Soul Matters: Book 4, Monocracy Managerie
Chapter 9

After they returned to Pastor Mike’s office, they ordered delivered pizza. As they ate lunch, the three of them discussed their meeting with Jehovah. Since this meeting was not nearly as dramatic as Phil’s other meetings, he helped them sort out the various meanings of what happened. He explained the rules angels seemed to live by. He went into depth about the phenomenon of a mask of God.

At length, Pastor Mike sighed and said, “Now it’s over.”

Phil chuckled, “Not really. Azazel has something up his sleeve. I’m sure there’s a dozen or more rules we broke today.”

“What could they do to us?” Donna asked.

“There are different councils,” Phil answered. “I’ve been to the Council of Punishment a number of times. We may get called there to answer for what we’ve done.”

“But what could we have done?” Pastor Mike wanted to know.

“Snubbed Jehovah,” Phil started. “Then there’s the whole deal with Azazel. I’m sure he can make a case for being cheated. Also, there’s the issue of balance. Jehovah charged we upset the balance between male and female power. But, really, I don’t know what might happen next. I do know it’s not over yet.”

“What should we do to prepare?” Donna’s pragmatism showed through the tension.

“Continue to practice what you know. Also, continue to build your relationship to Ishtar.” Phil turned his attention to Pastor Mike, “Is there any deity you have a special relationship with?”

Pastor Mike let out a deep breath before saying, “In the Protestant faiths, there is no room for saints, the Virgin Mary, or any of it. We see it as idolatry. However, I’ve always been drawn to the Nordic gods. Odin, in particular.”

“You might want to develop a relationship with him,” Phil suggested. “It may come in handy when we’re called to whatever council.”

Phil let them think on this for a long moment before concluding, “In the meantime, I need to get a job, a place to stay, and deal with lawyers.”

As they exited Pastor Mike’s office, Betty was waiting for them just outside the door.

“I knew something was up,” she stormed at them. She wore a gray pantsuit with a white ruffled blouse. Her bobbed blonde hair bounced as she spoke, and her cheeks were reddening. “I told you to stay away from my daughter, Phil. And I’ll need to give Pastor Mike a piece of my mind.”

Phil stepped in front of Donna, “Betty, calm down. This is neither the time nor the place to have this discussion.”

Betty stopped inches from Phil’s face. Her bobbed dyed-blonde hair now quivered around her chubby face. “Phil, we had an agreement. You were supposed to let Donna heal. You were supposed to leave her be. She’s had enough trauma at your hands. It’s a miracle she’s not dead like Pastor Jones.”

“That’s a cheap shot, Betty. And we didn’t have an agreement. You gave me orders, which I don’t have to follow anymore. We’re getting divorced, remember?”

“Mom, I contacted him,” Donna said from over Phil’s shoulder. “And I’m all right now. We worked the whole spiritual emergency through. Dad was a big help.”

“I’ll deal with you at home,” Betty snapped. “Going behind my back like this.”

“We need to go,” Phil said. “Donna is dropping me off at the hotel.”

They stepped past Betty and didn’t look back. When they got into Donna’s car, Phil said, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

“I’ve never seen her like that before. Do you think she’ll make trouble for Pastor Mike?”

“Count on it.”

When Phil got back to his hotel, he spent the day on the phone. He found an efficiency apartment, and he scheduled two interviews for jobs. Next he checked with his accountant to replace out about his cash reserves. Betty froze most of the accounts, but there was one account she didn’t know about. It was the one he used years ago to fund his cocaine habit. For some reason he continued to keep a substantial amount of money in it. Now he was glad he did.

At dusk, he walked to a nearby restaurant and ate a solitary dinner. When he returned, there were messages from both Donna and Pastor Mike. He called Donna first.

“Hi,” she greeted him in her apologetic voice. “Mom says she’s going to get a restraining order to keep you away from me.”

“I don’t think she can do it,” Phil said. “You’re over 18.”

“She says she can.”

“I’ll check into it,” Phil told her. “Besides, what’s she going to tell a judge? I’ve waltzed you down the path to perdition? She’ll get laughed out of court.”

“I heard her telling the lawyer you were a moral degenerate,” Donna relayed. “Something about cocaine and wild parties.”

Phil blushed in embarrassment. He took a deep breath and told her, “Well, it’s true. I was wild when you were younger. Cocaine and wild parties were a part of my lifestyle. I didn’t know Betty knew about it. She never let on.”

“Why did you stop?”

“I think I just grew up,” Phil answered. “I also realized you and Bobby depended on me, and I needed to be more responsible.”

“Why did you do it in the first place?”

Phil knew these questions were coming from her own experiences and the ones she might face in the future. She wanted to know a good reason for not following in his footsteps. He told her, “I abandoned the Revolution, Donna. I gave up on the dream of the better world we all fought so hard for in the Sixties. The drugs and the bimbos helped me deal with the pain of my betrayal of myself.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “What a heavy load to carry. What about now? Are you back in touch with your dream?”

“We’ll see,” he smiled. “I’ve got an interview with a couple of non-profit corporations who are committed to conservation and ecological sanity.”

Interrupting it all, Manuel popped into the hotel room. He paused long enough to say, “They want you to appear before the entire Sarim, Phil. You’ll need to bring Donna and Pastor Mike. Boy, have they got a list of crimes for you to deal with. They even involved Soqed Hozi.”

“Just a minute,” Phil said into the phone and asked Manuel, “When?”

“As soon as you can,” the angel replied. “This time, I’m not on the docket with you, but I’ll go along for moral support.”

“I’m sure we’ll need it,” Phil half-grinned at him. Then the angel disappeared.

Phil uncovered the mouthpiece and spoke, “Well, we made the big time. The entire Sarim will be hearing our case. You’ll need to go, and so will Pastor Mike. Somehow, you’ll have to sneak out of the house and get to the church, or get here. We’ll talk later. I need to call Pastor Mike.”

The pastor was awash in his own troubles. Betty filed a complaint against him with the parish council. She also called the regional leader of the church, who was a personal friend of hers. Pastor Mike was now in the process of packing his things to leave. The church hierarchy ordered him to a retreat center in Oregon to undergo spiritual supervision. He was leaving in four days.

“Can’t do it here,” Pastor Mike said. “I’m already in enough trouble.”

“I suppose we can do it in my hotel room,” Phil sighed. “It’s not the best atmosphere for this sort of thing, but I guess it will have to do. When can you make it?”

“Any time,” Pastor Mike laughed. “I’m out of a job.”

“Well, I’ll let you know when Donna is free. We can exchange notes on the Patriarchy until she shows up.”

There was a long pause, and Pastor Mike’s voice changed to a more serious tone, “I do want to thank you, Phil. My own spiritual emergency involved my expectations of perfection. As I grew in spirit, I found more chaos and confusion. I expected to replace more peace and serenity. Now, thanks to you, I realize how silly my expectations were.”

Phil didn’t know what to say, so he ended with, “See you soon.”

The Sarim, Phil knew from before, was made up of thirty angels who ruled the seven heavens. He’d met some of them, and they constituted a diverse group: Raguel, the minister of internal affairs; Michael, chief angel of the Lord; Raphael, the angel of healing; the twins, Irin and Qaddism, angels of judgment; Haniel, whom they met this time was, in addition to a Birth Angel, the head of the angelic orders of virtues and principalities. Manuel mentioned Soqed Hozi in reference to their reason for being called to the Council. Phil found out this angel was in charge of the balance-points in the Universe. The information gave Phil the clue he needed to prepare a defense.

The best rendering of universal balance he could replace was the I Ching. The sixty-four hexagrams making up this ancient Chinese map showed the precise rotation or evolution of anything within creation. The hexagrams plotted the passage from birth to death to rebirth, or from empty to full and back again. In preparation for his Sarim appearance, Phil studied the I Ching. He suggested Pastor Mike and Donna do the same.

They weren’t able to meet as immediately as Phil hoped. During the wait, he began the emotionally disruptive process of moving out of the house he lived in for some fifteen years. Bobby and a few of his friends helped. Some of Phil’s things went into a storage unit; the day-to-day items went to the efficiency apartment he rented. In terms of hours worked, it didn’t take long. It terms of emotional turmoil, it was a disenchanting journey of closure. By Sunday night, he was settled into a new place.

It was large for an efficiency apartment, with a separate bedroom and bath. The kitchen and living area blended together as a long rectangle. In the living area were a couch, coffee table, end tables with lamps, and two chairs. Phil splurged by buying a flat-screen TV, which was flanked by a sound system on one side and bookcase and computer table on the other side. It was a tidy compact set-up, and Phil was pleased with it. This seemed to be a good platform to launch the next chapter in his life.

He stood in the sparse but comfortable space and felt -- actually, he finally let himself feel -- the dread he was filled with today. The dread came from the sense of failure which accompanied the impending divorce. More personally, he felt like a failure. It was a feeling he knew all too well. It was a feeling confirming his ultimate status of a misfit. It was another pound of evidence pointing to the inescapable fact of his unworthiness.

The feeling of dread slowly dissipated leaving a sticky sense of shame clinging to his soul. Phil loaded the CD player with music he knew would cleanse him of shame and cooked a simple dinner of stir-fry chicken and vegetables accompanied by half a bottle of California white wine. Buzzed by the wine, warmed by his dinner, he sat on the couch listening to music and felt marginally better about himself. The upcoming appearance before the Sarim still seemed a formidable undertaking, the more so because he knew he couldn’t really count on Donna or Pastor Mike -- they would be blasted by the combined angelic presence of dozens of angels. He sipped the rest of his wine and knew this would be the last time he would relish his freedom and the music of his choice. Tomorrow or the next day, the first pages of the next chapter in his life would be written. From where he sat, these pages would spell out, in graphic detail, his true life’s script -- failure.

He abandoned the Revolution because he was a coward. He didn’t want to get beaten by the police at sit-ins, love-ins, or for protesting Vietnam or segregation or women’s subjugation. He weenied out in the Sixties and early Seventies. Nor could he transition successfully to the yuppie culture. He hid out with drugs and bimbos for years. Then, numbed with his own failures, dulled into a trance of submission, he toiled in the pointless trenches of selling security to those living in an unpredictable world. The irony of it -- selling insurance -- was a notion he refused until now. Life insurance, he chuckled to himself, did not enhance ‘life.’ It had to do with death. A homeowner’s policy was really a gamble. The company bet nothing would happen, and if it did the homeowner’s rates went up.

What a colossal waste of his time, Phil realized. Although, they paid him well for wasting his time. But being a whore to man’s fears or passions always paid well.

Phil polished off the wine and climbed into bed. As he drifted into drugged sleep, he hoped tomorrow he wouldn’t be in such a maudlin mood.

He awoke with the thought, ‘It is pointless to save a doomed world.’ Lying in bed, his eyes still closed, Phil let the phrase echo in his mind -- a mantra of fundamentalist dogma. Insights began to radiate from the thought. If it was pointless to save a doomed world, then easing another’s suffering was just as pointless. And if so, exploiting the material world was a good idea. Like, why not?

Connection after connection trained together until he was so disgusted, he opened his eyes and sat up. The Revolution was begun to address this nihilism, he remembered; he felt a vicious stab of guilt. Phil knew, in this moment, he could not shirk his generational responsibility any longer. Boomers were supposed to be the trailblazers to a new world. In Christian terms, Boomers were supposed to prepare the conditions for Christ’s return. Not by forcing the preconditions (woefully misunderstood) of the End Times, but rather by fostering peace, harmony, loving-kindness, and compassion. Christ’s triumphant return was the dawning of Christ-consciousness in the world of man. Not some codependent rescue of the elect amidst global annihilation.

Phil got up and brewed coffee. In the face of the cascade of insights his re-found purpose forced into view, he steadied himself against the skinny kitchen counter and drank coffee. As he did so, he chuckled. Raising his coffee mug, he decided not to refuse the cup passed to him -- neither the cup of coffee, nor the cup of suffering he foresaw as his immediate destiny. ‘Let this cup pass from me’ was Jesus’ final plea, but the Christ interrupted his own request to accept Divine Will. How could Phil do any less?

He drank his coffee, scrambled eggs to sandwich between an English muffin, and methodically prepared himself for a busy Monday. There was Betty’s lawyer to meet. There was the progress of Pastor Mike and Donna to check on. There was his resume to update and deliver to prospective employers. And, he supposed, he might also call his former secretary to see if there was anything he could do to help out his replacement at the insurance company.

These tasks took up much of his day. It was late afternoon before he could finally meet Pastor Mike and Donna in his small apartment. Without much social chatter, they left for Manuel’s patio.

Upon their arrival, Manuel paused in his flower duties to comment, “Great. The gang’s all here.”

Phil marched resolutely towards the angel, “What are we up against?”

Manuel inclined his head towards Phil and shrugged, “What you must realize is all fundamentalists have the same agenda. They create such a mess so God is forced to end the game and return.”

“You’re dodging my question,” Phil replied. Then he caught the import of Manuel’s statement, “They didn’t order you to keep quiet this time.”

Manuel smiled, “It seems they overlooked it.”

“What do you mean by fundamentalism?” Pastor Mike asked. He was still looking at the ground to avoid angelic impact.

“It’s really a new phenomenon,” Manuel said. “It could only have appeared at this stage of human development. You see, fundamentalists are trying to keep God alive in a world where his non-existence is a given. They’re fighting for survival -- their own as well as God’s.”

After a pause, Donna was the first to speak, “There have always been those who tried to restore religious fundamentals: Martin Luther, Francis of Assisi and others.”

“True,” Manuel agreed. “But they did it within the mythos of their religions. These new fundamentalists do it by harnessing logos to their agenda.”

Both Pastor Mike and Donna looked quizzically to Phil. He said, “It is my task to determine how the confusion of mythos and logos happened and correct it in myself. Mythos is revelation. Logos is reason. They entitle two separate categories of knowledge.”

“Apples and oranges,” Manuel added.

“Yeah,” Phil smiled. “Azazel’s words exactly.”

Pastor Mike went to sit on the marble bench. Donna followed him. They both were becoming more comfortable in this world, Phil could see, and were beginning to exercise some voluntary movement.

“How is this relevant to our situation?” Pastor Mike wanted to know.

“The charges against you are bound up in the confusion,” Manuel answered. “The patriarchy has become the agent of this confusion. You’re charged with upsetting the status quo, which they claim is the true balance, and it’s not.”

Phil responded to this by saying nothing. Pastor Mike, though, was apparently intrigued by Manuel’s analysis of fundamentalism. He spoke, “They attempt to sanctify the Lord through violence.”

“What else is new?” Manuel slurred.

Pastor Mike wasn’t satisfied with sarcasm, though, “There are biblical supports for this view.”

Manuel laughed, “Yahweh.”

“He did punish the Egyptians, and many others,” Pastor Mike agreed. “Whoever sinned against Him was punished.”

“It wasn’t sin,” Manuel interrupted. “It was contempt. And it wasn’t Yahweh, anyhow. It was the forces of evolution. Abram was the first monotheist. He broke with the leaderless mess of Mesopotamian gods. Those who did not follow Abram’s lead were ultimately punished by dying off in some evolutionary cul-de-sac. It was their own contempt for the next evolutionary step that killed them off.”

Pastor Mike was visibly shaken by Manuel’s succinct refutation of what Pastor Mike’s religion stood for. He retreated within himself.

“Besides,” Manuel went on, “Yahweh was never big on sacrifice. He was willing to spare Sodom and Gemorrah if there were ten righteous men. He let Isaac off the hook when Abram pleaded for his son’s life.”

Donna spoke, “Abram didn’t plead for Isaac.”

“Yes, he did,” Manuel said. “The Priests rewrote that part. Gevurah was clear about two timeless themes: spirituality is beyond morality; and she placed mankind squarely in that dilemma.”

“What dilemma?” Donna asked.

“To know the Unknowable,” was Manuel’s answer. “It’s what humans are stuck doing.”

Raguel appeared then and floated to the ground, “They will see you now.”

“Well,” Manuel grimaced, “help me with the transportation problem.”

Raguel, head of internal affairs, was a stately and proper angel with a thick mass of black curls hovering around a chiseled face. With some disdain, he placed his hands on the humans. Manuel did likewise, and the five of them flew towards Sarim Headquarters.

Unlike the chamber the Council of Punishment used, which Phil knew from before, the Sarim meeting hall was an auditorium. Many of the members of the thirty-person ruling council were already in attendance. They were seated on thrones arranged in a large oval at the center. Rows of seats were behind them; concentric rings of people with vested interests in Sarim decrees were gathering.

The angels deposited the human trio in the second row of seats as Raguel told them, “Wait here until you’re called.”

Manuel waited with them, and Phil marveled at the domed auditorium. It was as big as a football stadium, but instead of concrete and plastic, the seats were soft leather and spaced comfortably apart.

Across the domed roof was an alive sky with clouds, diffuse sunlight, and kaledioscoping rainbow swirls. In the center, surrounded by the thrones of the Sarim, was a grassy meadow with ground-hugging flowers in a riot of colors.

Then a voice boomed, as if from a loudspeaker, “The Sarim Council is convened. Hear ye, hear ye. All those with extraordinary business, present yourselves for disposition.”

“That’s us,” Manuel said and stood. The others followed him to the center arena. They shuffled their way to stand before Metatron.

As they did so, the rest of the Sarim members popped into their thrones. The seats in the auditorium also filled, and a buzz of conversation ebbed and flowed throughout.

Presently, Metatron looked up from the papers on his lap and said, “You have been summoned here to emphasize the seriousness of the situation we replace ourselves in. The agenda for this tribunal is to hear both sides of the case. Sammael will present the case against you. Raguel will present the case for you…”

“Raguel!” Manuel exclaimed. “He hates me, and he doesn’t like Phil much either. Are you stacking the deck against us?”

“Silence!” one of the other Sarim members commanded. The others in their thrones surrounding the grassy space nodded their agreement.

Metatron inclined a thank-you nod to the other angel, then focused on Manuel, “It’s Raguel’s duty in this type of proceeding. He could excuse himself, but he chose not to.”

“It’s a set-up, Metatron,” Manuel muttered.

“Even so, God’s Will shall be done,” Metatron intoned.

“Right,” Manuel’s sarcasm was thick.

The trial or inquest or whatever it was, Phil couldn’t be sure, proceeded quickly. The dark, sleek and smooth-tongued Sammael spoke first. His hypnotic voice urged Phil to believe he was an absolute threat to the Universe.

The dark-robed seraph concluded his presentation with, “The moon marches through its phases just as man marches through his cycles of life, death, and rebirth. He purifies himself to ultimately serve the Light or the Dark. In so doing, the balance of the Universe is sustained. These humans have upset the balance. In Jehovah’s Compound alone, hundreds are reincarnating ahead of time with the seeds of awakening sown into their souls. If they awaken, they transcend Light and Dark leaving behind an imbalance -- a vacuum, in fact, which could be filled with Chaos. Therefore, my lords, these three humans must be punished. They must be annihilated. They are that dangerous.”

Phil whispered to Donna and Pastor Mike an explanation of Chaos. It was the entropy the Universe sat within. In the world of Spirit, the forces of Chaos were the children of Leviathan and Behemoth, and their task was to reclaim the time-space continuum to the pre-existing pleroma from which it came.

Then Raguel stood before the Sarim and offered a defense. His delivery was adequate, Phil could see, but the head of internal affairs didn’t counter many of Sammael’s points.

Raguel concluded, “It is human nature to seek the Divine, to long for the Beloved, and to ascend the Holy Mountain. They are acting in accordance with their natures. How can it be right to punish them for being human? They connected with God’s Grace. They shared it with others. Is It not to be shared? Is It not what Jehovah asked for? All of us know what the Grail is, and we did not prevent these humans from bringing It to Jehovah. Why should they alone be punished. We have some culpability in this as well. Therefore, my lords, a different solution is required. If Sammael is correct, and pockets of Chaos begin to appear, we must turn our attention to those problems rather than trying to rebuild a broken dam.”

As Raguel finished, Manuel turned to Phil, “He could have used a better image than calling you dam-busters.”

Then Metatron’s voice called out, “Do any of the accused have a statement?”

Phil stepped forward and dressed himself in a dark blue suit. Dressing for success might not impress the council, but it made him feel a bit more confident.

“I do,” he spoke. “In both presentations, the arguments were about balance -- a static orbit of phases. Neither of them spoke of the evolution of Spirit. Human life is not a flat cycle. It’s a spiral going up or down. We evolve or we devolve. Sammael did call this a ‘refinement,’ but it’s a poor word. I see it as a dissolving of the human ego into his inborn Divinity. What happens then, I don’t know, but if it creates a vacuum for Entropy, then that too is Divine Will.”

A sharp outcry began in the auditorium as most of those gathered reacted to Phil’s words with shock. Phil looked around and wondered if he just sealed their fate.

The same angel who silenced Manuel shouted, “Order. Order in this chamber. You will remain quiet or you must leave.”

“Thank you,” Metatron said; then he turned to Phil, “Have you anything further to say?”

Phil gazed around at the gathering of the angelic hosts and felt a stab of despair. He knew he couldn’t do much more than worsen his situation, so he answered, “I guess not.”

Donna stepped forward and said, “What’s the big deal about balance? I can understand the ebb and flow, or movement through the stages listed in the I Ching. I don’t get your obsession with balance.”

Soqed Hozi sputtered in his chair to their right. He was a stern-looking angel in a striped robe. He gather himself and replied in a tone of cold fury, “The Earth is where it is in relation to the Sun -- not too close, not too far; not too hot, not too cold. The time for humans to evolve was when the Earth was ready. The Moon needed to be where it is to stabilize Earth’s orbit and control the tides. The four forces needed to be in balance for matter to cohere. Your memory is strong enough so you can have an identity, but weak enough so you can change. Your senses perceive the world, but your perceptions do not drown out your inner life of imagination. Your awareness can move around, changing reference points at will. You attach and detach with some ease. Your reason is balanced with intuition.”

He paused before concluding, “You are a miracle of balance, living in the miracle of a balanced Universe.”

“Oh,” Donna murmured.

Soqed Hozi wasn’t done yet, “Do you know how many eons it took us to prepare for you? Do you know how delicate and precise our calculations needed to be? Do you know how long it took us to harmonize the songs each star sings, or the music of each super-string? Do you, little girl?”

Donna took a moment to gather her thoughts before saying, “I thank you -- all of you -- for your efforts. You have your job; I have mine. I must replace my way back to the Great Mystery. If the balance is threatened by my journey, then I’m confident you will replace a way to rebalance it.”

Soqed Hozi huffed and waved at Metatron. There was nothing more to say.

“Fine,” Metatron said. “We will enter the Void for our deliberations.”

Phil turned to Donna and Pastor Mike and said, “The Void is where Sophia dwells. Brace yourselves for the light too bright to see.”

Pastor Mike inclined his head in acknowledgment; Donna’s face showed puzzlement. Phil moved to stand next to her and took her hand, saying, “Sophia is God’s Wisdom. She occupies the area you know as formless mysticism.”

“Really?” Donna’s face became animated with excitement. Phil smiled at her. She really was fearless.

Then he added, “Good job.”

The darkness of the Void oozed into the room and time seemed to stop. For what seemed ages, Phil was suspended in no-thought. He hung in this suspension clinging to Donna’s hand. Eventually, the darkness receded.

Metatron’s voice pierced the lingering stillness, “An answer has been revealed to us. Stand close and hear Sophia’s judgment. Balance was last achieved in mankind during the time of Moses. The Hebrew nation emerged from slavery and won through slave-mentality to a pure covenant with Yahweh. These three humans will return to those times and attempt to learn the secret of balance. If they do not succeed in this task, they will die at the hands of the sons of Levi. The Archangel Manuel is assigned as their guide.”

Manuel immediately reacted, “I don’t have to incarnate, do I?”

“Not this time,” Metatron smiled a weak smile at him and waved the human trio forward. He told them, “Each of you lived during the time of Moses. You will be escorted to those prior lives and your consciousness embedded in those bodies. Should you fulfill the task set before you, you will return to your bodies in this lifetime. Should you fail, your bodies here will be in a coma until they die. Do you understand?”

Phil did, as he had been punished in this way before. He noted Donna and Pastor Mike were having trouble with this death sentence.

Phil asked, “How long do we have to prepare?”

“One day,” was Metatron’s response.

There wasn’t much joy when they returned to the consensus reality. Pastor Mike and Donna immediately rounded on Phil and demanded explanations.

Phil’s small apartment seemed an unlikely place to be discussing esoteric ideas -- past-lives, Sophia’s logic, the angels’ mandate to maintain the balance of the Universe, the eternal confusion in the heavenly host, and so on. As such, Phil wasn’t sure where to begin.

He bought time by heating water for tea. Donna, who was dressed in a powder blue sweat suit, helped him. Pastor Mike’s gaunt frame languished in a chair. He looked like a giant beach towel clumsily thrown by a teenager in a hurry.

Phil was more worried about Pastor Mike than he was about Donna. Pastor Mike was sagging into the emotions of his recent spiritual emergency. If Phil was reading it right, Pastor Mike used alcohol to deal with the last one. Would he use alcohol again? Phil wondered.

Once the tea was brewed, Phil sat on the couch. Donna sat next to him as he began, “It’s been a roller-coaster ride for you two, and what’s coming next won’t be easy. Let me give you some background. Mankind’s job, the way I understand it, is to maintain the balance in Creation. This is so because we can embody Light and Dark, yin and yang, Flesh and Spirit, good and evil. Only humans can do this. All other beings serve one side or the other, or they lack the level of consciousness to know the difference. Anyway, the fallen angels define balance numerically; good angels see it more loosely. Metatron, and I think this is true for other humans who have ascended or become Enlightened, see it as a prerequisite.”

“See what as a prerequisite?” Donna asked.

“See internal balance -- like owning your shadow,” Phil explained. “Once you’ve owned your shadow, you’re balanced enough to work towards Enlightenment.”

“But then you escape duality,” Pastor Mike pointed out.

Phil smiled, “Quite so, and fallen angels lose each time one of us achieves a transcendent state. The good angels don’t rejoice either, because they don’t get it. You see, angels are agents of duality. They serve Light or Dark, Flesh or Spirit.”

“Huh?” Donna interrupted.

Phil’s smile deepened, “Forget all you may think you know about angels, and consider what I just said. Good angels serve the spirit in man; fallen angels serve our identification with the flesh. If we choose one over the other, we’ve denied half our existence. We must choose both, balance them within, and go from there.”

Pastor Mike sat straighter in his chair, “Metatron must know this.”

“I believe so,” Phil responded. “But he has to work with angels, and they worry about the balance of the Universe.”

“But why send us off to ancient history?” Donna asked. “What did we do to deserve such a fate?”

“I’m not sure,” Phil answered. “These things become clearer when we’re in the middle of them.”

Pastor Mike said, “During the period of the Exodus, the Hebrews were like children. Their dependence on the Egyptian government made every adversity they faced a reason to return to the comfort of slavery. If I understood Metatron correctly, the people we were in those times were people who could not break out of this dependency. They were killed by the sons of Levi when Moses came down from Sinai the first time, when people were dancing around a golden calf.”

Phil nodded his head, “It would seem so.”

“What do we do?” Donna queried them.

“We’ll have to influence those people we were back then to make different choices,” Phil answered.

“How?” was Donna’s immediate response.

“Well,” Phil smiled and sipped his tea, “if they are primitive enough, unfocused enough, and subject to impulse, it’s pretty easy. If not, then you’ll have to use Ishtar to make a dent in their minds.”

“Or Odin,” Pastor Mike muttered.

Phil regarded him and smiled. His original spiritual emergency must pale under the present circumstances.

Pastor Mike’s thin face couldn’t return the smile. He grimaced and looked away.

Phil tried to raise their spirits with, “Apparently, we’ll be able to communicate with Manuel.”

Donna rolled her eyes.