Excerpt 3 from an upcoming novel

Mountains of Dimpled Sunlight

They all sat around the table, wishing they could string a coherent thought together. One of them had a Bible, for that was all they could do now, just ape in ever more disparate fashion the coming of the glory of the Lord. Let’s free the man, they said in unison. Yes, let’s free him as Peter was freed, then he will accept us as angels and follow us out to his earthly freedom. And then this camp can return to normal, return to our process, return to the plan. Yes this would work very well. We will do it exactly as Peter was freed. This is our finest hour.

The officer was becoming inexorably more aware that he had been miserable for a very long time, that the quicksand in which he had traversed every day had weighed him down beyond the conception of ways he could have imagined. He felt almost unbearably light much as that novel had stated that he read one time long ago. But the golden rays of a falling October sun alighted themselves upon his soul, and he was becoming absurdly joyful. He hated to do this, but his allegiances were coming under a cloud of doubt; it was impossible to deny. He couldn’t even find anything to hate anymore, and that night, as he fell almost immediately into a deep restful sleep, his soul came into communion with the blood of Christ.

When the officer got to the containment camp in the morning, the place was abuzz. The man had been found at dawn outside against the wall of execution. He had claimed that he had been released by beings claiming to be angels, but that because of the desire in his heart to see out to the end what God had requested of him, he went and prayed before his coming glory. The officer shook his head, unable to feel hatred or even try to pretend that this man was not a child of God. Indeed, his fortitude and desire to love was beginning to sow discord throughout the whole facility, his own soul included. And yet, this man had (supposedly) committed a crime punishable by death. And die he would against that wall of his coming glory. And there were no tears or sadness even amongst those who executed him, for it was as if death itself was passing away to soon only be a memory in the minds of an older age. There seemed to be only joy in this freaking place now, joy in the final solution of the saved souls. Four of the officer’s subordinates were somehow baptized before the end of morning; they too then had to be executed, which led to a further eight confessions of repentance and allegiance to the Risen One.

Now the officer barely had enough people to adequately carry out the law. And boy, was he on the verge, on the verge of turning his back against everything he had worked tirelessly for; the world he had bought and lived in was becoming increasingly miragey; he thought it wouldn’t be much longer now before he too stood before that wall. What an absurd ending; he thought his soul had been sold a long time ago and his fate already secured. And now finally, he was about to join the freedom of a coming bliss. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, he sung out at the next execution. Summarily, he was now placed at the wall, all the while singing the praises of Him who was and is and is to come. And as he closed out the first verse of a hymn which would be sung to its completion before the end of the day, the only remaining soldier lowered his rifle, a burden falling from his mind, and fell to his knees, exclaiming through tear-soaked lips, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

Mountains of dimpled sunlight passed along in minds unbent by sin.

The rays of light were golden against our wrists, and we were as children again seeing the world as its paradisiacal true nature. Shadows were falling from those remaining, and these shadows had nowhere to go but up, nowhere to go but towards their coming extinction. And behold, Heaven descended through the abolition of darkness, and we became whole again, became that which we had all wished ourselves to be, that which the Father had seen us to be while we were still sinners. And in the End, the Light shone in that darkness, and it bore itself out until darkness was no more. And, ever deepening, we knew ourselves as only passing from glory to ever further glory.  

“For He is the living God and He endures forever; His kingdom will not be destroyed, His dominion will never end.”

Amen.