by John Edward
“The Star of Bethlehem was a sign from God. For thousands of years, God knew he was going to send the star to lead those good men to the place where Baby Jesus lay in the manger. But King Herod had an evil heart, and he had his own wise men who told him the same thing the strangers from the East were proving: that a new king of Israel had been born who would one day take Herod’s place on the throne. They were astrologers just like your Mama G. They studied the stars and the movement of the planets, and this gave them special knowledge about what was happening—and what was going to happen—in the world.
“Well, Herod wanted to use this information for his own purposes and to do harm to the little child. In fact, he killed a whole bunch of young boys so that he could eliminate the threat to his kingship. That didn’t work, as we all know now. Do you remember why it didn’t work, child?”
“Yes! An angel told Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and the baby,” Ruby announced.
“How right you are. An angel. Another sign from God Almighty to a man on Earth. See, God doesn’t do just one thing or just another thing. He works in many ways—many of them mysterious—to communicate with us, to teach us good things and warn us about bad things.”
“Why did Joseph believe the angel? A lot of people today don’t believe in angels.”
“Child, where do you get your wisdom from? I suppose your mother passed it down to you. She always was a wise little thing. Well, anyway, people don’t believe in angels anymore because they’ve been taught wrong—or they haven’t been taught properly how to believe in God. He is mighty and mysterious. He has many powers. After all, He created the Heavens and the Earth and all the creatures of the earth. That means you and me, too. And he could—if he wanted to—make all of us do just what he wanted us to do. But instead, he gave us free will. That means we can do pretty much whatever we want to. Even if we want to go against his ways and team up with the devil to do bad things. Well, now, I’m getting off track.…”
Ruby did not want to dissuade her grandmother, Mama Greenidge, from going down any track she chose to travel. It was all fascinating for the child. She hung on every word.
“What my point is, is that every bit of knowledge, every God-given science for understanding his beautiful universe, can be put to good purposes—to help people and to make their lives and their families’ lives better. That’s what I’ve tried to do for these past fifty years or so, and maybe I succeeded a little bit at it.
“But by the same token, anyone can turn all that good into bad in a pure second. All the knowledge about the sun signs and the moon signs and all the planets—that can be turned to wrong purposes and make something that is good into something that is evil.”
“I understand what you are saying, Gramma, but I don’t know why anybody would want to do that.”
“Why did Adam and Eve partake of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?”
The little girl shrugged, realizing that the question was rhetorical. She did not want her to stop. Gramma was on a roll.
“Because they wanted to know more and to be more. They wanted to be like God, or like little gods. That is the root of all evil—not accepting Jehovah’s role as our father and friend. They thought they knew better, just as we do today. It’s the same story repeating itself, over and over again. We human beings don’t seem to learn very much from our past—or to pay attention to the signs God sends to us. We’re too busy trying to figure things out on our own. Now, don’t let me discourage you, child, from seeking knowledge and asking questions and trying to figure things out. That’s not what I mean. I just want you to know that God is standing by your side with all the answers you could ever want—to questions you will never live long enough to ask. If only you will seek to know what His will is for you as you go along your way, on your journey.”
“One of my teachers said that science proves there is no God.”
“Lord, Lord, child…” Mama Greenidge had little time to refute false teachings, but she wanted her own granddaughter to be clear on this, at least: “Every particle in our little world and throughout the universe, every little breath you take or cell in your body is proof of God. If science has achieved anything over the past thousand years—or a lot longer—it is purely proof that there is something far greater than you or I could ever imagine. Who holds up the stars that men first thought of as signs of the zodiac? Those old Greeks saw something in the sky that they called the ‘circle of animals.’ The zodiac. Who put those stars there? Who made the animals that crawl upon the earth so that somebody could see them in the sky? Who gave man the intelligence to conceive of names for animals—in hundreds of languages around the world?
“Did you ever think about how a little girl in America could see a frog or a skunk or even an elephant and another little girl in China could see the same thing, yet they have a different way of saying the name of that animal? Or why would they have different names? What makes one human being see the same thing on the Earth or in the sky and call it something completely different—yet they are seeing or experiencing exactly the right thing?
“That’s because God gave us the brains and the power of thought to respond to His creation in unique ways as individuals.”
“I never thought of any of that, Gramma.”
“Of course, you didn’t, child. I’m running on with my mouth, and I know you couldn’t care less about half of what I say.” Mama G took a tissue and patted her temples and her upper lip where she perspired when she got especially excited. “You asked about evil and how man can turn something good, like astrology, to the purposes of evil. I imagine you’ve heard about the terrible murders in Ireland.” She shook her head gravely.
“These evil ones are taking a spiritual tool for teaching and guidance and turning it into a weapon of negativity. Do you understand me, child? They want to make astrology a symbol of evil for those who won’t take the time to understand what it is really for. It makes me sick that such a thing could happen. And even more so that little children would hear about it, as you have.”
“It doesn’t make me scared,” Ruby said bravely.
Mama Greenidge took the child in her arms, as she had so many times before, and hugged her tightly. “Well, it scares me, dear. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Maybe you can comfort me and help me not to be afraid. I can be more like you and your mama. You’re the brave ones. Your Gramma is an old scaredy-cat, is what I am.”
“Oh, Gramma. Stop saying that. You aren’t afraid of anything.”
The elderly lady who had seen so much in her life—through the astrological charts she had done for thousands of people and her visions of other worlds and the skill in reading people’s auras when they sat or stood before her seeking her insights into their lives—all that was as nothing when put up against this rising of a new evil, a powerful new negative force that, in ways large and small, was threatening the entire Earth.
The serial murders in Ireland were, in her estimation, merely the tip of the iceberg. A distraction. As horrific as the crimes were, she saw them as symptoms of the greater disease that had taken root across the planet and threatened to consume all of human life. For many years now she had read the signs of this impending tragedy. Having entered the Age of Aquarius at the turn of the millennium, with so much potential for good to triumph over darkness in all human affairs, she had constantly felt the pushback of the Dark Forces and the presence of a newly powerful evil in certain people, too many people.
How had they—really, how had we allowed this to happen?
And what can I do now? she asked.
Southern Britain
His parents were not pleased with Ian Renshaw. He was not toeing the family line, like his sisters were. He was right in the middle of two older and two younger sisters. The family lived in a middling section of Hastings, a historic town in southern England, where William the Conquer had conquered nearly a thousand years ago.
The idea came to him when he was watching the telly—when he sh
ould have been doing his homework lessons. Ian was a smart kid, but his marks in school did not track with his intelligence level. He would rather be out playing football, whatever the weather or time of year, instead of reading his schoolbooks. Or playing games on his laptop computer or exploring Facebook or texting chums about football scores and plans to play football and surfing the Internet to find out about football and football players.
His misery was compounded by having a broken left ankle that would prevent him from much activity for days—and weeks—to come. It was so unfair.…
But rather than utilize the opportunity to hit the books, Ian Renshaw used his time to watch matches of his favorite teams and research their scores and statistics online and scheme about how to get to local games. No question, he wanted to be where the action was, right in the middle of the action, as a matter of fact. Nothing would please him more.
His father had a talk with him, then his mother pleaded with him, and his sixth-form teacher reprimanded him, all to no avail. Ian was no scholar. Not that he wasn’t interested in learning. He had a good head about him and was learning all the time—absorbing data and ideas from every source imaginable except his school textbooks.
He fantasized about the roar of the crowd greeting him when he walked onto the field for a crucial tournament game with a professional team. That was after he had excelled in the secondary school leagues and maybe even been the star on his university team. But the way he was going, university might be out of the question. Perhaps a trade school team. Those boys were tougher anyway than the scholarly blokes up at university.
Finally, his dad agreed to take him to a big match in Cornwall, coming up in a few weeks, if he would buckle down and get some studying done and pass one or two of his upcoming midterm exams in mathematics and English grammar. He hadn’t ever enjoyed either of these subjects, but the prospect of getting out of the house and seeing two pro teams was enough to get him serious about his schoolwork. He passed both tests with flying colors.
Just to prove he could do it.
Before he knew it, Ian and his father were sitting in the stadium amid the roaring football fans from the two competing clubs. They were maniacs, each with a reputation for violence in the stands and around the stadium, though nothing terrible had erupted at this point. Ian’s dad had warned him that at the first sign of anything untoward, he was going to take the boy, still on crutches, out of the stadium and head home.
Young Ian felt he was plugged into the crowd and could sense the mood. The two warring clubs were evenly matched, and neither had scored a goal nearing the halfway point of the match. Strangely, Ian felt at home and in his own world there in the stadium. And even more strangely, he suddenly felt the urge to stand up and move. The first period of forty-five minutes was almost over; then there would be the halftime break of fifteen minutes before play resumed. The crowd was restless. It was beginning to feel ugly, not only to the boy but to those around him as well.
He wasn’t sure exactly why, but Ian had to do something. He didn’t tell his dad, but just as the timer ticked to the end of the half he sneaked out of his seat, using his crutches to move quickly down the stairs from the upper tier of the stands toward the field. His father was distracted in conversation with a man in a neighboring seat.
Ian moved faster than he thought he could, helped by the fact that he was moving down with gravity. The buzzer for halftime sounded just as he reached the gate at the bottom of the rows of seats. No one was looking, and Ian flipped the latch on the gate and slipped to the other side—the field side—and then hobbled directly onto the field and headed toward the home team’s bench.
Just then a rumble erupted in some of the upper stands directly opposite where Ian stood. The boy turned to look at the source of the noise and immediately sensed what was happening. The crowd, which had been tense all along, was starting to erupt. No one knew exactly what prompted it, but the hooligans who were looking for trouble had found it.
Ian spotted a microphone that had been set up in the middle of the field at the halfway line for some announcements and some entertainment. He moved as swiftly as he could toward it. When he got there, he stood on his tiptoes and angled the microphone down toward his mouth.
“Oi, lads!” he shouted. His voice carried to the farthest corners of the stadium. “Listen up. We’re all here for the match and it’s been a great one so far. For once let’s have all the rough stuff on the field. No trouble! No trouble! No trouble!”
At first there was dead silence throughout the park. Then a few people shouted and picked up a chant, “No trouble! No trouble! No trouble!” Then more and more people joined in.
Ian Renshaw’s dad, realizing the boy wasn’t in his seat but down on the field at the microphone, bolted down the stairs onto the field and snatched up his son, who hung on to his crutches.
“No trouble! No trouble! No trouble!” reverberated through the football stadium and greeted the players who came back onto the field early to see what was going on. The players stood there with their mouths open, looked at one another, some of them even hugging, and joined into the chant. “No trouble! No trouble! No trouble!”
His father deposited Ian back in his seat, with a stern look on his face. “Whatever possessed you, son?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Dad. Something made me do it. I thought it was the right thing.”
The boy’s mother read about the incident in the newspaper the next morning and nearly fainted.
CHAPTER
86
Clive Staple Lewis, who preferred to be called Jack, was born in Belfast, Ireland, on the 29th of November 1898. His father, Albert Lewis, was a lawyer. He had a brother, Warren, called Warnie, who was three years older.
Lewis had a happy early childhood, living in a large, gabled house with dark, narrow passages and an overgrown garden, where he and Warnie played and explored. Albert Lewis kept a well-stocked library where Jack developed his love for books, his favorite being Treasure Island.
His happy boyhood came to an end when Jack’s mother became ill and died of cancer when he was only ten.
In 1916 Lewis entered the University at Oxford. But World War I was under way, and whether inspired by patriotism, a thirst for excitement, or just curiosity, Jack left school and joined the army where he wound up fighting in the muddy trenches of northern France.
Dawson looked from his research then, recalling the soldier he had seen in the World War I uniform while he was doing his radio interview on The Gordon Hour the night before. He knew that he had to get on a plane but wanted to do just a little more reading on the man–ghost—that was appearing to him.
After the war ended Lewis returned to Oxford, where he studied Greek and Latin literature, Philosophy, ancient history, and English literature, graduating with honors. He taught at Oxford, remaining for 29 years, then he became a professor of medieval and renaissance literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1955.
Even as he was teaching at the university, Lewis began to publish books. His first major work, The Pilgrim’s Regress, was published in 1933. He published several books that not only won him acclaim as a writer of books on religious subjects, but also as a writer of academic works and popular novels.
Following the publication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950, Lewis quickly wrote 6 more Narnia books, publishing the final one, The Last Battle, in 1956.
After his wife, Joy Gresham, died of cancer in 1960, Lewis’s own health deteriorated, and in the summer of 1963 he resigned his post at Cambridge. He died at his brother’s home in Oxford at seven p.m. on November 22, 1963.
Dawson examined what he had written, noticing, immediately, the connection between C. S. Lewis and President Kennedy. He made a note of it. Then he looked up pictures of C. S. Lewis. He found a picture of Lewis taken during the First World War. He was not surprised to see that this was the same person he had seen in the WWI uniform when he was doing the interview on The Gordon Hour.
Dawson looked over the notes he had made:
CLIVE STAPLE LEWIS … did not like his name, so he called himself Jack. (President Kennedy was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but he was called Jack.) C. S. Lewis died at the home of his brother Warren in Oxford, England, at 7 P.M. on November 22, 1963. By some cosmic coincidence, that was the exact moment that President Kennedy was pronounced dead.
As an aside, Dawson also noticed that Aldous Huxley died on the same day, though not at the same time.
He continued to make notes from his research. He made the notes just as they occurred to him, without regard to whether or not they had any specific meaning.
Lewis’s wife was named Joy.
The lion that Dawson saw represented Aslan, the iconic symbol of Spirituality and God or Christianity in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Weston represented Professor Weston, an evil incarnate individual who wants to corrupt and do evil in The Space Trilogy.
Wormwood is a character from The Screwtape Letters that also has to do with unleashing Evil against the Enemy: God and Spirituality.
The suite’s bell rang. It was housekeeping, and Dawson opened the door to the maid, who was bringing in a tray of fruit, cookies, and bottled water. Her name tag read PENNY. Penny, Dawson had learned in his research this morning, was one of the two main characters in C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew.
Was there no end to all this symbolism? Coincidence?
If Dawson had all this figured out, C. S. Lewis, who was now dead, wanted Dawson’s help. Help with what?
This was all too ridiculous. Maybe it was nothing but his overactive brain coming up with the next storyline for Matt Matthews. Are writers sometimes forced to live in the very worlds they create?