by Beth Durkee
Although Samuel had once thought he loved Gloria, he knew better now that he knew who she was in her heart of hearts. Thank goodness Sharon had shown him the truth! Gloria was nothing but a beautiful façade over selfishness, venom and insanity. She was wickedness personified, the last person on Earth he ever again wanted to see. Yet, strangely, Samuel felt comforted by her presence.
Gloria’s eyelids flitted open. She looked up at the ceiling and then, brushing aside a strand of dark hair that was stuck to her lower lip, she looked down into the pages of the leather-bound volume in her lap. Samuel remembered how soft that dark, beautiful hair was. He noticed that, now streaked with unfamiliar strands of gray, its silken cascade had grown several inches since he last saw her.
“Why doesn’t Gloria just give up the thing the nether-beings’ master wants?” Samuel whispered.
At the question, Amos slowly began to re-animate. His eyes opened, chin lifted and head turned in Samuel’s direction. Raising himself to his feet, Amos pulled the man up with him.
“There is too much at stake,” he answered.
“Are you trying to make me angry?” Samuel demanded. Flustered because the angel was not giving him the information he wanted, his face began to burn with anger.
“You know what I want to know!” he bellowed. “What is at stake? What valuable treasure did Gloria steal from the nether-beings’ master that he wants it so badly?”
Samuel was irate. In court, four years earlier, he had been ordered to pay for Gloria’s financial support because the court believed she could not provide for herself. Yet now he had learned that she was secretly hiding something so incredibly valuable that someone was reaching across dimensions to take it from her. She was holding out and Samuel was determined to know how much her treasure was worth.
Amos raised his eyebrows. “I see. You think that because I am an angel, I will forgive you for abusing me the way you abused your wife. But what you fail to realize is that angels have no authority to forgive at all. If you were still in the mortal realm, I might suggest you learn to control your rage before my Boss became upset with you. As it is,” the angel shrugged. He said no more.
“As it is, what?” asked Samuel, still angry but curious what the angel had to say.
“Well, let me ask you this,” Amos posed. “You are just a mortal man. You have no power over life or time or the universe like the Great Ones do. If somebody abused, cheated on, abandoned and broke your little girl’s heart, what would you do to him?”
Samuel paused. This obviously had to do with the way he left Gloria, but he really did not see how it related to her treasure or the Boss being upset. He decided to see what the angel was leading to.
Nobody had ever before put things to him in those terms. It had been years since he had thought about this, but he was remembering now: The tears in Gloria’s eyes when she begged him to go to counseling to save their family, the pain in her voice when she pleaded with him to not take Sharon’s calls at home, the times he picked Gloria apart for no real reason just because she had stayed awake until he came home from seeing Sharon. He was not proud of the way he had handled the situation and he was sorry for how hurt Gloria had been, but that is the way it happened.
What would he do to a man who hurt Crystal as badly as Gloria was hurt? He did not know. He loved his little girl more than life itself. If any man ever hurt her so badly that she cried the way Gloria had during their divorce, Samuel would leave no stone unturned in making sure the guy suffered for every one of her tears.
Samuel thought, “He had better have a good place to hide and a lot of money to make sure he stayed invisible.”
But aloud, he justified, “I did not cheat on Gloria. Sharon and I waited to have sex until after I filed for divorce.”
“You can take that one up with the Shepherd,” shrugged Amos. “He is the One who says that a man who looks lustfully at a woman that is not his wife has already committed adultery in his heart4, and that a man who divorces his wife makes her the victim of adultery5. I just asked what you would do.”
“I don’t know,” answered Samuel. “Her husband has the right to be happy. Maybe she was a bad wife. Did she deserve to be left?”
Amos replied, “Do you forget that I can hear your thoughts? You know as well as I do that it would not matter. No matter what your daughter could have done, nothing is worthy of that kind of pain. But why don’t you go ahead and tell me where it says that people have the right to be happy?”
Samuel thought for a few minutes. He scratched his chin, and then answered, “God wants me to be happy.”
“Tell me where it is written,” was Amos’ quick response, “because I keep hearing that from damned souls and I have no idea where they found it written.”
Samuel did not know, so he moved to another argument, “Well, the founding fathers wrote that everyone has the right to pursue happiness.”
“Of course you would bring that up,” sighed Amos. Samuel grinned, ready to gloat over his victory, but Amos was too quick for him.
“Two things,” countered the angel. “First, I have actually met and talked to the founding fathers. They are absolutely mortified that people take that statement out of context to use it as an excuse to disregard the moral rights of others. They are such honorable men that they never even imagined such a plain statement would be twisted to mean a man had the right to chase after happiness at the expense of his sworn duty. That is a complete perversion of what they intended. And second, who has authority over eternity, your founding fathers or the Creator of the universe?”
Put in those terms, Samuel had to admit that his argument was pretty silly. He conceded, “The Creator of the universe.”
Amos nodded. There was no disputing the simple fact. He brought his argument home, “Gloria is the spiritual daughter of the Creator of the universe, the Old Ones. She is in pain and alone because of you. How happy do you suppose they are?”
Samuel caught his breath as realization struck him, “Gloria is the spiritual daughter of the most powerful being in the universe . . . Oh, nooo!” He looked at Amos with wide eyes, too frightened to even imagine.
Amos continued, “It IS written that the man who hates and divorces his wife does violence to the one he should protect6, and it IS written that those who practice the works of the flesh, including adultery, will not inherit the kingdom of God.7”
“I’m sorry!” Samuel cried out. “I’m sorry! I did not know! What can I do to make it right?”
Amos held up his hand, “Enough. I am not your judge and I have no reason to hear your empty excuses. Take this up with Him. I am simply following orders before you move on.”
The angel paused only briefly before he added, “It is a constant amazement to me that human beings, given words, laws, written history and even the example of the Shepherd himself, so frequently wait until the first days AFTER their deaths to repent their transgressions. Look, you were told what not to do and warned. It was all put into writing in the most-sold book of all time. You ignored what did not suit you. Now you are dead: The End. You have all of eternity to be sorry and wail about it. So let’s get on with this.”
Amos stretched both of his arms together over the floor, and then slowly moved them apart. As his hands moved, a small hole began tearing into the floor beside Samuel, widening by sucking in the edges of the floor around it.
Samuel stepped backward, away from the growing vacuum. Inside it was pure black -- sheer emptiness devoid of light. Only two things escaped the black: A numbing heat and horrifying noise. From the moment the rip in light began, the loneliest, most agonizing wail filled the room, accompanied by this horrible grinding noise8. Louder and louder it grew as the hole opened larger.
He gazed into the growing spot of nothingness, trying to discern what was in there that could make such an awful, soulful wail, but his sight could not penetrate the dark void. Hungry emptiness sucked in even the light around it9. As he looked deep into the wailing
void, he felt a presence. Powerful and evil, pure rage reached an invisible tendril toward him from he dark.
Ice-cold ran up Samuel’s spine. Shivering at the chill and burning from the heat exuding from the void, he looked away . . . to see black nothing.
Heart racing in his chest, Samuel’s breath quickened. Had he been sucked into the void? No, he was sure he could not have. He shook his head back and forth with the conclusion that was as much hope as thought. He did not remember falling. There must be another explanation.
Terrified, he called out, “Amos! Help me! I can’t see!” But the angel did not respond. The wailing and grinding from the pit was so loud that it blotted out all sound.
No light by which to see, unable to be heard by his Angel of Death, Samuel’s only option was to wait for the noise to die down so he could call out for help. Not just noise, he now noticed, this sound was pain. His whole spirit body ached from simply hearing it. Listening was unbearable! Samuel clapped his hands over his ears to try to blot it out, but his hands were not enough. The pain penetrated deep into his spirit-flesh.
“Stop!” he screamed. He fell to the floor, writhing in pain and lonely fear. Samuel wished he were living again just so it would be possible for him to lose consciousness. “For pity’s sake!” he cried. “Close the pit! I can’t take any more!”
Post XII
He felt a hand touch his arm. Cool comfort washed over him as the searing heat on his flesh changed into a pleasant warmness that emanated from within him. The unbearable wailing also stopped, but the blackness around him remained.
"Ahh," Samuel sighed in relief, but at the same time in panic he cried out, “Amos!”
"Right here," answered the angel's voice, a short distance away. “You are safe.”
"I can't see."
"Shh, yes, I know," Amos acknowledged. "I truly apologize. I should have warned you to look away. That darkness is so complete that it consumes even the light that is going to enter your eyes. Now hush."
"Oh, good,” Samuel ignored the angel's attempt to shush him. “I can't see but you apologized. Well that makes everything all better.”
"Please forgive the sins of the servant of the God of your father,10" replied the angel, his voice somber and his answer short.
“Whatever,” Samuel snorted. He was really angry but he did not want to alienate the only person in the world who could see and talk to him.
“What was that, anyway?” He asked, changing the course of the conversation. “It was like some sort of weird black hole or something.”
“Samuel,” the angel's voice held an urgent tone as it addressed him. “I will answer your question, but please be quiet and listen in the presence of the Good Shepherd.”
“The Good Shepherd?” Samuel wondered. Obviously, Amos meant the Shepherd – one of the Great Ones, but why had he also used the word, “Good?” “Good Shepherd,” actually sounded like something familiar from childhood stories Samuel had once heard.
Amos continued answering the question at hand, “The void you saw was not a black hole. Black holes are an astronomical phenomenon that physical things like heat and sound do not escape. The darkness you saw is called 'Gehenna.' In Greek, its name is 'Tartarus.' It is where angels who have sinned are held in chains of darkness to be held for judgment.11 The fallen angels' wailing and gnashing of teeth is the horrible sound you heard. Gehenna is also where those of mankind who do not follow the Good Shepherd will be sent after judgment. . . . In your language, you call it 'hell.'”
Samuel shuddered at the thought of any creature being bound to that place for all of eternity. He could not even imagine spending an entire hour in that horrible, wailing, burning emptiness. No wonder it was called “hell.” Thank goodness he had been pulled out of it because he never wanted to go there again!
No sooner had he finished his thought than his angel was speaking again. “Glory and praise to the Great Ones, who know all and instructed me to wait for that thought before I answered your question about what is so valuable that Gloria will not surrender it to the nether beings' master.”
Samuel lifted one eyebrow and wrinkled his nose. Amos was talking very strangely. Still, he wanted to know the answer to his question, so he did not comment on the angel's strange speech. Rather, he just nodded acknowledgment to the reference.
Amos continued, “She refuses him her soul, sets an example for her children to follow so that their souls may also be saved, and guards the path to redemption for her adulterous husband.”
If Samuel could have seen, he would have given Amos an icy stare for that comment. He knew it was aimed at him. As it was, he could not see to stare at anyone. His retort was instant, “How many times do I have to tell you people? I divorced Gloria before I had any sexual relations with Sharon. I am NOT an adulterer and she is not my wife any more!”
This time, it was not Amos' voice that answered him. The voice that answered was unlike any he had ever heard, and it came from right in front of him. Samuel jumped in surprise as his heart skipped a beat at the sudden presence of the stranger.
“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery,12” said the voice, its powerful manifestation reverberating through the air while at the same time soothing Samuel's ear with its soft gentility. Samuel caught his breath. The power of that gentle voice hung in the air and surrounded him. If he had not already been sitting on the floor, he would have fallen to his knees.
Tentatively, he asked, “Who are you, sir?”
“I am the Good Shepherd13,” answered the voice, its absolute authority resonating against the walls, its gentility encouraging further questions.
Post XIII
The Good Shepherd. Of course! Samuel had heard of Him. The teachers had talked about Him every week in Sunday school when Samuel was just a little boy. How could he have forgotten?
“Finally!” thought Samuel as he asked, “Are you going to take me to heaven now? . . . Sir?”
The Shepherd's response was immediate, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God14.”
Remembering many drunken nights during his youth, and thinking of his slander against Gloria during their divorce hearing, Samuel protested, “That's not right. Scripture says that anyone who believes in you will go to heaven. All we have to do is believe. That's what you said and I believe, therefore I will go to heaven.”
If Samuel had been able to see, he would have witnessed Amos in the background, ever so slightly shaking his head back and forth. The angel just knew that comment was coming. People over the last two centuries, especially in the more developed nations of the world, had seemingly come to think they could break the Laws of the Old Ones without any kind of consequence. It was always a big surprise to them when they found out they were wrong and it was too late to do anything about it.
The Shepherd answered, “Did you, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance?15” Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.16”
“I did accompany my faith by action!” the man continued to protest. “I didn't “produce” any “fruit,” but I was baptized. I even went to church. . . sometimes.”
'But He replied, “Truly I tell you, I don't know you.”17'
“Yes, you do,” contradicted Samuel. “I am a good man and a hard worker; I am a good provider for my family; I believe in You; and I always try to do the right thing.”
“Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.18”
Samuel thought, “Again with the adultery!”
&
nbsp; Aloud, he calmly replied, “Sir, I am not an adulterer. Sharon and I waited to have sex until after I filed for divorce.”
“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,”19 was the Shepherd's reply.
“And,” He added, “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.20”
Samuel's heart sank. Not only had he divorced Gloria, but he had also married Sharon – who was a divorced woman. He gulped as he realized there was no more arguing about this. In his heart of hearts, he had known all along that developing a relationship with a woman he was attracted to, while he was married to Gloria, was wrong. He knew he had hurt Gloria, too, but he convinced himself that everyone would be better off if they ended the marriage. He and Sharon were happier – sort of. . . for a time. The children were young and resilient, so they should all be alright when they got used to the change. He anticipated that even Gloria would get over it eventually, move on with her life and be happier for it.
Obviously, Samuel had been wrong and now he was about to pay for it . . . eternally. Despair overwhelmed him as he thought of going back into that wailing pit of darkness and pain. Tears formed in his blind eyes and he began to sob, “I am so sorry. I did not believe Gloria when she warned me.”
Behind the Shepherd, Amos' head was bobbing up and down. Once the tears came, he knew what would happen next. Through the generations, he had seen and heard it over and over again. It was always the same. The Shepherd would restore the man's sight, show him the wrong he did and the sorrow he caused his faithful wife, then send him on his way to await Judgment Day.
This time, however, was about to be different. Amos was going to be reminded that knowing the patterns of the past is not the same as knowing the future.
Samuel, still sobbing, heard Gloria's voice murmur from across the room, "Sweet Lord."
Quickly, the Shepherd 'put His hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.21' As He moved His hands away, He drove home the point, “The man who hates and divorces his wife, does violence to the one he should protect.22”