All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923) (12 page)

The hesitation that Kole felt lasted for only a moment. Here was a gift, the gift of a long life, offered freely and right from the very hand of his Creator. For a moment He felt a blush rising in his cheeks, a burning in his face that reminded him of his feelings whenever Kesitah would grace him with a knowing smile.

But this was the smile of his God. If fire from heaven could fall and burn up an offering at the Lord’s acceptance of it, what would happen now that God had shown His acceptance of him, Kole, a man who just happened to be born when he was? He was not special. He had done no special thing to earn this honor. His father, Adam, had once asked him to lead a family hunting trip for food. He had felt big. He had felt like a man that day for the first time. He had wanted so much to lead a successful hunt, to please his father. And here he stood, feeling those same feelings, yet how much more so now, knowing he was being given an opportunity to please his Creator’s Father, his Father in heaven.

Kole held out his hand and accepted the seeds from the Creator. Six seeds each slick with the juice from the fruit of the tree of life. How amazed his parents would be, but he could not tell them. He had vowed to keep this secret of the Eternal until the fullness of all things.
When would that be,
Kole wondered.

He looked up and the man, the Creator, was watching him, studying him as if he were a newly-birthed animal. He saw wonder and love in the Creator’s eyes, and he wondered if his own thoughts were as obvious to the Creator as the purple stain on his new robe was to him. He picked up one of the seeds with two of his fingers and placed it in his mouth. He swished it around a couple of times and then swallowed it whole as he had been instructed. He did the same with the other five. The taste was sweet, like a warm honey, and they slid down his throat with ease. When he had swallowed all the seeds he looked up into the smiling eyes of his Creator.

He sensed a musical quality about the man that he had not noticed before. Indeed, the two trees, the grass, the wind, each had a tone and a rhythm that had not been detectible moments earlier. A low thrum came from the meadow grasses. Actually several different tones as Kole noticed for the first time the variety of grains that composed the landscape about him. Each seemed to have its own sound. The breath of the wind hummed an entire mood in tune with the grasses but with a different pitch and meter, perfectly complimented. The trees themselves seemed to fill in blank spots in the music of the world, rising in and fading out with a soft brilliance of sound, while the man who stood before Kole, the Creator, seemed the finest sound of all and encompassed all the sounds in a glorious harmony, a celestial whispered blending as if every sound came to pay homage to the sound that He was; the sound of the Word within the music of creation.

The patterns were breathtaking, and truly Kole stopped breathing as he listened with newly opened ears. He heard in the distance the sweet burble of the river over rocks and felt that the water and the rocks each heard the music of the clearing.

The water played a vibration of strings in and around the gentle undulations of the land while the stones beat out a rhythm that was low and wild. He heard too the sound that his own body made, an easy lilt of minor sounds, perfectly accompanying the song going on all around him. He glanced up at the heavens and watched the stars pulse with the pace of the earth’s music, felt the moon’s voice praising the creation around him, singing of its own love for the earth and the creator of it, and he heard the heavens glorify God.

Yet beneath the beauty of the event was one sour note, a longing for release, as if by some unseen measure the words were missing, the completeness of the sound was prevented, as if an invisible finger were placed in an invisible ear, muting the full expression of the harmonies of the creation; the song of man’s curse.

“Do you hear it, Kole?” asked the Creator.

“I do,” answered Kole.

“Do you see the light, Kole?”

It was only then that Kole noticed that the light too had changed. Just as each bit of creation offered its own voice to the orchestra of life, so too did they shine each with their own bath of light. Each stem of grass, each rock, each animal at the edge of the clearing, each star in the heaven, shone with an additional halo of light, an aura of life that glowed and pulsed and shone with the music played—green and red and blue light, and golden—dancing with the sound of each one’s voice. Light that he had never seen, light that he wasn’t sure he was seeing, played upon the landscape of his eyes, amusing him, examining him.

“It’s so beautiful.”

“There is more, Kole. This is but a glimpse, yet it will serve you. This light, this sound, that you, alone of all men, perceive, will serve you as you need it. Each sound is but a vibration of each part of each creation’s light. Yet the light can be used, harnessed by the proper combination of sounds. The light is but a power that gives off its own music, but the sound is a tool that can harness the light and cause it to give off new sound, some so marvelous that even while it plays, you will not hear it. You will find that it is one of the Father’s gifts to you. Do you find it a good gift?”

“It is perfect,” said Kole.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought man forth by the Word of truth, that there might be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.”

“First fruits?” Kole looked perplexed but recognized the term from earlier in their conversation.

“Indeed, we are most blessed, Kole, you and I.”

“Yes, I feel that way,” said Kole no longer able to stand but dropping down to his knees in the dirt beneath the trees.

“Yes, it is time to give thanks,” and the Creator put both His hands upon Kole’s head and prayed.

“Father, your name is holy, and we speak it in reverence and with great love, for on this day this man lives, not according to the flesh, that will die, but by your spirit that puts to death the deeds of the body and lives. For as many as you will lead with your spirit are now your sons. We hear the groaning of this creation beneath the beauty, eagerly awaiting the revealing of all your children. Your son, my brother, Kole, has come to seek the reason and the cause of Abel’s death, though he knew already its source. But what is now revealed to him is that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. For your creation was subjected to futility, so that man in his sinful state might retain some measure of dominion over it, as you have declared. But as each man, and all mankind, returns to you through the sacrifice of your first born, the creation itself will also be delivered of God. This is where we have placed our hope, knowing that all things work together for good to those who love you, to those who are called according to your purpose. So be it.”

“So be it,” Kole repeated.

The Creator removed His hands from Kole’s forehead, and Kole felt suddenly very weak. He summoned just enough strength to ask, “Must I be sacrificed, my Lord, as the first born? What should I do?”

The Creator answered, “The first born will be another, Kole. It is not you.”

“My child?” he asked.

“Your brother’s child.”

“Cain’s?”

“Seth’s.”

“Seth? I have no brother named Seth.”

“There you are wrong, Kole. Even now Seth is known to me.”

“Seth…” Kole murmured, filling with sleep.

“Yes, Kole, and a child from Seth’s line will find favor in the eyes of the Lord. And a child from that child will become the firstborn of many brothers.”

“I don’t understand,” said Kole.

“You will, Kole. The Father will want you there. But for now you should sleep. You should sleep and not dream. For the world will be very different when you wake up.”

And Kole closed his eyes as he lay down on the grass and listened to the world singing and slept.

“Last call,” yelled the bartender from behind his glossed mahogany counter.

Lester glanced over at him and then around the room at the two dozen or so patrons still in the bar. A quick glance down at his watch showed the time to be 11:45 p.m.

“Al,” said Lester as Al put the second journal away, “I can’t believe it’s so late already. This is an amazing tale.”

“Not so much a tale,” said Al, “as a story; my story.”

“It’s phenomenal, Al. Almost too incredible, don’t you think? I mean, I’m just a guy. I work, I eat, I party. I come home after a long day and fall asleep in my easy chair with a beer between my legs. Who am I to hear this story? Who am I that you would think I could believe all this?”

“You’re my friend, Lester, and I picked you because we’ve known each other a long time. There’s no one else I’d rather tell. And I believe that the Lord put you into my life for this purpose.”

“What? Not just to be your friend? Not to be your buddy but just to hear you tell a story?”

“Among other things,” replied Al.

“Do you really feel that God chose me to hear you say all these things?” asked Lester, with no little skepticism.

“I do.”

Lester shook his head. “To think that my buddy has walked in the Garden of Eden, has talked to God, eaten seeds from the tree of life, and lived nearly six thousand years. Its gonna’ take me more than a day and a few drinks to buy it hook, line and sinker.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Al grinned. “He must have a plan for you as well. Perhaps you need to know this story to be equipped for what comes next.”

“What comes next?” asked Lester.

“That I do not know,” said Al.

They sat in silence for a minute as the waitress drifted over.

“Last call, boys,” she said. “Can I get you one more?”

“Al?”

“Nothing for me thanks.”

“Well, I’ll have one more before he closes his tab,” said Lester.

“I’ll be right back,” said the waitress. “I’ll bring you your bill, sir.”

“Thank you,” said Al.

As the waitress left to get Lester his last Coors Light, he took a drag from his still freshly lit cigarette.

“All these years we’ve known each other, Al…to think you’ve been living a life that seemed pretty normal. It’s beyond me. I think I’d have gone bonkers years ago if I were you.”

“Maybe I did go bonkers, Les. Maybe this, what you see before you, is my version of bonkers.”

“Yeah, well you fit right in,” said Lester.

“The thing is, Les, I have a lot more to tell you than just my life story, and I’m running out of time.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I told you a month or so ago that I’m moving to the Middle East next week.”

“Do you really think that’s wise, right now? The way things are shaping up over there?” asked Lester.

“Well, wise or not, I’ve got one more thing to do for God, and I can’t just run from it. Remember the story of Jonah?”

“Vaguely,” said Lester, “but what do you mean ‘one more thing?’ Are we that close to the end, Al?”

“Yeah, we’re that close.”

Lester sighed, “And here I never even learned to play the guitar.”

“Start now. There’s still time.”

The waitress came back with a draft beer, and Al’s check for thirty-four dollars and fifteen cents. “We’re out of cold bottles, sir. It was this or a can. Is a draft okay?”

“Draft’s fine by me,” said Lester.

The waitress smiled. “It’s on the house.”

“Well, thank you very much.”

Al handed her three twenty dollar bills. “Keep the change, my dear.”

“Oh, thank you sir. Have a good night.”

When she had gone, Lester said, “Twenty-five dollar tip, Al? That’s pretty generous.”

“Well, you can’t take it with you.”

“No, but you could leave it behind for your old buddy,” quipped Lester.

“The thought has crossed my mind.”

“Really?”

“Don’t look so eager for me to check out.”

Lester smiled. “I’d rather have you here with me, old man.”

“Thanks, I think,” said Al.

There was a moment of silence before Lester dove in again. “So, I’m a little bit confused by that part about the light and the sound. Care to elaborate?”

“I sure would, Les. Its most intriguing. It’s a gift God gave us that could solve most of the world’s problems, if it were to go hand-in-hand with a genuine repentance and turning back to God.”

“How’s that?” questioned Lester.

“Well to make a long story short, everything in the material plane is composed of energy—a tree, a rock, a person—each one is the sum total of the energy it takes to make it what it is. And each has its own sound frequency. The sound is a by-product of the light aura it emanates. The light is a by-product of the energy within it as it works, acts and reacts, so to speak. Each tree gives off a sound unique to itself. It’s like a fingerprint. All trees produce a sound harmonic that falls within the spectrum of tree sounds but individualized by the type of tree; an oak, a maple, a spruce. Then each sound is unique further to the individual tree. If God were to want, he could attune his hearing to pick up on a certain sound frequency and know exactly which tree it is. The sound is also indicative of the trees health, age, and more amazingly, memory and genetic make-up—its history.