deep the flood of tears is, but it covers me and it would take all of my strength to reach the surface.
Just as my life is about to leave me, I see the light again, distorted and dimmed by my tears, yet never brighter, never so clear. I push myself off the bottom and swim as hard as I can to try to reach the surface of the flood.
It takes forever, but my entire mind, heart, and strength are focused on that beautiful light.
I am not strong enough to get out of the sea of tears. I realize that no matter how hard I push myself, my efforts will be in vain. I will never reach the surface, never know the light, and never be free from this horrible place that is my own dark soul. In desperation, I stop trying; merely holding my fingers out towards the light that is forever just beyond my reach, as if by reaching towards the light in my dying moment, I may somehow enter into it.
Then a hand reaches into the water and grasps mine. Before it closes around my fingers I see that this hand is torn and wounded. Somehow I know that I caused that wound. The hand pulls me up. When I come out of the salty water gasping for breath, I simply stare up into the brightness.
The Man who has pulled me out speaks to me with a voice so beautiful, so indescribably kind and full of love and compassion. The sound of this voice instantly dries the tears that had soaked me. It fills me with hope, with faith, with a sense of freedom, and the four little words He speaks put an end to all of my sufferings.
"Come home, my child."

Author's Note

2005-10-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

I do not know what this is. I don't know whether to call it an essay, a story, or even some sort of poem. It's probably some combination of the three. I found a rough draft of this in a box in the back of my closet and thought that it would do well on the site. Hope you enjoyed it. Let me know.
There are more stories coming soon. Keep checking.
God Bless,
Arthur B Roberts

Authur's Note

2005-08-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

I hope that the point of the following story is clear. The Bible teaches us that anyone in Christ is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) that our old man was crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6) and that temptation comes from within ourselves (James 1:14). Many times our old natures re-emerge and though we know that the things we used to do were wrong and we hated them, part of us longs to do them again. Romans 6:16 say that we are slaves to whom we present ourselves as slave to obey, whether to sin or to righteousness. As Keith says in the sotry, once we are in Christ and freed from our past selves, the only power sin has over us it the power we give it.
But praise God, that through Christ, He has reddemed us from our own sinful nature and the power we give to both our old temptations and to our enemy who tempts us according to our own weakness. We don't have to be slaves to sin any longer. Keith represents us all in our own personal struggles with sin. Some sims hurt others, some only hurt ourselves, but all seperate us from Go. Whatever sin you find yoursleves struggling with, remember that even though the old man comes climbing out of his bgrave to reclaim his grasp on your soul every once in a while, our Deliverer, Jesus Christ, is always there to save us when we call on him.
God bless you, and thanks for reading.
Arthur B. Roberts

The Old Man

2005-08-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

“No, no,” Keith told himself. “No, I didn’t see him. He’s dead. That old man is dead!”
He didn’t want to believe that he’d seen the old man. It wasn’t possible. That evil, vile, horrible , sadistic old monster was dead and buried. No matter what the hold man had made Keith do in the past. Things so terrible it made him shudder to even think of them. He had no power over him now. There was no way that is was the old man he’d seen. Dead men couldn’t come back.
“But what if it was the old man?” Keith asked himself.
The mere though of that sent chills down his spine and he broke into a cold sweat. It had been so difficult to get rid of him in the first place. He found that fighting him was impossible, and in the end he had to call in help from a man he now considered his Deliverer. The fight wasn’t easy. There were times when Keith was sure he wouldn’t make it out alive. The old man was a lot stronger than he looked, and having been torturing and controlling Keith for his entire life, the old man knew his every weakness. Finally Keith called out “Save Me!” and the house was filled with a light brighter than the sun and he closed his eyes against its terrible beauty. When he opened them he saw the Deliverer, still glowing, thought the light had dimmed to a bearable intensity, standing over the body of the old man. They buried him together. The Deliverer told him that he was free from the old man’s control and to call on him if Keith ever needed help again.
Thinking back on the power that it took to finally defeat him, Keith thought that if the old man came back, even from the grave, the no power in heaven or earth could rid him of his evil. Although he told himself that it was impossible, part of him was convinced that he had indeed seen the old man. He was horrified by the thought, and equally horrified by the other feeling that had worked up inside of him when he though he’d glimpsed his old master. As much as he feared and hated and feared the monster, and loathed who he was while under his control, Keith loved him as well. Some sick part of him wanted him back.
He had spend nearly a week relishing his new freedom. There were times he found himself beginning to do some of the old man had required of him in the past, but with a sort of jubilation he realized that he was no longer a slave and he didn’t have to do…those things.
That week of freedom, that jubilation, ended when on his way home he passed somebody that looked just the monster. He was sitting on a park bench smiling that sadistic grin that meant he had just had the most terrifically evil idea and was about to Keith to work. Keith almost walked right pas him, barely noticing the old man, but then he realized who it was on that bench, or at least who he looked like. Keith couldn’t be sure because when he looked back, the bench was empty.
His skin breaking out in goose bumps, a sensation that brought up all of the memories and filled him with desperate fear and a sickening exhilaration, he stepped up his pace. He had to get home. He felt that he would be safe there. Even though it was inside that house that the old man had held him captive, it was also in that house that the old man had been killed and he was buried in the back yard. Keith had to see that grave. Then he would know.
On his way back to the house he though he saw the old man again, riding a bicycle on the other side of the street, grinning wickedly. Again when Keith tried to take a close look, he was gone. After that, he thought he could see the monster everywhere - behind every corner, in every shadow, and somehow, every person he saw smiling seemed to be smiling his old master’s evil sneer.
Finally, he saw his house in the distance and began running towards it. As soon as he started to run, he was sure that the old man was running behind him and he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to make it home. He didn’t want to look back for fear that it would slow him down, or that he would see the monster and freeze in his tracks. He just knew that the second he reached the front door of the house he’d feel that old boney hand grip his shoulder from behind.
No one grabbed him when he reached the door, or during the agonizingly long seconds it took him to retrieve his keys from his pocket and open it. He slammed the door behind him, locked it and ran to his bedroom which had a window to the back yard. Even in the dim twilight he could see the grave site under the large oak tree in the back of the yard. To him immense relief, the ground about the old man’s body was undisturbed.
“He’s dead” Keith said. “He’s dead! He’s still dead!”
The terror began to subside as he turned away from the window. The old man was still in the ground. Keith was still free. Mentally scolding himself for getting so scared, Keith went to the bathroom. The fright of the last hour had made such a visit very necessary. Afterwards, while he was washing his hands, he glance up at the mirror and immediately the terror, and its accompanying joy was back. There could be no question. The old man was there. In the reflection staring back at him, and he was grinning.
Keith spun around, screaming, be he was alone in the bathroom. The old man wasn’t there.
“Where are you?” Keith asked slowly. “I know you’re here somewhere!”
There was no answer but that familiar, chilling laugh and it seemed to come from everywhere. Keith looked around the bathroom finding nothing. He moved to the bedroom, checking the closet, under the bed, even crazily opening his dresser drawers, but he still couldn’t find the source of that continuing hideous laugh. Before leaving the bedroom to check the rest of the house, he looked out the window again to check the grave site. It was still unmoved.
The laughter continued as Keith searched the house, checking every possible hiding place and a few impossible ones. He found nothing. Fianllay after tearing apart his entire home, he fell to the floor in a fet of terrified sobs.
“Where are you?” he screamed.
“I’m right here, Keith.”
He heart that old, raspy, spine chilling voice say.
He looked up and saw the monster standing right in front of him in all his horrendous glory. He looked bigger, stronger, more evil and more beautiful than he had before. His skin was wrinkled, his eyes piercingly black, his hair whiter than snow, and his grin widened, his yellow and rotted teeth taking up nearly half his face. He smelled of the earth he’d been buried in.
“No!” Keith yelled. “No, God, Please!”
“I’ve always been here,” the monster chuckled. “You can’t get rid of me so easily.”
“You’re dead!” Keith cried. “You’re dead.”
“Do I look dead, Keith?” The monster crouched down and with his skeleton hand he grabbed Keith’s face underneath his chin and tilted his face upwards. Looking the monster in the face, Keith was overwhelmed with fear, loathing, and longing. He wanted to kill him, run from him and embrace him at the same time.
“You though you were free! You though you had killed me didn’t you? You fool! You can’t kill me. I’m part of you!”
“I hate you!” Keith spat.
“You love me!” the old man spat back.
Keith was silent. Under the terrible gaze of this old monster, Keith couldn’t say a word. The old man was right. Keith loved him. He couldn’t deny the love any more than he could deny the fear. The words of the Deliverer came back to him.
“If you ever need me again, all you have to do is call on me and I will be there.”
Keith knew he should call him and he wanted to call him. But his sick love for this horror of a person kept him from doing so.
“Stand up Keith,” the monster ordered. Keith did.
“We’ve got some catching up to do.”
“No,” Keith whispered. “Please, no.”
“We had some good times together my friend. Such fun, No? What do you say we pick up where we left off?”
“I don’t want-”
“Oh, but you do Keith. You know you do.”
“Why aren’t you dead?” Keith asked.
The old man laughed and once again that hideous sound filled the whole house.
“Because you don’t want me to be dead.” He said. “You wanted me back, and here I am.”
A line from a song Keith had once heard came to his mind.
“How can I be free from a prison I love”
How could Keith ever be free from his cruel master if a good part of him longed for his presence. He could call for the Deliverer, and the monster could be killed again, but how long would it be before Keith’s own desire for the old man would bring him back again? What was the point of freedom if he’d rather be imprisoned.
“Come Keith,” the old man said, moving towards the window. “Let’s get started.”
“No!” Keith said, but even as he said this he was moving to join the monster.
“Remember the old feeling Keith?” the old man said. “Remember the power! You were in control!”
“No, You were in control.” Keith countered.
“we were.” The old man looked out the window, looking for somebody on the street. Keith know that look. The blood lust was in the old man’s eyes and Keith felt the old sickening excitement building up within him.
“I want to hurt somebody!” The monster hissed, and Keith realized that he had said it too.
A many walked by the house. The monster’s eyes lit up.
“What about him?” Then an old woman came from the oppisite direction. “Or her? She’d be fun, huh?”
“No” Keith said quietly, “No, no, no.”
“Yes, Keith.” the monster replied coolly.
“I don’t have to do this.”
“Oh but you do.” the monster hissed. “You called for me. You wanted this. Now as always, you are mine, My slave.”
“I am no man’s slave!” Keith yelled, and he tore himself from the window.
“Get back here!”
“No!” Keith cried. “No! I don’t want to! I don’t want to hurt anybody any more. I want nothing to do with you!”
“You have no choice.”
“You have no power over me!” Keith shot back. “You’re dead!”
“I’m not dead.” the monster replied. “As long as you live, I live you. I am you Keith.”
“Not anymore!”
“You love me!” The monster seemed to be accusing and pelading at the same time.
“Yes,” Keith admitted. “But I hate you more!”
The monster lunged at him, but Keith was unphased. He knew now what he needed to do Despite his love for this monstrous beast, Keith had to be rid of him. He never wanted to be that man again. The monster was him, but that monster had been killed, and Keith was not the same man. While by his won power he couldn’t rid himself of the old man, there was on whose poser was unmatchable.
With a triumphant smile on this face Keith cried out “Savme me!”
Once again the house was filled with bright light. Keith shielded his eyes and fell to the floor. When he opened his eyes again he saw the Delivereer standing over the monster. He was dead again.
The Deliverer turned to Keith and extended his hand to him. Keith took it and was helped to his feet. He embraced the Deliverer, weeping. While part of him had loved the monster, all of him loved this man. He felt safe in those arms.
“Thank you.” Keith said. “thank you for saving me!”
“You know I’m always here.”
“Should we bury him again?” Keith asked. But when he looked to where the body had been he saw nothing.
“He’s gone Keith,” the Deliverer told him. “He has no more poser over you.”
“Except the power I give him” Keith said. The Deliverer nodded.
“Will he be back?”
“Probably” the Deliverer replied. “But though he may come back to hanut you from time to time, remember that I and always here. He can’t defeat me, and if I’m on you wide, he can’t touch you.”

Trust

2005-08-08T15:54:00.000-07:00

I've never had to trust you more
'cause right now you're truly all I have and need
I've never felt more free inside
Even when I have chains on my hands and feet

I need you now. You're with me in my tribulations
You hold my hand and carry me through my purification
So one day I'll stand before your throne, spotless and pure
now I am free, in my salvation I rest secure

I've never felt more free inside
Even though I have chains on my hands and feet
and I've never trusted you more.

Prose into Poetry

2005-08-06T05:03:00.000-07:00

another story "civil disobedience" is on the way...
but while it's being edited and typed
here is one of my poems from the cell

I am the least of all God's people
The lowest of the low, the scum and the dross
My darkness has come to the light
All my gain, all my righteousness is now counted loss
Hated and Despised because of sin
Less than the least of all God's people - so stained
Living proof of the power of grace
Living sacrifice to the God that took my shame

I will speak of what my God has done
This grace has been given me
To speak of His unsearchable riches
By which He has forgiven me

Before I used to love to boast
I wanted everybody to look at me
I though that I was doing so good.
My good self was on display for all to see
But since my pride wanted me on display
"Everybody look Where I'm At!"
I wanted everyone to look at me
So God showed them what they'd be looking at

Still I will speak of what my God has done
This grace has been given me
To speak of His unsearchable riches
By which He has forgiven me.

The Enforcers

2005-07-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

There was a bang at the door.
“Oh no,” someone said, “Oh God, no!”
This was a prayer, and on that could put the supplicator’s life on the line if it was overheard by the wrong people. But that didn’t matter anymore. This wasn’t the knock of a friend.
“Open this door!”
The cabin had been discovered. Their group had been exposed. And the life of every person in the place was in grave danger. They didn’t have to see the men at the door to know that they wore the black uniform of the Enforcers and that their wrists or foreheads were adorned with the Mark. They would have clubs and shackles and guns and before this confrontation was over, there would be blood.
“Answer the door.” Stephan Markham said. “Play it cool. We’re just sitting down to dinner right?”
That was true enough. Stephen, his wife Julie, and his daughter, Meghan, Krissy, and Lorren were just sitting down to dinner. The small group of “fanatics” and “dissidents” in their back room had been preparing to dine as well, after an illegal prayer. At the knock, two of the refugees came out into the front room, Jacob Stein and Maria Chavez, a hundred something year old Messianic Jew, and a middle aged Catholic who had laid aside their differences when the God to whom they both prayed was outlawed. Ten more people were huddled in the back room including Jacobs great grand children (his only remaining relatives) and Maria’s elderly mother Anna.
“Is it?” Jacob asked.
“The Enforcers,” Stephen confirmed. “You know what to do. I’ll try and stall them. But…”
“I understand,” Jacob said, and more than any of them, He did. He’d been through this before. When the Mark was a swastika and the target Jews.
“Let’s go.” He said to Maria. He ushered the frightened woman back to Stephen’s den. There a dresser would be pulled aside, revealing a small dark tunnel to a hidden cellar where Jacob, Maria, and their companions would wait out this storm. Stephen’s eldest daughter, Meghan followed them. She would push the dresser back in place.
Lauren stood at the door, her hand on the lock, looking warily at her father. It would take at least a minute for the Christians to get safely to the cellar. Hopefully, he could buy them enough time.
The knocking again. Louder and more insistent.
“Daddy?” the frightened ten year old asked.
“Go ahead honey.” He said, “It will be ok.”
Lauren unlocked the door and opened it. A cold wind and a flurry of snow invaded the home moments before the massive uniformed men did. Lauren quickly stepped aside. If she hadn’t, she would have been knocked to the floor. Stephen went to the door and she hurried to him and clung to him.
“What’s going on here?” he asked. He put enough force into his voice to let the intruders know he wasn’t going to be intimidated, but not so much to to sound defiant.
“Are you Stephen Markham?” There were four of them. The man who spoke was the largest and he wore a gold charm on his collar. He was a sergeant and the ranking officer on the scene.
“I am” Stephen said.
“Pastor Stephen Markham?”
“It’s been a long time,” Stephen said, “since I’ve gone by that title.”
“We need to search your home.”
Not too many years ago, Stephen could have asked to see a warrant, invoked his rights as an American citizen, actually forced these men to leave. But times had changed. America as he had known it was no more. These men could beat him to death in front of his wife and daughters and the only consequence would be an extra page or two of paper work. He oculd only hope to stall them while the Christian refugees made it to the safety of the hidden cellar.
“What’s this about officer?”
“We have reason to believe you are hiding dissidents on this property.”
“Dissidents?”
“Christians!” another of the Enforcers added with disgust.
“That’s ridiculous sir,” Stephen said. “I am a loyal citizen. I have the Mark!”
Stephen raised his right hand to show the Enforcers the zigzag scar which was the visible evidence of the chip implanted into every loyal citizen. Most Christians had recognized this chip as the Mark of the Beast, and the Chancellor as the Anti Christ. Publicly, Stephen and his family had renounced their faith and Stephen’s ten year career as a pastor had ended. But their scars were all forgeries and Stephen had been working to shelter and transport Christians ever since, even before the Chancellor had proclaimed every Christian to be a terrorist and began rounding them up, imprisoning them and in many cases killing them.
“Look, Pastor Markham,” the Sergeant sneered, “ You can either let us do our job here, or I’ll have you arrested for obstruction of justice. You wouldn’t want you little girls to see you dragged off would you?”
“Daddy?” Lauren whispered, gripping her father’s hand protectively.
Don’t worry honey.” Stephen told her. “I’ll be fine”.
He stood ramrod, looked the lead Enforcer right in his dark angry eyes, and hoping he’d bought the refugees enough time, said, “Go ahead and search. I have nothing to hide.”
“Thank you,” the man replied. “Your cooperation will be noted.”
Stephen and Lauren stepped back and were joined by Julie and Krissy. The four of them huddled in a corner while the Enforcers began their search. Carelessly tossing aside breakables, overturning furniture, checking under every rug and behind every wall hanging, they tore the Markham home apart.
“Oh Steve” Julie whispered. But she knew she would gladly sacrifice everything she owned to save the refugees.
“What do we do, Daddy?” twelve year old Krissy whispered.
“We pray, honey,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing else we can do.
The Enforcers finished with the three adjoining front rooms and split up into tow pairs, checking the bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets. If they continued working at the same rate, it would take them barely five minutes to reach Stephen’s den. Hopefully it would be enough time for the refugees.
Part Two:
Meghan was sitting alone in the den. Any sign of the refugees had gone down the tunnel with them. It took a while for Anna and Jacob, the eldest of the group, to get in and they were barely three feet down the tunnel when Meghan heard the sounds of the Enforcers search. She closed the hidden door, which was a near perfect match to the wall around it. And slid the dresser into place. When the Enforcers finally burst in she was sitting in her dad’s leather recliner with an open novel in her lap, looking as if they were interrupting her in her private reading time.
“What’s going on?” she asked. All four Enforcers were in the room and the fourteen-year-old was terrified though she tried not to show it.
“Who are you?” the sergeant demanded.
“Meghan Markham” she stammered.
“What are you doing here?”
“Just reading,” she answered.
“You’re not eating with you family?” one Enforcer asked.
“I’m on a diet.”
“There were five plates out there, Sarge” the Enforcer told his leader.
The sergeant rushed to the leather chair and roughly grabbed the girl. Practically lifting her off her feet, he glared into her frightened eyes.
“Where are they?” he demanded.
Meghan felt helpless and she almost pointed towards the dresser and the tunnel behind it. She would have done almost anything to get this gigantic brute away from her. Instead, she let out a loud scream, and called out, “Daddy!”
Stephen came charging into the den. All pretense of cooperation was gone in the face of a threat to his daughter.
“Get your dirty hands off of her!”
Without loosing his grip, the sergeant turned to Stephen and grinned.
“I think we found what we’re looking for men. Search the area. Every inch! And Pastor Markham, if you so much as utter another sound, I break your daughters arms.”
Stephen know that this was no idle threat. He had to bite his lip to keep from lashing out, and he stood helplessly by as the other three men began tearing the room apart. They overturned his couch and chairs, tore down his very expensive wall painting, and even smashed his television screen for good measure. Hearing Meghan’s cries, Julie and the other two girls rushed to the den. Stephen help up his hand to keep them from entering the room and interfering.
“Look Sam” one of the Enforcers said to another. He pointed to the floor by the dresser where there were small but noticeable scuff marks in the wood. It was clear that the dresser had been moved recently.
“Check it.” Sam said. The other man turned the dresser over, spilling its contents and then stopped short by the sight of nothing but wall behind it. Stephen prayed that they wouldn’t notice the slight variation in the wooden wall’s color and pattern.
“I don’t get it” the Enforcer said.
Sam was the man who had noticed the five plates on the dinner table. He had an eye for details and he didn’t miss much. While the other Enforcers were looking stupidly at the wall, he took out his bill club and smashed a hole in the hidden door. Stephen’s heart sank.
“There it is” Sam said, He reached into the hole he’d created and yanked the door open, revealing the tunnel behind it.
“Would you mind explaining that tunnel, Pastor Markham?” the sergeant said.
“Wine cellar,” Stephen replied, which was technically true.
Meghan let out a cry of pain as the sergeant squeezed her arms in his massive grip. Before Stephen could move to her rescue the sergeant threw the girl at him. He did his best to catch her but ended up merely breaking her fall as he fell to the floor himself.
“Take the Markhams to the van” the Sergeant ordered. “If this tunnel is what I think it is, they’ll soon be joined by a dozen more prisoners. Sam, You’re with me.”
All four Enforcers drew their weapons. Two escorted the Markham family out to a waiting transport shuttle where they were all cuffed and thrown in the back together. The sergant and Sam ventured into the tunnel.
Part Three
The twelve Christians hiding in the old wine cellar were praying intensely. Eleven of them were seated in a circle on the dirt floor with their heads bowed and Jacob stood at the tunnels entrance keeping watch. He heard muffled screams and angry shouts from above and knew that it was only a matter of time before the Enforcers came barging into the musty cellar with guns blazing. Then there would be nothing they could do.
“Lord,” he whispered, “it’s in Your hands now.”
He felt two little hands grab his and he looked down to see eight-year-old Micah and six-year-old Hannah, his great grandchildren. He had expected them to be more frightened than any of them, but they both looked peaceful and calm.
“Are they coming, Grandfather?” Micah asked.”
“I think so,” he said.
“Will we be okay?” asked Hannah.
“God will protect us,” Jacob said, more to himself than to the children.
“And He’ll be with us no matter what happens. Believe in that children.”
“Should we keep praying.?” Micah asked him.
“Yes, my child,” he said.
The children went back to the prayer circle. Jacob, also praying hard, resumed his vigil at the tunnels entrance. Suddenly, he was sure of two things: The Enforcers would find the secret passageway and somehow the people in his group would be unharmed. As soon as this assurance came to him he saw the sight he had been dreading: a light at the end of the tunnel.
“oh no!” Maria cried softly, making the sign of the Cross. “We’re trapped!”
“Have faith, Maria,” her elderly mother chided, “God is in control.”
Just as soon as Anna said this the flashlights of two armed Enforcers penetrated the tunnel. The collected dissidents all stood gasping and backing away from the entrance as the two emerged, flashlights in their left hand and pistols in their right. Only Jacob stayed where he was.
“Nobody move!” the sergeant bellowed. “You’re all under arrest!”
“Grandfather…” Hannah whined from behind them.
“Don’t worry child,” Jacob said. “Just believe.”
“Believe in what you old fool?” sneered the Enforcer. He raise his flashlight, preparing to bring it down on the old man’s head like a club.
The blow never came. The ground below them began to rumble, then shake and soon the Enforcers had been thrown to the ground while the refugees somehow maintained their footing. Jacob felt cold air blowing on his back and the stone and dirt wall behind the Christians crumbled into dust. He turned and stared in awe at the cloudy might sky behind his small flock.
“It’s a miracle!” he exclaimed. “Run children, run!”
“Don’t you go anywhere!” the sergeant yelled, making a futile attempt to stand. The children ran out through the new passageway into the snowy night. Jacob was the last to leave the cellar that had been their home for three months and as soon as he was out, two enormous trees collapsed over the opening blocking it off completely and the earth quake stopped. Thanking God, for their miraculous escape, the Christians went off into the thick forest behind the Markham’s cabin.
“What was that?” one of the Enforcers in the waiting van asked his partner. They had just finished securing the Markham family in the back of the transport shuttle and were ready to call in and report their status when the ground began shaking. The quake only lasted about fifteen seconds but it seemed a lot longer to the frightened men.
“Felt like an earthquake,” the other said. “Anyway, it’s over now.”
He looked back to the prisoner hold. “Our prisoners are still secure. Let’s call in.”
Stephen was leading his family in prayer. At least he was attempting to. Lauren couldn’t stop crying, Meghan was hyperventilating and holding her injured arms close to her. Julie was trying to comfort the girls and Krissy was staring out the window with a distant look on her face. Stephen had never before been so scared. Not so much for himself, but he was terrified of what would happen to his family. While Lauren would be shipped off to a government before school to be “reeducated” which Stephen hoped and prayed she was strong enough to resist. The other girls were passed the legal age of accountability, set at eleven by the Chancellor. Meghan and Krissy had both chosen to rebel against the government and they would be tried and sentenced as adults. The sentences often included torture, imprisonment, and all sorts of mistreatment at the hands of prison gurads who were about as above the law as the Enforcers. He would probably never again see his family this side of heaven.
Stephen was also watching the front door of the cabin. Any minute now the other two Enforcers would emerge, roughly herding the refugees towards the shuttle.
The back door of the shuttle was opened and the two who were guarding them poked their weapons in.
“Which one of you is Krissy Markham?” one asked.
“Leave her alone!” Julie yelled.
“Quiet!” the Enforcer barked. “We only want Krissy!”
“I’m Krissy.” the twelve-year-old said.
“Come on out, Miss Markham,” the Enforcer said.
“Where are you taking her?” Stephen demanded as Krissy moved towards the door.
“That’s not your concern!” the man replied.
Once Krissy was outside, Stephen shouted, “Answer me!”
“Okay, sir.” the Enforcer said, breaking into a grin. “We just received orders from H.Q. We’re releasing her.”
He unlocked Krissy’s handcuffs and then took his jacket off and put it on the girl.
“What?” Stephen asked. “Why?”
“Why don’t you tell him, Krissy?” the Enforcer said.
Krissy looked down in shame and mumbled, “Sorry Daddy.”
The Stephen knew. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Krissy had turned them in. She’d betrayed her family and the twelve refugees. The Enforcers slammed the door shut and Stephen was sure he’d never see his daughter again. He heard the officers tell her to go into the house and grab whatever she wanted to take with her to her new home.
“Where are they taking Krissy?” Lauren asked.
“I don’t know, honey.” Julie said.
“Why did they take her away?” Lauren pressed.
Because she’s a traitor!” Meghan told her. “That’s why. She turned us in!”
“Why would she do that?”
Stephen was about to say something, though he had no idea what, when he was interrupted by the frantic shouts of the Enforcer Sergeant as he and Sam came running towards the transport shuttle from the house.
“They got away!” the sergeant yelled.
“What?” asked the man who’d give Krissy his jacket.
“During the earthquake,” said the sergeant. “The cellar collapsed and they got away. We need to go after them. John, you’re with us. Mike, you stay with the Mrakhams and call for back up. This could take all night. Let’s go!”
Leaving the man without a jacket behind with the shuttle, the sergeant and the other two Enforcers hurried into the woods behind the cabin. The fourth, Mike, instructed Krissy to sit in the front of the shuttle while he got on the radio to call for back up.
“Daddy, what’s going on?” Meghan asked.
“I don’t know, Meg,” Stephen said, “but I think our prayers are being answered.”
The Enforcer was making his call:
“This is Officer Michael Warren. We’re at the Markham cabin and we need backup immediately. Please respond. Over”
There was no reply but static. Warren cursed loudly and tried again.
While he was making his second and third futile attempt, the four prisoners in the back saw something rapidly approaching the shuttle.
Mistaking the bright light for head lights, Stephen though that it was a vehicle, but it was soon evident that this was no car. The light was glowing off of an enormous man in a flaring white robe and a four foot long sword in his right hand. He was nearly eight feet tall and when he got close enough to the van to touch it, Stephen saw that his face reflected both terrifying ferociousness and unbelievable kindness.
“Who is that?” Lauren asked in awe. “He’s beautiful!”
The newcomer raised his sward and struck the back door of the shuttle. In a flash of light as bright as the sun, the door vaporized into nothing.
“Hurry” he said to the family. “The rest are waiting for you.”
The shackles on the Markhams wrists all broke off in an instant and they climbed out of the shuttle.
“Follow me.”
The gigantic man headed off towards the forest and Stephen, Julie, Meghan, and Lauren went after him. At the edge of the woods, just past the cabin, Stephen stopped and looked back at the shuttle. Warren was trying to contact somebody on the radio and Krissy was staring coldly at the now empty cabin. They gave no indication that they could see the Mrakhams and their supernatural rescuer.
“Stephen, you must hurry!” the rescuer urged.
“What about Krissy?” he asked. The others stopped and looked back as well. Their family was incomplete and they didn’t feel right running off into the night without their middle daughter, even if she had betrayed them.
“She made her own choice, Stephen,” the rescuer said. “There’s nothing you can do. We must hurry!”
“He’s right, Stephen,” Julie said, tears welling up in her eyes. “We need to go.”
Reluctantly, he turned away. The rescuer led the four of them through the forest. After a few minutes they heard angry shouts and frightened screams ahead of them. The rescuer stepped up his pace and the Markhams worked to keep up. Stephen was holding Lauren’s hand and he was practically dragging her as he ran. They emerged into a small clearing and a terrifying scene.
The three Enforcers who had gone after the refugees had found them. The sergeant was beating Jacob Stein with the butt of his pistol while the other two kept the rest of the group at bay with their drawn weapons. Lying next to Jacob was the lifeless and bloody body of his great granddaughter Hannah. Apparently, taking the prisoners alive was no long a priority. Anna was cradling a distraught Micah in her arms and the other refugees had looks of hopeless defeat on their faces.
“Oh Jesus, help us!” Maria cried.
In answer to her prayer, the rescuer swooped down into the clearing with his sword drawn and a mighty cry. The two flanking officers turned and fired at him, but their bullets hit nothing but trees and earth. With a swipe of his sword the guns in their hands were cut in two. He then turned towards the sergeant. The Enforcer turned his weapon on the rescuer and fired three shots that passed right through him, causing no damage. In turn, the rescuer impaled the man with his sword. While there was no physical wound (this was no physical weapon) the man fell dead at his feet. The other two Enforcers stood, unmoving, still holding their useless weapons and gazing at the scene.
Stephen ran into the clearing. He looked down at Jacob and Hannah and then at the man he now new to be an angel.
“Can you do something?” he asked.
The angel nodded. He touched the tip of his sword to Jacobs’ head and immediately the old man got up. Showing no sign he’d ever been struck by the sergeant. He looked to the body of his great granddaughter and let out an anguished wail. He knelt down and cradled the girl in his arms.
“Oh, my sweet Hannah!” he cried, “They’ve killed her!”
The angel placed his hand on the old man’s shoulder.
“She is not dead, Jacob. And her work is not done.”
Jacob looked up into the angel’s beautiful eyes. Then the angel touched the little girl with his sword and she was restored in the same way as Jacob.
“Now you must all go on from here.” the angel told them. I will be with you, though you will not see me. The Lord will protect you and guide you to safety.”
And with that, he vanished. After waiting a moment to let the shock of that evening sink in, the sixteen refugees went further into the woods, led by Jacob and Stephen. They went out on faith, knowing that God was in total control.
Enforcers Samuel Armeta and John Decker stood there for a long moment trying to process the strange things they had just seen. They could have easily followed the refugees, had they been able to move their frozen legs. Neither felt like speaking and neither wanted to go back and report what had happened.
Finally, Arneta spoke.
“What happened here John?”
“I don’t know.” Decker replied.
“You don’t think that there’s something to this whole God thing, do you?”
“I hope not.” Decker said, fingering the zigzag scar on his right hand.
“Because if there is, we have no hope.”

There is No Dragon Part 1

2005-06-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

"There’s one here, Zede," Jared said. "I can almost smell him. Zede sniffed the air. "All I smell is roasted mutton and sheep dung!" the dwarf said. "But if you say so…"
Jared and Zede looked down into the valley at the tiny village. It was dusk and the small houses, no more than wood and mud huts, were all closed up. The few windows they could see were lit with candle light and smoke came from the chimneys, but there wasn’t a soul out on the streets. That was a sure sign. There were no animals either. Even the sheep, whose dung Zede had commented on, were out of sight. Another sure sign. There was a monster of some sort in the village, or near the village, and the people who lived there were avoiding it at all costs.
"Shall we go down?" Zede asked. His hand was already on the hilt of his little sword and his eyes were blazing with blood lust.
"Not yet, my friend," Jared said. "I think there’s something wrong with this place."
"Besides the fact that there’s a monster?"
"I don’t know," Jared said. He stared down at the tiny village and it’s abandoned streets. If there was a monster or a dragon or some sort of demon terrorizing this place, why hadn’t Jared heard of it? He was a dragon slayer and monster killer after all. Famous throughout the kingdom, and if any city, town or village had a monster problem, Jared and his partner Zede were usually the first to be called. But he hadn’t even heard of this village.
They had come across the place by accident, while returning from a successful mission battling three trolls who had kidnapped the young daughter of a town’s mayor. A short cut through this valley had revealed the little village. Surely, if they did have a monster problem down there, word would have reached Jared.
And, in addition to smelling a monster, he also detected something else.
Jared couldn’t actually smell evil, even though many monsters, troll goblins, and dragons did have terrible odors. But he did have a sort of sixth sense, not really magic, but also not exactly normal, and he knew where he would find an evil force. He could also sense certain emotions in people. It was rare that he would sense anything more than fear in an evil-ridden area, and that inherent fear was so common in such situations that Jared barely noticed it anymore. But from this village, he sensed something worse than fear. He didn’t know what the feeling was, but there was something emanating from the people in the village that he never before encountered when dealing with an evil force. That something frightened him.
"Let’s wait here for the night," Jared told Zede. "We’ll watch the village. Maybe we’ll see something that will help us, and explain this strange feeling I have. We’ll go down at sunrise."
Zede looked disappointed. He had been ready for a night of dragon hunting or monster hunting. But, he’d been traveling and fighting with Jared for over ten years and he had learned to trust the man’s judgment
"If you say so. But since waiting here is your idea, you build the fire and set up camp." The dwarf pulled his bow from his back. "I’m going to find us something to eat. I’m starving!"
That night, while Zede snored away loudly (how did such a little man make such a large noise?), Jared watched the village. He had barely eaten, which hadn’t bothered Zede in the least since there was more rabbit meat for him! Jared was too distracted by what he felt coming from the village.
Four hours after the sun set, while their campfire was little more than glowing embers and his trusty companion was sleeping away his supper, Jared finally saw movement in the village. First, he heard the distant sound of a bell ringing. Then he heard what sounded like children crying. Then he saw the door of one of the houses open and a figure stepped out into the darkness. The children’s crying grew louder but it was muffled when the door closed again.
The figure was that of a man. He was carrying a lit torch and began walking in the direction of Jared and Zede. The village was about half a mile away from them, but Jared’s eyes were keen, and he could see the man’s determined, yet somehow reluctant stride towards the edge of the village. Had the villagers seen them camping out there and decided to brave the monster and send someone out to see who they were?
"Zede!" Jared called, "Wake up!"
Zede grunted, snored, and rolled over. Sighing Jared picked up a nearby rock and threw it at the dwarf. The rock bounced off his ample rear end and he sat straight up with a start.
"How dare you, you little goblin scum!" He shouted. "I’ll run you through!" "Be quiet, Zede," Jared said, with an amused sigh. This wasn’t the first time that he had awakened the dwarf. There was a reason he’d thrown the rock at him. Zede had grabbed his sword, which was lying a foot away from him and was swinging it wildly. If Jared had tried to wake him up within reach of that deadly little blade, he would have indeed been run through.
"What is it?" Zede asked, lowering his sword.
"Someone’s leaving the village. He may be coming to meet with us."
They watched the man as he walked down a path about a hundred feet past the edge of the village. He stopped there, held his about his head with both hands, and swung it in an arch three times.
"What’s he doing"" Zede Asked.
Before Jacob could answer, they heard a familiar sound. It was wings, large and reptilian, flapping in the night air. Then they saw a burst of yellow-orange light which illuminated a gigantic dragon who was circling the village a hundred feet in the air. The man waved his torch again.
"Well, I’ll be a fairy princess! Zede exclaimed, "He’s signaling the beast.
Jared felt like saying that that was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. The villager did appear to be signaling the dragon and the dragon turned towards the torch’s light. Dragons are unnaturally fast, and this one was huge. It opened its enormous mouth as it swooped down toward the man, and chomped him up in one bite. The man made no effort to escape. He had allowed the dragon to eat him.
"Did you see that? He fed himself to it! That’s unheard of!" Zede exclaimed. "I saw" Jared whispered, his unease about this place growing. "Something is terribly wrong here, Zede. Terribly wrong!"
The next morning, Jared the Dragon Slayer and his partner Zede the Ferocious walked down the valley into the village. In the light of the early morning, the village looked almost normal. As in every other village and town they went to, the two were greeted first by a crowd of curious children. This was a small village and this "crowd" consisted of no more than twenty boys and girls, most under 10 years of age and most towering over Zede by nearly a foot. Then came their apologetic, but equally curious parents who cautiously inspected the two travelers who were obviously warriors. Finally came the prominent people of the village, in this case four men, two elders who could have been twins, and two in their early forties.
All of it seemed normal enough on the surface, but Jared still felt strange. These people were hiding something and that weird feeling was stranger than ever. The entire population of the village, which looked like it numbered less than two hundred (though the village looked to be built for a thousand) was standing around watching as the four village leaders approached the visitors. The strange feeling was strongest from these four. Even Zede seemed to sense it.
"Who are you?" one of the old twins demanded. "What are you doing here?" this was a rather harsh greeting compared to what Jared and Zede were used to. Villages tended to welcome them, not interrogate them. Especially villages with a nearby killer dragon.
"I am Jared the Dragon Slayer, and this is Zede the Ferocious."
"Dragon slayers eh? We asked for no dragon slayers."
"You do not need to ask for our services," Jared explained, "My friend and I will dispatch your dragon this very day, at no charge to you."
"It’s what we do!" added Zede.
"We have no need of you here!" one of the younger men said. "Go you way!"
"But we say the dragon last night, we saw it kill a man!" said Jared.
"A vivid dream, friend, no more than that. There is no dragon here!"
"Are you daft man?" Zede asked the elder who had just spoken. "We know what we saw! We can kill it for you! We can save you!"
"Save us from what?" the other young man asked. "There is no dragon here!"
That feeling had grown even more intense. Jared looked to the villagers hoping to find support. Usually, people in their circumstances looked to welcomed them has saviors and heroes. Most of these people were looking at them as some sort of interlopers. No one seemed to want help with the problem that was so clearly there.
"Doesn’t’ any of you wish to be rid of that beast?" Jared asked them.
No one replied. Instead, starting with the older people, the villagers turned away from them as if they had lost interest. In a moment, every man, woman, and child, except for the four village leaders, had disappeared into the buildings from which they had come.
"You see," one of the elders told them, "Your services are neither wanted nor needed." Now, please leave our village."
"But we’ve never left a monster alive before!" Zede reminded Jared as they walked away from the village"
"We’ve never been turned away before," Jared replied.
"But there is a dragon!" Zede shouted. "We both saw it!"
"I know that, Zede," Jared said, "but they don’t seem to care."

There is No Dragon part 2

2005-06-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

They were about a hundred feet away from the village, very newr the spot where the man had fed himself to the monster the night before, when they saw two children standing in their way on the road. It was a boy about 12 years old and his younger sister. They seemed scared and even a little ashamed to be out there, but they looked at the two travelers as evil-ridden villagers should look at dragon slayers, with hope.
"There is a dragon," the boy said quietly, after a long moment.
"We know," Jared said.
"They don’t care," the little girl said, pointing at the village.
"They used to care, but they don’t any more. They used to try to fight him, but not anymore." The boy continued.
"Why not?" Zede asked.
" The Dragon would have killed us all, but the elders made a deal with hi8m. Whenever he comes down from the mountains, one of the villagers goes out to him and gets eaten. If he doesn’t get his meal, the dragon will burn the whole village and kill us all."
"That’s horrible!" Zede said. "Why don’t they want us to kill the dragon?"
"I told you," the boy said, beginning to sound desperate. "They don’t care. They’re used to him. They pretend he’s not there. Most of the people are scared, but they don’t think anything can be done."
"And, why have you come here?" Jared asked.
"Because we don’t want to be eaten," said the little girl. "Can you really kill it?"
"Yes, "Jared told him. Zede was grinning eagerly. "Show us to the dragon’s lair."
While the children took the dragon slayers to the cave that was the dragon’s lair, they told them all about the creature and the horrible arrangement that the villagers had made with him. The village had been built for a thousand, and as few as five years ago, there had been a thousand people there. Then the dragon came and in the first attacks, dozens were lost at a time. The boy, Edrickson, was only seven at the time, but he remembered it clearly. Some wanted to call for a dragon slayer right away, but most of the villagers to too proud to call for outside help and sent out their own men to kill it. A houndred men were lost before the elders somehow convinced the dragon to accept their deal. At first it was only sheep that were sacrificed. But the dragon tired of them after a few months, and demanded human flesh. No one wanted to agree to those gruesome demands, but after the dragon killed thirty more people and burned several buildings on the outskirts of the village, they accepted. They cast lots to decide who would go be the first, and have been casting lots ever since.
The dragon never announced his visits. At midnight, the chosen "sacrifice" emerged at the sound of the bell. He or she was required to signal the monster with the torch, and if the dragon happened to be hungry, as he was the night before, he ate. It used to be that only one villager would be taken per month. Then as the dragon grew larger and hungrier, once a week. Lately, the beast had grown so hungry that nearly every villager that went out was eaten. The man who had been the dragon’s meal last night was the father of these frightened children.
As they reached the cave’s entrance, Jared said to Zede, "I think I’ve finally figured out what I’ve been feeling from the village. It’s complacency. The villagers have accepted the dragon and their own death."
The cave was nothing unusual. As large, and foreboding , as any dragon’s lair. And it had the familiar smell of sulfur and burnt flesh. They suspected that this dragon would be, like most dragons are in the middle of the day, sleeping soundly. But it would surely smell their approach and wake up to face them, before too long. They had never lost a battle, but they had yet to fight an easy one.
Jared told Edricson and his sister to go back to the village and wait. If the two dragon slayers were successful, they would return to inform the villagers that, like it or not, their dreadful dragon was dead.
The mouth of the cave led to a long tunnel and the slayers went silently down into it. It was dark, but warm, and they could hear the beast ahead of them, breathing slowly in his sleep. Bones, both animal and human, lined the tunnels, as did bits and pieces of the dragon’s treasure, including gold, diamonds, and other precious jewels. It was not unusual for dragons to acquire a massive fortune.
Then they were in his chamber. The walls glowed red in the heat of the dragons breath and in the dull glow they could see the beast. He was the largest dragon that they had ever seen, probably because it was so well fed. His treasure was immense and once the dragon was killed, the treasure would belong to the towns people. That was the way of things with dragon’s treasure, a sort of compensation for the months and years of suffering that the monster caused. Usually, newly liberated villagers chose to pay the dragon slayers out of the riches they inherited, but Jared doubted that he and Zede would ever receive any of this treasure.
Zede drew his sword and Jared grabbed his large battle ax with a blade stained black with the blood of countless evil monsters. They split up and flanked the sleeping monster. Jared on the right and Zede on the left. They were poised to strike, when just as they expected, the dragon’s eyes, both over a foot in diameter, popped open. His head reared up and he roared in surprised rage.
"How dare ;you attack me? We have a deal!"
"I’m not from the village," Jared shouted , "You have no deal with me!"
He dove at the beast, driving his ax deep into it’s leg. Zede plunged his sword into the monster’s other leg. The dragon roared, spitting white fire, and swinging his spiked tail wildly.
"Many will die for this outrage!" the dragon roared.
"The only one who will die today is you!! Zede roared back, "you overgrown firefly!"
they continued their assault, knowing that their little weapons would do little more than enrage the dragon. In fact that was the plan. In this tight space, the dragon couldn’t get at them. He would have to leave his lair to get away from the painful pricks and nicks of the dragon slayers’ weapons. Then as they had done so many times before, Jared and Zede could deliver the death blow.
It took a little longer than usual, but the dragon did shoot down the tunnel and out into the air. Jared and Zede were right on his tail. When they emerged from the dragon’s lair, they saw him flying straight into the air, large and black and spitting fire furiously. Then as the dragons always did, he turned and flew back at them intending to fry them or eat them or both.
They were ready. In addition to the ax and the sword, Jared and Zede each had a bow and arrow. Their bows ere perfectly normal, but their arrows had been given to them by a good wizard and they had a power that no evil force could withstand. The wizard had recognized Jared’s gifts and Zede’s ferocity and gave them this special gift. If two of the arrows hit the dragon, one in each eye, the thing would die almost instantly no matter what its size. Knowing that with this dragon’s size, the magic arrows were their only chance at defeating him., they took aim.
They fired. Their aim was perfect and the arrows struck the dragon in both of his eyes. Ordinary arrow may have irritated him or even blinded him, but these arrows shot pure and white light into the beast, a light which flashed from his eyes, nostrils, mouth and every hole in his body caused by Jared’s and Zede’s weapons, and the dragon flailed violently for a moment and then fluttered to the mountain side with a kind of bizarre grace. It was dead.
From where they stood, triumphantly, Jared could see the village. With the dragon dead, the sense of evil was gone, but the complacency from the village remained. Jared had the feeling that they might not welcome the news of their liberation. He had a strange idea that some may even mourn the monster. He shook the unbelievable thought from his mind. It was time to deliver the good news, whether they wanted it or not.
"The dragon is dead!" Jared announced as he and Zede entered the village for the second time that day. This time nobody gathered around them. Only Edrikson and his sister were waiting and they were overjoyed. The other villagers, on the street, ignored the dragon slayers. One or two gave them an annoyed look.
"The dragon is dead!" he repeated more empathically.
This brought the four leaders out to meet them. Still only the two children were interested enough to take notice of the meeting.
"We told you, dragon slayer, there is no dragon."
You’re right about that," Zede said. "We killed him!"
"There never was a dragon!" the four leaders said in unison.
"Yes there was!" the young girl cried out. "There was, there was, there was! He killed my papa, he killed my mother. But now he’s dead, and we’re safe!"
"Quiet child!" one of the leaders scolded. "We don’t talk of such things."
"Like it or not sir," Jared said, " accept it or not, your dragon is dead. You know where his lair is. Go there and you will find his treasure. We have taken none of it. It is your to do with as you please."
"since there was no dragon, " the youngest of the leaders said, "there is no treasure. Now please go.
So these people wouldn’t admit that there was a dragon. They wouldn’t rejoice in their freedom. They wouldn’t even claim the treasure that was not rightfully theirs. Jared couldn’t believe these fools. He turned to face the two children who had so bravely come out to ask their help.
"You, at least are free," he told them. "and since they don’t seem to want any of it, the dragon’s treasure is yours as well. Enjoy it. Share it with any villager who chooses to acknowledge the dragon and its death"
The little girl hugged Jared and gave Zede a kiss on one hairy cheek. He blushed and looked away embarrassed. "Thank you" she whispered.
The two dragon slayers left the village, whose name they never cared to learn, and when they reached the road out of town they bent and wiped the dust of the village off of their boots.
In the end, the children could convince only 3 other people to go to the dragon’s lair and collect the treasure. They took as much of it as they could carry and left the village behind them forever. Although they left much of the massive treasure for any of the others who might want it, the story goes that no one ever came to claim the rest of it.

There is No Dragon Part 3

2005-06-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

That night, at midnight a bell rang, and a woman from the village stepped outside with a torch in her hand. She walked to the edge of the village to signal for the dragon, who would never eat another one of them. She waved the torch in the air and stood there for at least an hour. Waiting for the dragon that the village denied ever existed. Waiting for the dragon that was never going to come again. And then she waked back to the village relieved that this dragon that was and was not, hadn’t been hungry this night.
Two dragon slayers watched from the top of a nearby hill.
"What’s wrong with those people?" Zede asked.
"I don’t know," Jared answered. "It’s almost as if they’re afraid to be free!"
"Well, I’ll be a fairy princess!" Zede mumbled as they both turned and walked away.