Prologue
“He said we see what we expect to see?” Donna frowned. Phil’s daughter was a tall, lithe blonde with wholesome beauty. Her dress was simple jeans and blue T-shirt. She curled her legs up on Sandy’s couch and continued, “How is that different from moral relativism?”
Phil smiled at the obvious conservative roots of her question. He let his ex-wife determine the upbringing of their two children. She instilled in them yuppie values and fundamentalist Christian ethics. The subsequent worldview was his daughter’s starting point, no matter all they had been through.
Natalie, the Jewish social worker Phil was involved with, answered Donna’s query, “Absolute Truth is out there. We’ve glimpsed it on occasion, but our brains don’t know how to process it. So we see what makes sense to us.”
“It’s like the masks of God,” Sandy added. Phil knew Sandy from high school. Now, some forty-odd years later, Sandy looked like a beached Viking captain who contented himself with making custom surfboards. “The oft-quoted saying from St. Jerome goes: For the mind to know God is like trying to pour the whole ocean into a teacup.” Sandy also spent many years in a Jesuit seminary.
“So,” Becky harrumphed, “our friendly neighborhood archangel, Manuel, ’fessed up that we’ve been operating in a dream world.” Becky was a retired surfing competitor. Her strong, compact body, pixie face, and short light brown hair were bland contrast to her mischievous green eyes.
Phil chuckled at her comment and reached for his beer on the coffee table. He was fit, tanned, but his brown hair was graying and receding. His brown eyes showed more depth these days. They twinkled as he answered Becky, “From Manuel’s point-of-view, our reality is a dream world.”
“We’re all culture-bound,” Natalie said with some intensity. Her dark beauty was formidable, Phil decided, when she was making a point.
Sandy got up to get another beer from the adjoining kitchen. When he returned to the living room, he said, “It’s the gift of postmodern thinking, Donna. They established, and rightly so, that we cannot escape our cultural conditioning.”
“Then all these adventures we’ve been on,” Donna tried, “would be different if we grew up in India.”
“Well, the adventures would be the same,” Sandy said, “but the deities, demons, and spirit helpers would be different.”
Phil added, “Manuel once told me he is known as Yamaduti in Thailand.”
“Okay,” Becky sighed. “We see what we can understand. So what?”
“This is important to me,” Donna replied with a frown emphasizing its seriousness. “What’s real should have a solid foundation.”
“The changes in all of us are real,” Natalie pointed out. “But our journeys are necessarily different.”
“I guess I’m wanting a kind of security I can’t have,” Donna grinned a sheepish reply, and the frown melted.
“I think we derive our security from each other,” Natalie consoled her with a return smile.
Becky chuckled, “We sure don’t get it from the likes of Manuel. What’s with him, anyway?”
“He started caring,” Phil asserted. “It’s a new experience for him, or any angel I suppose.”
Donna rose to this as well, “Angels do care about us. It’s what they are made to do.”
“Bad choice of words,” Phil conceded. “Personal attachment is what I meant. Angels care for humanity, but they are not supposed to get involved.”
“Is that why he’s avoiding us?” Becky asked. “It’s been four months since our last adventure.”
“Do you miss him?” Natalie wondered.
“Like the plague,” Becky snorted.
Donna chuckled, “You miss him. You miss the thrill of battle, the competition, and the danger, Becky. Admit it.”
Becky grinned, “Maybe. But I don’t miss dealing with the codependent angelic host.”
Phil responded, “It’s not entirely their fault. A well-run corporation has a mission statement. It has direction, short and long term goals. Angels don’t. They react to God’s Plan as it unfolds. They end up in crisis management most of the time. It’s a perfect environment for bureaucratic dysfunction.”
“What’s your mission statement?” Sandy countered. “Are the four of you heading for some goal, or are you waiting for the next piece of God’s Plan to reveal itself as well?”
“It’s why we’re here,” Natalie sighed and sat up straighter. “I’d like to anticipate what might be coming at us next.”
“Well,” Sandy began, “Manuel has been walking Phil right through the Bible.”
“It’s what binds us culturally,” Donna observed. “But we skipped major portions of it.”
“I know. However, you did hit the crucial bits,” Sandy replied. “My guess is the next adventure will include deciphering John’s Gospel.”
“I’m already bored,” Becky muttered and went to the kitchen for another beer.
“What’s the message in John?” Donna asked, ignoring Becky’s disinterest.
“It’s not so much a message,” Sandy replied, “as it is a spin. Each evangelist spun Jesus to support a different agenda.”
“Which are?” Donna prompted.
“Well, Mark saw Jesus as a local prophet come to revitalize the neighborhood. Matthew used Jesus as a bridge between the old covenant and the new. Luke focused on the Jews rejecting Jesus so the Gentiles could claim him. John, though, is radically different than the Synoptics.”
“Synoptics?” Becky echoed as she returned to the couch.
“Matthew, Mark, and Luke share the same sources, and the Synoptic Gospels begin with Jesus’ birth or the baptism. John starts with Creation and skips Jesus’ childhood. Then, Jesus in the Synoptics speaks in parables and riddles, but his point is God’s Imperial Rule. John’s Jesus is a hair-splitting philosopher who goes on and on about himself. Most remarkable, I think, is the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels ministers extensively to the poor. John’s Jesus never mentions them.”
“That’s weird,” Becky said. “Why did John’s Gospel even make the cut and get into the Bible?”
“It was opposed by many, and considered heretical by some,” Sandy said. “But since it came from a powerful school or community in Syria, it prevailed.”
“What was heretical about it?”
“All the I AM statements. It was a Greco-Roman formula the gods used,” Sandy answered. After gulping some beer, he went on, “Jesus begins as a local rabbi in Mark, and by John his followers have turned him into a god.”
Donna reacted, “And he’s not?”
“Not for me to say,” Sandy equivocated. “But you can see the evolution of Christian culture in the New Testament when you compare Jesus’ actual words with what was later ascribed to him.”
A knock sounded at the door. Phil, who was closest, hopped up to answer. The Archangel Manuel stood on the porch.
“May I enter?”
“Sure,” Sandy said and retreated to the kitchen. Phil knew he was avoiding the impact of angelic presence, which the rest of them had acclimated to.
Manuel, dressed in tan shorts and white polo shirt, ambled into the house. His flowing golden locks and boyishly handsome face were made all the more striking by the power of his angelic presence.
“Long time, no see,” Becky greeted him.
“I’ve been on retreat.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“En Sof’s throne room.”
“Why?”
Manuel shrugged at Becky’s interrogation, but she persisted, “They punished you because of us. Right?”
“Being next to God is hardly a punishment.”
Phil smiled, “Surrounded by Thrones and Dominions would be. I recall you telling me they’re all bureaucrats in the throne room.”
“It’s irrelevant. I’m back, and I have your next assignment.”
“It is relevant,” Becky snapped. “You’re creeping me out, Manuel. Did they turn you into a zombie?”
“I have rededicated myself to God’s Plan.”
“Christ, Manuel, they cut your balls off!” Becky shouted at the angel.
“If you mean I’ve become more compliant to God’s Will, then yes I have.”
Phil shook his head in dismay and asked, “What’s the assignment?”
“You will mainstream the changes you catalyzed into existence.”
“Oh, yeah. As if that’s going to happen,” Becky snorted.
“John’s Gospel provides you with the template,” the angel went on unfazed. “I will check on your progress and report on your activities up my chain of command.”
A long silence ensued. Natalie broke it by saying, “Grass roots social action evolves into social service bureaucracies, Phil. What Manuel suggests is consistent with how the world works.”
“Bureaucracies stifle creativity,” Phil replied. “I think our challenge is to reshape that.”
“Like we did in Moab,” Becky remembered.
“Or like we’re doing at the Green Consortium,” Donna added, referring to the ecology network Phil and Donna worked for.
“How would that look in the seven heavens?” Natalie countered. “We’re still working from a ‘so above, so below’ directive. Their bureaucracy has been around since Enoch ascended to Heaven and became Metatron.”
“I don’t know,” Phil said through a wan smile, “but En Sof’s prompts have a way of working out.”
Becky laughed. “If we don’t get killed first.”
“We do have our problems with decoding those messages,” Phil allowed, “but En Sof wants us to succeed. Of that I’m sure.”
“Right,” Becky barked back. “Adversaries, riddles, traps, kangaroo courts -- some help.”
“Do you refuse this assignment?” Manuel asked in flat tones.
“If the end result looks like you,” Becky shot back, “then, yes.”
“Wait,” Phil commanded, and the angel stopped his progress to the door. “We accept the assignment, but we’ll need an open-ended mandate for how we operationalize the changes you mentioned.”
“I’ll pass your request on,” Manuel bowed. “If there’s nothing more I can do to assist you, I’ll be going.”
The angel exited the house, and they stared at each other for long moments in shocked disbelief.
Natalie finally said, “I guess that’s how he resolved his identity crisis.”
“Well, it sucks,” Becky grumped.
