Edwards North of Heaven

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5364-1
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 189 Seiten

Father Norton Laird is a man with a history. Apollo is his brilliant but demented antagonist, hell-bent on destroying society and reconstituting it in his own image. North had left behind his years of service as a Special Forces operative in the Australian army after marrying a woman who he thought was lost to him. Choosing a more passive role as an analyst in the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, North pursues a life of wedded bliss, believing that this beautiful and erudite woman will be his salvation. His wife of eighteen months is torn from him, brutally murdered while North is away on an assignment. Shattered by the events, North cloisters himself in his church and immerses himself in the priesthood hoping to heal his broken psyche. But the Church has other plans for North's particular skill set.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Edwards, Frank

Leseproben

Prologue The blades beat their familiar tattoo overhead and I adjusted the collective, my hand slick with sweat as I surfed the black Huey across the dark green froth of the jungle canopy; the door gunner lit up the trails below with fifty caliber fireflies. The customary stab of fear and the coppery stench of blood attuned my vision. I glanced across at my co-pilot and I could see that he had three fillings in his back teeth. His mandible had been shattered by a stray round from the jungle floor and the skin hung down loosely from his fragmented jaw like a red veined banana peel. Behind me, our guest who we had picked up less than ten minutes ago from a hot Landing Zone watched the gunner hose anything that moved below with the surprised eyes of the newly dead. North woke with a start as the Qantas flight touched down in Brisbane. The recurring dream always left a sheen of sweat on his body and a faint smell of rotting vegetation in his nostrils. He waited patiently for the rows ahead of him to disembark and then walked briskly through the terminal where Father Patrick Kelly waited. “Welcome home North, how does the old town look to you?” asked Father Kelly with a concerned look. “I know you have some family business to attend to so I really appreciate you taking the time to come back to your old school and speak to the boys and girls.” North looked out the car window as fleeting images of the city that had been a partial home during his stint at Catholic boarding school. “Not much has changed Father, and in some ways that is comforting. I guess you could call picking out a headstone for my father’s grave family business. I never cared much for the old man you know; he had no sense of humor and was all about his mates rather than his family. Maybe war isolates you from the ordinary.” The priest, who had been North’s mentor during his school years, took a quick sideways glance at his former pupil. “Has it done that to you, North?” “Father, they say that war is hell,” said North with what seemed like an unhealthy chuckle to the priest. “That is the ultimate understatement; history has shown us that it is not war that’s hell, it is the ideologies embraced by men hell-bent on dreams of power that drag young men from their ordinary lives into the nightmares of opposing ideological conflicts.” The car pulled into the parking lot at Saint Vincent’s Preparatory School and the priest wondered at the wisdom of inviting this man who he didn’t know anymore to speak to his young charges. “Graduates, I would like to introduce Lieutenant Norton Laird. He graduated from Saint Vincent’s with honors and was awarded scholarships to five different universities, but chose to attend the Australian military college, Duntroon. He graduated from Duntroon, again with honors. Lieutenant North has just returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam and after a well deserved break he is headed to Western Australia where he has been accepted into the Special Air Services training program. Welcome, Lieutenant North. I will hand the graduates over to you.” North looked across the sea of faces praying for inspiration. “It is not easy being a soldier today. Vietnam is not a popular war because there is no real bad guy like Adolf Hitler to hate. Instead we went to war to stop the spread of an ideology or belief system that we thought was a threat to our way of life. Do I agree with that? As a soldier that is not my decision. I took an oath to serve my country regardless of my beliefs. I could talk all day about right and wrong, good and evil but I would prefer to answer any questions you might have.” A young postulant, or novice nun, who was standing to the side of the auditorium, raised her hand. North nodded smiled in her direction. “Lieutenant, does the medal I noticed around your neck have any special significance?’ North’s hand immediately went to his neck, “Yes. Sister?” “Oh, I am not a nun yet,” the young woman replied, a blush of embarrassment suffusing her face. “Just call me Alice.” “Well Alice, it’s significant to me. It is the Saint Michael Medal. Saint Michael is the patron saint of the warrior, who Catholics have designated as the protector of those who strive to preserve security, safety and peace. He was the field commander of God’s army and fought against and defeated the Archangel Lucifer-Morning Star who believed he was greater than God, because he was renowned for his great beauty and power. Soldiers want peace but know that peace can only be preserved through strength. On the other side of the medal is an icon of Saint George who is also a soldier’s saint.” “Saint George who slayed the dragon?” queried Alice. North smiled at the young woman who was obviously attempting to draw him out and make him more comfortable. “Well Alice there is a little more to the story. The dragon was probably a very large crocodile which inhabited a lake outside a city called Seline in what is now Libya. The crocodile was the bearer of a terrible plague which it spewed out on the population if they did not feed it with animal sacrifices. So the people of Seline feed their sheep to the crocodile to keep away the plague. When they had fed all their sheep to the beast they started to draw lots to see which of the unmarried girls would be sacrificed next. But then the king’s daughter was chosen. The king was distraught and offered all his wealth to anyone who could kill the dragon and save his daughter’s life. So, who do you think came riding up to save the day?” asked North to his audience, who by now were totally engaged, thanks to Alice. “Saint George!” the audience responded. “Yup, down the road he came on his white charger and saw a beautiful young lady chained beside the lake ready to be sacrificed to the huge beast. While Saint George was questioning the young lady the dragon reared out of the lake. He made the sign of the cross to fortify him and charged on horseback with his lance. Saint George grievously wounded the beast, and then he asked the princess to throw him the golden girdle from around her waist. Saint George put it around the crocodile’s neck and the dragon followed the princess like a puppy on a leash back to the town of Silene” “Is that the end?” asked a lad in the second row. “I thought Saint George killed the dragon?” “Well, like all smart warriors for God, he wanted something in return,” said North. “The people were still terrified of the dragon and the plague it carried, so Saint George told them he would slay the beast if they all consented to be baptized in the lake and become good and true Christians. Afterwards the king built a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint George, and from the altar of the church a spring arose and whose waters cured all disease.” The children seemed to love the happy ending and clapped their appreciation for the story, having expected to be bored by another lecture. For his part North was thrilled at their response having been more terrified of his audience than he was of the Vietnamese. “Are there any other questions?” A boy several rows back stood and said, “I have more of an observation to make rather than a question, but feel free to respond if you can.” Out of the corner of his eye North saw a shadow pass across Alice’s face and wondered at her reaction. At the same time he wondered from where this pretentious little snot had sprung. “Of course,” said North. “Have at it, young man.” “Great leaders and progressive ideas have been vilified throughout history. The Catholic Church has a history of suppressing learning and intelligent enlightenment in favor of mysticism. In your story Saint George blackmailed the King of Silene and his subjects into converting to Christianity in exchange for slaughtering a plague-spreading dragon. In the 9th century Libya was a protectorate of the Aghlabid Muslim dynasty who restored Roman irrigation systems in the province and encouraged modern day farming methods and learning. They were the most attentive of the Islamic rulers and foremost in their support of science and culture. My interpretation of the dragon slayed by Saint George is an insistence of a reversion to mysticism by the Church to gain power over a relatively enlightened culture. The dragon was science. Mysticism still plagues a huge percentage of the world and the results are there for everyone to see. Actual freedom from the human condition, surpassing spiritual enlightenment and any other altered state of consciousness, can be achieved by challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics, including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony, anthropology, sociology and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discard all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for eons and we will discover the path that cuts through the tried and true and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquility. It is called intelligence and there must be the acknowledgement that there are certain individuals that are fit above all others to chart the course of mankind.” The auditorium was bathed in stunned silence. North could not help himself. He laughed which he immediately knew was a mistake. “I apologize. What is your name, son?” “Peter Halliday, Lieutenant North.” “Well Peter, it is obvious that you have put a...