Christian Clarity Review

Homam:

Trading in the gold had relieved him of its weight; cut him off from the rules of gold. It has cut him off from all those still goverened by those rules.

He smiles. The creeping roots of evil has nothing to attach itself to in him now. He is rich in dumping what they call wealth. They pay him for having done it.

He is humbler and yet stronger in his freedom. Homam has pulled it off: he has made both of them free and humble. Not only are they free from the rules of gold, but the rules of the heart that leads the others to destruction.

The gold and the hearts of men can not touch them. They will be okay.

He has established a charity. They are an NGO. He has the papers to prove it.

He smiles as he thinks of it: he will pay them in paper, in buildings of tin, clay, mud and concrete, in electricity; food; in water supply and political independence to keep them away. He will use their own rules and their own hearts to be safe from them with the money of their pride.

The normal is not what you think it is even though you have been told it is whatever you make it.

He had heard the thought before: As a small hope late at night with her sleeping beside him after the day’s work was done. Walking ..somewhere. As a fear having a quiet smoke while thinking of the mayor’s son and the look on his face.

But he has always wanted to see what the French had made of their normal. They are well known for something. Everyone talks about them as if they know what it is. And yet no one ever says it plainly. Perhaps they are free too. Perhaps they are humble.

—-

The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Dhaka had been uneventful.

The attendant hadn’t wanted him to open his laptop until after they were in the air. He had been eager to show her where they were going.

His wife had held his hand tightly on takeoff. It was her first flight.

Later he had pointed out to her where they had been and where they were going on the digital map, tracing the flight path from home to Bangladesh and from Dhaka to Islamabad; then pointing to France.

But they are still on the ground in Dhaka.

He shows her the plastic and tells her how to use it; gives her a card with no limit.

He wonders sometimes what will be left to say if she knows everything he does. He watches himself dole it out: the knowledge, little by little; staying just ahead.

She needs me.To hide it and reveal it here and there.They all need me.

The English speakers are all around him. Whatever they are saying, he knows it is all the same. They all follow the rules of gold and hearts.

——————–

Henry

The Misson:

Henry looks across the counter at the faces in line.

The woman in front of him passes by with glazed eyes; her head forward on the next item under the glass. Others come behind her with nods in silent thank-yous to each server. Some look at him defiantly in furious, furtive glances. Others walk by in hunched-over dazes, barely able to hold the tray.

He dishes out the peach cobbler in large spoonfuls until a woman carrying more cobbler from the kitchen stops him.

“Everybody wants to be generous the first time. But we only have enough for a hundred and fifty. The weather turned cold on us last night. That means we’ll be getting more in than usual. We only have what we have. Give ‘em desert, not a meal in itself, honey.”

Henry nods and carves out more conservative portions. He is relieved after half an hour. He and Tom eat their meal in Tom’s office.

He mentions his mistake.

Tom nods: They keep telling me I need to convert to a packaged meal system–more efficent, less dishes to wash afterwards, requires a smaller staff, food doesn’t have to be cooked here, all the portions are the same size so the food goes further. Just haven’t gotten to it yet. Can’t really say I like the idea.

Henry: Why not? Save money.

Tom: Less personal, I guess. I want maximum contact between people, not some self-serve kind of thing. Maybe God will give me a better way.

Henry: ” I thought about what you said. That can’t really be true, you know.” He eats a bite of peas and immediately reaches for the salt.

Tom: Because to the world it is catastrophe?

Henry nods as he shakes out the salt: Okay—yeah. I mean you could never be sure you knew anything real.You have to have a minimum amount of certainty to live on.

Tom: Yes, you are.

Henry watches Tom talk and eat. He is easy with it. Wipe the gravy with the bread and say “There’s a fasade of many minds in the world agreeing as to what reality is when in truth they are in only one—the anti-Christ and they only speak him.” Stuff it in your mouth, chew and say “The only proof is knowing you’ve been born again in Christ.”

Henry carefully sips his tea. Tom doesn’t even realize the impact of what he said. He is just speaking and eating.

Putting down his mug, he grabs Tom’s wrist in the middle of the roast-beef-on-the-fork.

Henry: Do you hear yourself? Your saying things that are..awful—terrible.

Tom: I’ve already had my catastrophe. You saw it—you were there.

Henry lets go of his arm.

Tom: God doesn’t care what it does to you—the effect of you not getting what you were taught to want. He set that up on purpose. You’re going to run along behind his chariot pulled by a rope. When you can’t run you’re gonna get dragged. That’s what it’s going to feel like to the old heart. But in truth, he is running through you and is carryng you all the while. And when you know that, you can’t pretend as if something terrible is going on. But yeah, you are in complete divorce from the world. You know what God says about that? “If it be wonderful in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be wonderful in mine eyes?”

“God doesn’t do incredulity. There will be something good and wonderful later on after all this, “ Tom waves one hands around and swallows the roast beef. “But for now..for now I just stumble on and eat what is set in front of me. So do you.”

Henry: I can see that. But I need joy, Tom. As stupid as it sounds its true. Down the road it’s going to be the joy or my job.

Tom: No. It’ll be the joy or your life. You don’t see what anti-Christ is doing.

Henry: What is it?
Tom: Joy to me is contentment. I have contentment in short episodes. Jesus Christ is joy.

Henry: That’s the year book answer. But the mere ideal of it is not enough.

Tom: That’s the truth even if it is faith speaking. Joy as its own thing, as a kind of ultimate ideal of emotion and laughter together at the same time—that’s a stranger to me. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but God says that even in laughter the heart is sorrowful. So laughter seems to be a kind of extra that’s not emotion. I don’t think forcing laughter per se is the way to go.

Henry: Then I’ve wasted my time here.

Tom: No. Now when you go to all the other supposed religions, when in truth they are just emotional management systems and they offer some weird brew of emotions and call it joy, you’ll know better. Because all this world has is just the next emotional algorithm masquerading as the ultimate. But its numbers are liars.

Henry finishes his cobbler off with one bite as bravado.

“An emotional management system is not what you need, even through that’s exactly what you think you need. You’re going to have to walk in the desert with Christ. Maybe he will give you this thing, this experience with him coupled with laughter. Maybe he won’t. I don’t know.” Tom chews quickly and swallows. “But I do know this: there is no method. You’re not going to be able to make it a system that you can reproduce on command.”

Henry: Why not?

“Because language is alive and has a will of its own.” Tom pours himself more coffee. “That’s the thing with God really existing. He does what he wants and that’s it.”

The girl comes in, moves Tom’s plate and coffee over and lays some papers on the desk. She smiles apologetically at Henry as she speaks to Tom. “Signatures.”

Tom brushes his fingers off and picks up a pen. She points to the first. He signs. She pulls it away and points to the second.

Henry watches as he chews. As the girl leaves, he says, “What does it want with the artifact?”

Tom: I prayed about that: Moses before Pharaoh’s wise men. They could do wonders that at first seemed to match God through Moses. It seemed to match God literal event for literal event. That beast can make men who don’t know the difference, who don’t know there are two speaks in total reality, marvel. But if you can’t actually create with speech, what’s the next best thing?

Henry: Controlling what’s already there.

Tom: Exactly. That beast can say things through another human being –and in your own mind, that will make the heart of the flesh move one way or another and you can’t stop it. In fact, outside of the grace of God you’ll commit suicide in the absence of such movement and think life isn’t worth living without it. It’s technology versus actual creation.” Tom points at Henry. “That is a method but a vanity. The ultimate technology is to control everything that’s already created to include hearts and souls by spirit—by words. Voice activated everything. That beast is the special word for every circumstance to do just that and is searching to do as it wants forever with no restraint.

Henry: Spiritual technology?

Tom: A good way to put it. Another would be evil. Wickedness. Non-creation consuming what it did not create.

Henry: Is joyful laughter a word? Something that voice activates..

Tom: The artifact? It could be, must be if it exists. But like I said, it’s a stranger to me. Laughter I only know as ..well, I don’t really know what it is. But I don’t see where they necessarily go together. To search explicitly for joyful laughter seems to imply a kind of emotional episode, an apex of some sort rather than the on-going way of eternal life in the person of Jesus Christ. It’s very earth-now centric. Which basically means demonic of some sort. I’m not saying it isn’t real, but it sounds more demonic than of Christ. That or Satan using something he doesn’t understand himself to power his own agenda. Wouldn’t be the first time he tried.

“Like what?” Henry looks out the window as a van pulls in down the street and parks. He waits in silence as the people walk by. The light turns green and then red again. The van doesn’t move. No one gets out.

Tom: What do you mean like what? We use water to make hydroelectric power. But do we really understand what water is?

Henry: Of course we do.

Tom: No we don’t. Saying we do is like saying we know what the lilies of the field are because they have a name in the speech of the world. They talk about cells, leaf shape, bloosoms and green and photosynthesis, root systems and nutrients and think to have described the lily. But God says that’s just the lily’s clothes.

Henry: I need something simple.

Tom: Everything is just there, wherever God put it and we use it as he does it through us. And yet we hardly ever perceive it is him in us doing it. The other speech thinks in the mind of the flesh that we do what we do as we are able, like we get units of power from God and we do with them as we want. Satan just wants to use laughter like he thinks we use water.

Henry sighs. Tom is Tom.

Tom looks out the window, searching for what Henry sees. “It was activated by real joy—I think. But that joy is only in Christ and the purpose of the artifact seems to be otherwise. The beast will seek a method of duplication because it is genuinely deceived such duplication is the real thing. But it will look for a Christian, someone who has actually tasted the Holy Spirit to do it—to get the original laugh from.”

Henry: How do you know that?

Tom: Past experience. The Jews were taken to Babylon. The first thing the king of Babylon did was to take those of the Jews who had the Word of God dwelling in them and forcibly teach them the so-called sacred hieroglyphics so that they would push that beast as far as God’s wisdom in them could go. He tried to mix God’s word in them with his own to give his own more power.

Henry: Where did it come from?

Tom: God created it.

Henry: God created this speech—this beast?

Tom: Yes. Anti-Christ

Henry: Why?

Tom: I don’t know. Do you have to know to trust Him? There is always going to be something new. But I see that and I fear him. He created something that is the alien of himself. That means unlimited power and unrestrained use of it. This artifact seems like an attempt to get or circumvent some of that power.

Henry looks at the van, then at his watch: I have to go. Maybe you could come over? For dinner?

Tom: That’d be nice. I don’t get out much.

They look at each other.

Tom breaks the silence: I’m glad it was you.

Henry: Why?

“I never told anybody before. Not like that. He’s always said it as edges of it and in metaphors through me.” He walks Henry to the door. “Fifteen years of my life. But I got something real for it. God said through me in one sentence that there are two speaks in total reality, the difference between them and you heard it. You knew the truth of it didn’t depend on me. You know we’re both walking in something bigger than ourselves.” Tom smiles. “It was worth it—to go through that and come back and say it to you.”

—————————————-

Underground:

Zalmunna looks at the bodies in the wall: How far had they come?

Zeeb: They were not the names. They got nowhere. Empty words at random.

Zeeb squats with his back against the wall. The light is enough to see shapes and to move around. But it is not the sun. He longs to be in the sun again and feel wind in his hair. “They have the Oracle—and Zarathrustra’s hand. They will know we are here!”

“It does not matter.” Oreb calms his brother. “Now that they know, the plan is in motion sooner than we had hoped.Everything is well.”

“How long do we wait here in this pit?” Zeeb stands suddenly and paces.

Oreb watches him. “As long as it takes.”

Zarathrustra stands, saying nothing. The wait has worked patience in him.

——————

Gregg runs a hand through his hair and taps the code again. There is no coherent data or logs; an endless stream of words at random fill the memory logs. The screen is filled with words. “I don’t get it. There’s nothing here. There is one reference to needing a particular word combination, like a kind of lock they were trying to open. But after that the whole database is full of this ..crap.”

Izzy sits checking his commo gear in the control room. “Any word from Virginia?” He looks up as Hayt enters.

Hayt shakes his head: Nothing but static.

Izzy looks back at Gregg: A lock?

Gregg punches up the screen and reads: Memo from Commander Smith to Sys Ops: re: random word generator. On completion deliver same to my office and use available resources to run. Imperative to find plate in three days.” Gregg lifts the trail of paper. “I guess they did a good job.”

Izzy: What plate?

There is a break of squelch. Albrite: I think you need to come down here. The cave .. room.

Izzy: What’s wrong?

Radio Albrite: Nothing. You just have to see it.

“I’ll be here, seeing if I can salvage their old data.” Gregg says as Izzy and Hayt turn to go. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll miss everything. But that’s okay. I’ll just…” he turns to see if they had heard. They are gone. “..slave away right here.”

—-

Izzy and Hayt walk into the vast hall.

“Over here!” Albrite is to their right, out of sight. His voice drifts oddly over the distance.

It takes them several minutes to get to him. Their steps softly echo as a strange acoustic as they go. A wall comes into sight.

Hayt: It has edges.

Albrite: The wall. Watch it.

Izzy and Hayt scan the wall. It is a flat surface exactly as the floor.

Izzy: James, we really don’t have time for this.

A small protusion morphs out from the wall and recedes. Izzy and Hayt stare.

“Yeah.” Albrite points to the wall. “Keep watching. Little orphan annie went kayaking in Kalamazoo.”

A circle of glass morphs out from the wall, twists three hundred and sixty degrees and recedes in the reverse along the lines of its presentation.

Silence.

“What is it?” Hayt brushes the spot on the wall with his fingers.

Another blob of glass morphs out and recedes. Albrite looks at the wall as he speaks. They all do. “It responds to your voice—but not your steps.” A blob protrudes and recedes.

Izzy takes several steps back and forth. The sounds softly echo in the massive hall. The wall doesn’t move.

Izzy nods. “And he said let there be light. And there was light.” There is no response.

“So this horse goes into a bar.” Hayt says. A small curve of glass morphs out resembling a hook, turns ninety degrees, and receds along the curve.

Izzy touches the wall at the point the hook of glass has receded. There is no mark. It is perfectly smooth. He strikes the wall with the flat of his fist. There is only a flat thud of flesh on solid rock.

“It responds to different words and arrangements in unique ways.” Blobs of glass morph out and recede as Albrite speaks.”But I have no idea why or…”

Izzy says it at the same time. “What to say..” and finishes on his own. “..to see something new.” The blobs double at the sound of the two voices and recede in the same order in the silence.

Albrite: And it waits until you finish to react.

———

Jack watches as they speak to the wall. The other crew had come nowhere near this level of understanding. The names were really a prophecy.

He sips the scotch, swirling the ice.

The wall reacts with shapes that come and go.

Jack briefly considers that he has gotten in over his head and needs help.

Another sip of scotch drowns the doubts. There is no one to understand. There is no help. They are too far out from all they have known. Those who come behind will have to understand.

—————————————————–

Ezekiel 7:19-21 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be as an impurity: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah’s wrath; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their belly; for it hath been the stumbling-block of their iniquity. And he set in majesty his beautiful ornament; but they made therein the images of their abominations and of their detestable things: therefore have I made it an impurity unto them. And I will give it into the hands of strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall profane it.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen