Heaven On Earth

HEAVEN ON EARTH

William White-acre

Copyright 2017 by William White-acre

Smashwords Edition

white-acre.wixsite.com/photography

*other books by the author:

Surrounded By Mythology

I, The Hero

True For X

Forgotten Faces

A Rush Of Silence

Memory 2.0

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1 Before The Ending

Chapter 2 Unto Him

Chapter 3 When The Walls Came Crumbling Down

Chapter 4 Spiritual Flames

Chapter 5 God's Custodians

Chapter 6 Found But Lost

Chapter 7 Turn Turn Turn

Chapter 8 Behold Elysium

Chapter 9 Listen To John

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.

Matthew 11:12

Chapter 1 Before The Ending

The Hawkins were a three member family, with the only child being a son. A daughter had died. Stillbirth, leaving the mother, Deborah, to mourn alone. Micah, her husband, had moved on from the tiny tragedy, choosing to accept God's will. Death, as in life, was preordained, one more minuscule piece in the puzzle that was the Lord's plan. Grief was, ultimately, unproductive. While his wife grieved, he took quiet solace in the words of the Bible.

As if in reward for his implacable stoicism, Ben, the son, had been born a full decade later after a difficult delivery, bearing out Genesis 3:16: I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing, a pain you shall bring forth children. At last joy returned to Deborah's heart, as she clutched her new born son to her chest, returning the mid-wife's smile, who now knew unfathomable relief after the harrowing childbirth. God had blessed them, Micah and Deborah. Their prayers were answered. They had not been forsaken.

Ben grew into a tall young man, with his father's blue eyes and sturdy shoulders. He had also been bequeathed the gift from God, an ability he was to share with the flock because he too had the calling. Religious succession ran in the family, with Grandfather Hawkins having also been a man of the Word. Their congregation had been formed almost a hundred years ago, founded by disillusioned parishioners from several Protestant denominations centered around a small town outside of Oklahoma City.

The more mainstream religions, Methodist, Baptist, and the like, had been abandoned so as to further embrace the dictates of the Bible, establishing a closer connection to Jesus through a Pentecostal interpretation of scripture. The Methodist are too sterile with the Lord and the Baptist too contradictory, Micah Hawkins was fond of stating, always with a gleam in his eye, like he knew something you didn't. As far as he was concerned, he did. He was a man of the cloth, as they liked to say, but he was a humble servant of God, a man who understood the import of his conversations with the Holy Spirit.

He came from Sooner stock, people who sought out a living on barren soil, throwing caution to the wind, with only their indomitable faith in Jesus and a strong back. Holding firm to the Bible kept them from perishing under the strain of a hardscrabble life where the fierce winds might blow you clear away, scattering your ashes to all corners of the country. It was an existence that challenged you each and every day, bringing your will to a low ebb. Scripture was like an anchor, something that served as their roots in order to dig down deep, deeper, so they wouldn't succumb to the hardship.

Even through the Dust Bowl days, when it seemed as if the Lord was punishing them all for sinful transgressions of every description, they held on to their faith. In a tiny church, no more than a shack really, they listened to Grandfather Hawkins expound on the gravity of the trespasses each one of them had committed. God was angry. The very land was drying up and flying away, leaving behind a frightening subsistence. Then came the plague of grasshoppers, visiting upon them Old Testament horrors. An infestation of spiders followed that and still they clung to their faith.

A once fertile land had been decimated, shorn of all sustenance. Farmers could till no land. Howling winds and blinding sand storms buffeted the region, carrying away more and more topsoil. An ecological nightmare had been visited upon them. People fled anyway they could, riding dying horses off into the horizon, hoping the beast would make it far enough away that they would never have to ever again see nature's apocalyptic mayhem they had left in their wake.

The ones who stayed behind hunkered down, praying for one more day of food and then another. Towns disappeared, buried under insidious dirt, covering up corpses, wasted bodies unable to endure. Grandfather Hawkins, with his congregation having dwindled down to only a dozen or so true believers, finally made a decision. After a marathon of praying, indulging himself in numerous Old and New Testament passages, searching for guidance, he opted to leave.

Like a Captain abandoning ship, he felt the full weight of his decision. Others would be left behind to fend for themselves without his link to the Lord. My conscience is heavy, he would tell them that last Sunday, looking out into the tiny church, where the congregation coughed and sputtered from the omniscient dust. How many will die? he pondered, as he talked of the writings of Paul and how in times of travail one must maintain their faith. They were all being tested by the Lord, he assured them and would be the recipient of His reward.

Even though it was little solace at the time and didn't ring true, the parishioners clung to the belief that, in due time, they would come out the other side. Sin would be extinguished. God...Jesus would save them.

Grandfather Hawkins packed up his Ford truck and with his fearful wife and two young sons, drove west, away from the sun that was trying to pierce the clouded sky. The dust storm made it seem like night, even though it was just past noon. He drove on, blinded by the swirling dirt, creeping along the unpaved road, hoping they wouldn't fall off the end of the earth. His worried wife wondered aloud about their future, trying to suppress her mounting consternation. We will know when to stop when we get there, he answered her, forcing a smile, patting the Bible that lay on the seat between them. The plan took them as far as eastern Arizona, where they stopped in a small farming town that had been settled by Mormons in the previous century.

O God thou art my God I seek thee,

my soul thirsts for thee;

my flesh faints for thee,

as in a dry and weary land where no water is.

Psalms 63:1

The Old Testament passage marked their new beginning, a place to raise the family. It would not come easy. Biblical infighting marred their fresh start, with a complicated and uneasy truce existing between the rival religious entities of the area. Distrust amongst the Mormons and the more established Christian religions festered, further exacerbated by the divisions already present between the Catholics and the mainstream Protestant denominations.

Differences were usually put aside in order to compete against nature, which could be, at times, hostile to their pursuits. Life giving rain could be sparse and they still had to withstand the omnipresent wind, which swept across the terrain unencumbered by any mountains. Yet they clung to the land, living from respite to respite, provided by a fickle weather pattern that gave them just enough to stay ahead of the next calamity.

Strong wills grew out there just beyond the Indian land, bolstered by hard work and indomitable beliefs. It hadn't been that long ago that the native population had been herded westward, forced to live cloistered on their reservations, leaving behind lingering resentment and simmering hatred. Battles and skirmishes between the warring parties had flared for decades, instilling in their shared psyches a witches brew of uneasiness. The Whites took to the land, bolstered by their religion, using it to lay psychological breastworks for the community's collective safe keeping.

Micah, the second of two sons, soon adopted his new homeland, forgetting the despoiled prairie land of his youth back in Oklahoma. Arizona brought him fresh adventures as a young boy, where he hunted in the White Mountains for deer and elk, and learned to appreciate the Lord's handiwork, spending more and more of his time out of doors in the wilderness. Then came 1941.

He had been slated to be a farmer, tilling the land that his father had purchased adjacent to his church, The Church of the Apostles. The ongoing family argument had been centered around his continuance of the family lineage, forwarding the Word at the pulpit. It had never been fully discussed, only assumed. Micah would follow his father's example, devoting himself to doing God's work. The gift was hereditary. The Hawkins men had been chosen.

The World War encroached on that plan, leaving Micah with a different pathway. Patriotism had taken root in the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor. There was no question that he would sign up, enlist in the Armed Forces and go fight in the war that had been raging for several years. Except that his father showed no ambivalence about this turn of events. Grandfather Hawkins placed the Bible before national duty. God had not sanctioned any such action. Wanton killing had been decreed by the State, not the Lord.

But father, the Japs attacked us...I have to go and fight, Micah declared, his face flush with anger at his father's intransigence, unable to understand why he didn't share in his sense of patriotism.

Matthew 5:44 says: Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, his father stated, holding both of his hands before him in the pose he used every Sunday on the pulpit.

Micah hated when his father invoked the Bible, mostly because he knew that his father could outwit him easily by utilizing tracts from the scriptures. He was at a distinct disadvantage simply for the reason that he knew only a fraction of the Bible that his father did. There was always a certain finality to the spoken word as well, not unlike a hammer being slammed against an anvil.

Drawing on what he knew of the New Testament, Micah countered: It says in Mark 13: When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed, this must take place, but the end is still to come."

Biblical tug of wars were never productive, especially between a father and son. As before in history, religion had been co-opted, molded, fashioned into a springboard for battle. Grandfather Hawkins sensed this, knew that his son would leave, march off to war. Jesus had known it was inevitable. Young men fulfilled prophesy, bringing evil unto the land as he liked to say. Darkness was as much a part of creation as daylight.

Micah became a Marine, destined for the select barbarity of the Pacific war theatre. The Japanese fought a hellish, scorched earth campaign. From island to island the war coursed, inflicting death, until an unholy stench rose up over the ocean. Through it all Micah forged ahead, mentally cataloguing the deaths of his friends as they fell by his side.

And then the war was over, extinguished by two dropped bombs of unimaginable dimensions. The aftermath shook Micah to his core, leaving him adrift, grasping at his religion that seemed to be in tatters. He had lived within the confines of the Old Testament dictates and was now clinging to the New Testament for some sort of deliverance, something that would allow him to accept his role in the slow motion horror that he had just participated in. And he was one of the fortunate ones, able to return physically intact.

He was still a young man but with memories that scored the inside of his brain, leaving scars that may never heal. A sense of world weariness followed him back home. Micah had sown death, as his father labeled it to his wife, fearing that God would extract vengeance in due time. Even though his son possessed a drawer full of medals bestowed on him by the US military, Grandfather Hawkins heard Exodus 22: 21 echoing in his ears: You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him.

The transition from war weighed on Micah, as he rejoined his brother on the ranch. He had lost four years of his life. The Germans, and then the Japanese, had been defeated, sparing the world from fascism. Peace had to be instituted, leaving behind the art of war, where extinguishing life was the object. Although he had been wounded, and recovered physically, his soul had been bruised, abraded by bullets and bombs.

It was hoped that he would join his father at the pulpit. His older brother had chosen not to take up the cloth, deeming himself unworthy of the Word, bequeathing the mantel to his younger brother, Micah. Grandfather Hawkins lobbied hard, directing his youngest son to pray for guidance. Jesus will come to you, he assured his son confidently.

And it came, his guidance. One cold morning in January, as he was providing hay for the cattle in the fallow pasture, Micah felt a warm breeze on his face. Startled, he looked around, surprised, wondering where the warmth was coming from. Then, as he would later tell his family, he knew.

Like his father, he would be self-taught. A divinity education was irrelevant. The Holy Spirit had chosen him. Grandfather Hawkins recited Second Timothy 3:16: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for instruction in righteousness. It was as simple as that.

His apprenticeship began almost immediately, with him studying nightly with his father. Like a Bible boot camp, Micah would say to his brother, as they lay in their beds reliving the activities of the day. Grandfather Hawkins was a taskmaster when it came to the dissemination of the Word. Sin had to be elucidated, and combated. The answers were in the books of the Bible. You must be able to interpret, Micah, he would declare in a stern but understanding voice.

But Matthew 18:8 says: If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off, Micah countered, confused by the cruel finality of the written Word. How are we to interpret that?

There were many bridges for him to cross before he could digest the import of the Bible. Grandfather Hawkins led Micah, patiently providing commentary when needed, nudging his son in the right direction so he could grab a piece of divinity. Mosaic law evolved into the strictures of the Gospels, establishing a foundation for him to carry the load a minister had to shoulder in order to impart Jesus' message.

Micah, on his part, was a natural preacher, able to cross the divide from ordinary citizen, and sinner, to scriptural wisdom. The congregation grew as his reputation began to take hold in the area. Word of a new, young man with a charismatic personality percolated, reaching as far as Phoenix. His sermons took on more and more importance as Grandfather Hawkins relinquished his duties, bowing to his son's prowess up on the pulpit.

Friction was minimal though. It was the natural order of things. Another disciple was taking up the reins. The Lord would continue to be served. Grandfather Hawkins lent a hand when needed, while his son honed his skills. Before long, as Micah's fame as a homespun Reverend reached further and further, tapes of his sermons began to be circulated. We live in a land without the concept of luck, because chance doesn't exist in our Christian world, where God's intentions are a blueprint, he would preach, drawing nods from the congregation, people who were intimately familiar with capricious nature. You, my people, are redolent of fear, he would gently chastise them. I say unto you, let Jesus absorb that fear...replacing it with the joy of his love.

Grandfather Hawkins died a peaceful death, slipping away during the night. His generation had known the travails of the Great Depression, where man and nature combined to render the land inhospitable, so he would declare from the pulpit. He had been a devout Democrat for most of his life, locked into a vigil against the powers that be who populated the Republican Party and were determined to keep the common man in their place. FDR was the standard bearer for his kind, a man who saw the divide that existed in the country. As a result, the Democrats controlled the country for a generation, continually beating back the venal vipers at the door.