Excerpt from my third book

Book 2 pictured.

April 20, 2015
Day 355

I shared another excerpt with you once before, on September 9th, but I want to share one more today.  This is a passage from my third book, the last in the trilogy I've been working on for several years now.  Hope you enjoy!

This is from the start of Chapter 15 of Book 3, and the whole chapter follows this format, moving back and forth from a scene in Heaven to a scene in Hell to a scene on Earth.

(Apologies for all formatting issues from my copy and paste.)

Heaven…

Jesus stared down at his letters, looking for his next move.  “Is ‘hufa’ a word?”  He looked at his friends for the answer, but none came. 

Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus were playing Scrabble, and Jesus was in last place.  He placed the tiles down carefully anyway, H-U-F-A.  “Seriously?” Moses asked.  Jesus looked at him with surprise and said, “What?  I think it’s a word.”  “We’re still using just English, right?” Mohammed asked.  “It is English,” Jesus said, “It’s a type of sea turtle.”  They stared at him, certain he was bluffing, and both wondering if they should take the risk.  “Whatever,” Moses finally said, looking away and marking down the score.  “You let him get away with too many like that,” Mohammed said.  “Do you want to challenge me?” Jesus asked.  They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Mohammed said, “No.”  Jesus smiled and reached for a few more tiles from the bag.

Moses was already leaning forward with his tiles, carefully placing the letters, “M-I-R-R-O-R” on the board.  “Do you think they’ll announce this soon then?” he asked them.  “Probably,” Mohammed said, “Especially because they’ll want to get this started now ahead of the holiday season.  It’s really the perfect time of year to encourage ecumenism.  What day is it?  Something like Mid-November on Earth?  They’ll want to act before the Rosh Hashanah.” 

Moses stopped what he was doing and looked over at him.  “Do you mean Hanukkah?”  Mohammed frowned.  “Which is the one where they eat the matzo?”  Moses looked over at Jesus a moment, and then back to Mohammed.  “That’s Passover.”  “I thought Passover was when they eat the hamantash.”  “No, no, no,” Moses said, shaking his head, “That’s Purim.”  Mohammed made a face.  “So what do they eat on Yom Kippur?”  Moses grunted and reached for replacement tiles.  “Nothing.”

Hell…

“Jarez, you’re trying my patience,” Sonoran said.  The two sat in huge chairs across from each other inside Sonoran’s private study, a large fire lighting the entire room from behind Sonoran.  Two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves flanked the impressive stone fireplace, and a chess board on a small, black-marble table waited patiently between them.   

“Why don’t you just go back to your little palace and leave me be?!  If you aren’t going to finally vow your allegiance to Lucifer, then what’s the point of you coming here at all?”  Jarez stared at his twin brother with dismay, but not yet dismissal.  He was still holding out hope, despite the absence of any good reason, and he refused to give up just yet.

“All I’m saying, brother, is you should come and spend some time with me.  You can stay in Heaven as long as you want, just so you can see firsthand the kind of good work we’re doing.  There are so many great changes coming to Earth.  Besides, you don’t even know if you’ll still be here next year, let alone next week.”

“Oh please,” Sonoran practically spat back, “I’ve heard that nightmare scenario threatened countless times.  What makes you think he’d actually go through with it?”  Jarez remained silent.  “Exactly as I thought,” Sonoran said, “Empty threats and silly daydreams.  The whole lot of you are living some kind of warped fairytale, and you’re long overdue to just wake up already.  Your move.”

Jarez let out a painful sigh, then leaned forward and stared for a long time at the chess board.  He knew there was no inherent good built into the game, no evil either, just an agreed-upon race to checkmate.  He spied his next move, along with Sonoran’s probable response, and then gently moved his rook forward.

The Planet In Between…

They sat around the large table praying in silence, each reflecting in their own way, with their own words and references, on the task at hand.  “This will be the last secret meeting we need to have,” Thomas had told them, “And before we do or say anything, let us just sit and pray quietly for a few minutes, asking God for the help we undoubtedly need to achieve this monumental task.”

After about 5 minutes passed like this, and they were all clearly ready to continue, Pope Thomas began the meeting.  “My sisters and brothers, we are all one family, all of us children of our one God.  We have long histories behind us, some of them very different from the person to our left or right, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a shared future together.”  Applause met his words, and Thomas smiled to feel the enthusiasm in the room.  “As you know,” he continued, “I’ve said from the beginning that we cannot do this unless each of us is willing to give something up.  If we’re to truly honor this calling, this shared path we’re about to embark upon, we need to release our titles and attachments, at least to one another.  We need to relinquish our albs and our rings, our stations and our ministries.”   

He paused and looked around at all of them.  “What we do next will only succeed if it’s preceded first by a profound undoing of all circumstantial ego about our past work.  We cannot hope to be filled up with a new work and a new ministry until we first empty ourselves of the attachments to our upbringing.  None of this means our separate faith traditions will be lost or completely dismissed, only that a new faith, based on our new shared truths, will be the basis of our new worldwide community.”