SPIRITSTORM

Copyright 1996
by
Malcolm B. Mathieson, Jr.
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A planet of fire and ice, short summer and frantic agriculture, winter and bitter
struggle…a constant battle for survival in a land of magic and farfuture
technology…intergalactic imperialists clash with magicians in a tempest of
hope and despair and misery…

Did you ever read a book that made you wish you were a part of another
world? Did you ever drift off to that world unknowing, slowly sink into the story,
hear the clang and roar of battle, smell the smoke, wield the blade, feel the
wound? Did you ever waken from the daydream leaping to your feet, shouting
defiance, fists clenched, blood pounding through your veins, raging, raging at
an evil foe? How foolish you felt, getting wild over an imaginary world in a
book. How ridiculous to burn with anger at wrongs and treachery that never
were, the fantasies of a wordsmith. And yet, and yet…as you walk away from
the strange looks and the scattered snickers of mere earth-bound mortals…

…still somehow the echoes of that distant world whisper in your mind,
and
you long
to find
the door…

When you hear “The Impossible Dream”, do you feel as if a challenge was
hurled at you? Does your pulse rate redline when you hear the wild, riotous,
other-worldly music of bagpipes? When you read Lord of the Rings, did you
yearn to join Frodo and Sam on their journey into Mordor? Did you mourn for
the passing of Lothlorien? Did you fear for Middle-Earth? Did you shout your
own battle-cry when Merry’s horn raised the Shire for the battle against the Big
People? Did you cheer, or weep for joy, at the return of justice on the swords of
the Fellowship of the Ring?

Most of us leave our dreams behind and go off to work in “the real world”. We
lose all hope of mystery and wonder. Mundane life teaches us that there aren’t
any dragons and there never were, and you can’t fight city hall. We get forced
into a job, and mortgage payments, and deep inside us something cries and
languishes, longing for Magic and a Quest and worlds we’ve never seen. We
live with rush-hour traffic and cement, but our souls hunger desperately for
unicorns and enchanted forests. A local bookseller told me that adults buy for
themselves most of the copies she sells of The Chronicles of Narnia. In his
introduction to the Silver Anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings, Peter
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Beagle says, “…lovers of Middle Earth want to go there [to Middle-Earth]. I

would myself, like a shot.”

We desire to put things right, to exercise judgment, to show mercy to the

oppressed. We thirst for a greener, better, different world…and we are taught
to regard these longings as beautiful, childish dreams. The world seems wrong
to us, and after living without hope for a long time we get bitter, cynical, and at
least a little crazy. Often it seems to be as the poet James Russell Lowell
wrote, “…Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne…”

If you think that the grave is your ultimate destination, your final end, you might
go completely out of control. That would be bitterness beyond words, despair
beyond measure, hopelessness beyond remedy. That is how so many of our
beautiful fantasies were written: some skilled wordsmith could not bear looking
into the Void any more, so out of the hunger of his spirit, he dreamed up a
world beyond this one, wishing that somehow it might come true.

But death is not the end. The grave is just the way to The Fountain of Joy,
where the spirit’s deep desires are satisfied…or to The Well of Despair, where
all hope is lost forever.

There is evidence, you know. There are those who have been beyond death’s
door, and returned. Once upon a time death’s door was forced open just a
crack, just once, and then slammed shut again. But many escaped through
that crack, and those who escaped left behind their testimony. It literally shook
the earth, that day did. And I have the records written by some of those who
saw the dead rise from their graves and visit again the ones they loved...But
you think I’m just taking my turn fantasizing, don’t you? You don’t want to know
about the records, do you…

You do?

Are you sure…? Be warned, the knowledge marks you. It will cost you. In
some way, in your spirit, if you listen, you will walk in two worlds, and once
you’ve done that, my friend, you cannot wholly return to the world of your birth.
A part of you will remain at The Fountain Of Joy…or in The Well Of Despair.

All right, then. Settle comfortably in your chair, glass in reach, fill your pipe, and
when it’s burning well I’ll tell you about The Day Death Was Cheated…
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THE DAY DEATH

WAS CHEATED

copyright 1997
by
Malcolm B. Mathieson, Jr.
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THE DAY DEATH WAS CHEATED

There was a man who through the undeserved favor of the Gods became a
tribe. His tribe in time became a nation. The Gods chose the man and the tribe
and the nation to tell the world about the Gods and to be an example of the
kind of people the Gods wanted all people to be. The Gods showered favors
on the man, the tribe, and the nation. This was a time of magic, so the Gods
showed them strong magic in each generation, but the people were a stubborn
people. They wanted life to be one long wine-drenched party. When the
Prophets appointed by the Gods demanded sober living, honesty, and hard
work, the people said, “We don’t need this! Let’s go back to worshipping the
Moon Goddess, who doesn’t demand uncomfortable things and keeps her
mouth shut when we party wild! Let some other people tell the world about the
Living Gods!”

As you can imagine, the Gods were a little unhappy. Crops failed, drought
struck, locusts and enemies invaded, and many other subtle hints were
dropped upon the people by the Gods. Often, the people saw wisdom and
turned from their drunken ways back to the Gods who had chosen them.....until
they stopped hurting from the last subtle hint. Then they returned to the Moon
Goddess.

This way of life continued for a very long time. Many people died from the
subtle hints of the Gods, but after each hint faded in memory the survivors
supposed that the Gods were asleep, or not watching, or away on official
business, so they visited the temples of the Moon Goddess or some other local
deity. Bad move. More subtle hints on the way, mortality rate on the rise.....

Along with demands for sobriety, the Prophets kept mentioning a King who
would be born as a citizen of this small, stubborn nation. He was called things
like “the Prince of Peace” and “the Everlasting Father”. It was said that He
would make this small chosen nation the rulers of the whole world, and that
there would be no more war after he became King, and no one would ever
make his people afraid again, and even lions would become tamer than house-
cats. All this sounded pretty good to a people usually suffering from the latest
subtle hint, and the people never forgot a word. In fact, they wrote it all down,
and measured every outstanding leader by the clues the Gods gave them to
recognize this King by.
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Several thousand years went by, and the people began to doubt that the King
would come. (Who wouldn’t?) But they still remembered, and they still hoped.
So when a tramp started preaching about the Kingdom of the Gods being
among them, and he was able to produce strong magic like few of their
ancestors had ever seen, they WOKE UP FAST! (Who wouldn’t?) This tramp
was performing such strong magic that they said, “When the Anointed One
comes, will he do more signs than these?” This homeless one was doing
things like feeding thousands free of charge, healing all kinds of diseases,
giving sight to people who had been born blind, and RAISING PEOPLE FROM
THE DEAD! This tramp was also a truly good man who lived the way the Gods
had been trying to persuade the entire nation to live. His honor plus his magic
made him the most popular man in the nation. In fact, the people were so
convinced that he was the King they’d been told about that they decided to
make him King, whether he liked it or not. (You’d think all those subtle hints
would have sunk in by now, wouldn’t you?) He (the tramp) knew their thoughts
and left the neighborhood until they cooled down.

Well, to make a long story longer, he really was the Anointed One, the King
they’d been hoping for. Alas, he slew no dragons. He insisted that pure hearts
were more important than whipping the stuffing out of the current invader who
was crushing the life (and the money) out of the people. He was healing,
feeding, and resurrecting so many people that thousands of the people (who
had no medical insurance) were, like, wild about him.

Now, sometime in the past couple of thousand years, the Prophets had been
more or less replaced by a bunch of Priests, who had a soft, high-paying job
making the people pay ($$$$$) for their sins. The Priests even invented
imaginary sins to collect on. So, when this tramp/Prophet/Priest/King went into
the temple of the Living Gods and threw out the crooked Priests, called them
thieves and poison snakes, told them that prostitutes would get into the
Kingdom of the Living Gods before they did.....they became displeased. He
was messing with their money machine (not to mention their already shaky
reputations). They tried to trap him legally, but for all his lack of education, he
was a better lawyer than any of them. He publicly pointed out to the people the
crookedness of the Priests, and the people loved it. At one point, so many
people were following him that the Priests said, “We have lost! The whole
world is following Him!” He wasn’t a member of their good-old-boy network. He
had no social standing, and none of their pompous, artificial social graces
either. Tsk tsk.
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“Enough!” the priests said. “He must be stopped! He’s embarrassing us! He’s
costing us money!!” They sent officers with a warrant to arrest him, and the
cops came back without him, mumbling “We’ve never heard anyone talk like
he does!” In desperation, the Priests finally made a deal with the current
invader to have him tortured to death.

Seems to me they might have figured out that One who could raise the dead
would be a little hard to kill. Guess they panicked. They got their wish. He died
slowly, and for awhile they stood around and mocked him as he was dying.
They whipped him, beat him, spat on him, tore out his beard, and after all that
plus at least three police interrogations lasting at least all night long, they
crucified him.

That’s when things started to go wrong.

About noon, the whole land became dark. At noon. He hung there in the
darkness until about three o’clock. Suddenly he shouted, “Why have you other
two Gods forsaken me?” (He was claiming to be one of the Living Gods, you
see.) Then he cried out loudly again, and surrendered his spirit. At the same
moment the curtain in the temple of the Living Gods was torn in two from top
to bottom!

Then the earth began to shake.

The rocks split apart.

THE GRAVES BROKE OPEN!

And the Priests knew they were doomed. The bodies of many righteous dead
came back to life! They came out of the graves! Three days later the King
Himself began appearing to his disciples - once to about five hundred at the
same time. After he rose from the dead, those righteous ones who had been
raised from the dead when he died went into the city and appeared to many
people!

And that’s how Death was cheated. The other two Living Gods gave this King
the keys of Death, and he opened the door of The Place of the Dead on his
way out.
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The King’s disciples went around frequently repeating, “We are witnesses! We
saw him, we touched him, we ate with him, after he rose from the dead!” Since
the Priests were still in power, the disciples were thinned out rather quickly. But
they wouldn’t recant, even when asked politely. (“Would you rather recant or
feed this lion? With your body? Here, kitty, kitty...”)

You can see how it would sort of be a problem to keep all this quiet. Years
later, when one of the King’s disciples was on trial before a “king” of the
invaders, the disciple said about this matter, “The king knows these things...I
am sure these events are all familiar to him, because this thing was not done in
a corner.”

In one city far from the scene of the actual events, when some of the King’s
disciples were found, the local Priests started a riot, saying, “Those who have
turned the world upside down have come here too!” The ”Followers of the
Way”, as they called themselves, had become somewhat numerous. They had
converted thousands. In fact, two thousand years later, they are still around,
still fanatical, still waiting for the same King to return. They claim that because
they trust Him, their sins have been forgiven. They believe that he will give a
pardon for all sins, eternal life, eternal health, and pleasure forever in the
Kingdom of the Gods to anyone who trusts Him enough to live this life
according to His commands, no matter what the cost.

I know all these things because I’m one of them. You may have heard of our
King.

His name is Jesus.