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CHAPTER 11

A PLACE ?

UNDER THE SUN OR ON THE MOON

Harry had often seen Mike and Frank, but had no idea of their interest on his own behalf.

He was so delighted to be fitted for his new Chaplain uniform, and to be sharing notes with Ralph, that Hu's minatory marvels seemed distant. In his unsummoned thoughts, he had an impression of lightening Hu's anxieties by leaving the planet; of improving his mother's life; and, with his sister joined with him , that briar in Hu's life, far off from the intimidatory presence of the father, he felt his father might relax a little. Perhaps he might even feel so far unthreatened that he would alter just enough to become human once more, not a sad substitute for human life because devoted to representing it in himself.

The ultimate car to BE all cars would scarcely go at all, being too engineered in order to APPEAR to be everything, to be anything pf value or do much, Harry reflected. But WOULD his father merely use reducing strain to harry Cleo the more ? What could be done to deliver her ? He decided to consult with Margaret, since his mother was naturally sensitive to such areas, and might merely be the more distressed if it were faced too openly.

Her Monaro appeared in his drive-way - frankly he wondered if her readiness to come to his place was in part the result of her love of driving it; but he dismissed the thought as unworthy. She really was an active campaigner for family feeling.

Hi Marg!

Hi Harry!

Their eyes met, and their radiant faces soon fell as the thoughts of Hu dominated the mental horizons, like a nebulous blue-grey cloud mass, forming on the face of the sky, gloomy as if doomed.

What about mother if we go, sister ?

I shall be corresponding constantly.

What if Hu becomes maniacal directly ?

She'd have him put away.

More easily said than done, to such eminence as his.

I have left, in safe-deposit, an estimate of his condition, co-signed by a doctor Hu has seen, so that if there is any real trouble mother can activate these words through the other doctor.
 

Would he ripen in the grand way ? and if he did, would she be willing ?

A positive saint. If he went so far, he would not only doom himself, but be dangerous to all. She would not shrink from action.

ALL Christians are supposed to be saints ?

Some trees are frauds, you know, botanical parallels to sheep in wolves' clothing.

True, and good.

Besides, she watches him, and at the first sign of malign pre-occupations of that kind, she will separate and live in her holiday home.

Good! Well that might take care of some of Hu's hubris.

Talking of hubris, have you noticed your friends regarding you with a little awe ?

Not really. In fact,  I think actually some of them might begin to think of me as a freak, going where life is uncertain and the balm of a pastorate is to be replaced by the fierce temperatures, plus and minus, and a mini-atmosphere if you could call it even that, of the moon.

Strange, for I am finding that I have a sort of presence when I leave - you know, like a comet's tail, streaming after it.

The comet's tail is not very clean though, is it ?

At that point, of course, the analogy breaks down. I hope my gleaming wake keeps wolves awake. In reality, I don't know what they'll say when I'm gone; but it does not even interest me. I try to be frank ...

Didn't know it had gone quite as far as that. I suspected you might be fond of him.

Frank! Have you no eyes in your head! That immature acolyte.

I'm not so sure; but to be honest, I realise your heart's strings are glued elsewhere.

And where is that, since you are so wise and profound in your perceptions ?

Let us rally to the cause!

Hint ?

Of course.

As to Ralph, you are fortunate to have a friend like that: sober, strong-minded, but relaxed, verbal but not verbose, intelligent but not so profound that one cannot share in his thoughts.

There are some more sticks over there, see them on the ground, nice supple ones too, for your nest.

Romance has to develop like a child in the womb. Mere mutual attraction ...

Who said anything about its being mutual ...

Ever thought of law as a profession!

Actually, though, we must try to make a Chaplain's Fellowship with scope for others to join as accessories.

What is the third Chaplain like ?

He is a radical liberal, mad about Hu, fascinated with humanity, moving his 'god' about,  to land abruptly on anyone or anything which will respond to his altruistic and irrational enthusiasms.

How did you find all this out ?

I talked to him.

Unpleasant ?

Not actually. I simply indicated that I was and am a biblical, evangelical, unchanged-Christ convert, and have no intention of making up mock-up christs for my convenience, or anyone else's.

He took that without feeling bitterly insulted, intestinally aggrieved or weirdly affected ?

He is just a manipulator himself, I think, gripped by passion and powered by design for personal advancement. Hence the moon.

Isn't that rather a trip for such simple and popular options ?

I think he maybe feels that going a long way physically will eventually bring him a long way financially.

Financially ?

Well, you know II Peter 2: FOR LOVE OF GAIN, they teach muddled, muddy fiascos instead of faithful, biblical truth.

We had better watch for his ruthless schemings. And what do we do if he gets to preach at any services, and muddies the waters ?

He will do it so deftly that only those really aware will even notice.

How old is he ?

About forty, and he's had long practice in it. Denominations are falling like Autumn leaves these days, and he is the very life of the party when it comes to bringing churches down - you know, like wolves waiting for the weak ones at the side or rear, to destroy them.

Do you think he realises what he is doing ?

Partly. He probably rationalises that it is better to have churches subjects of the State, and that this requires the worship they provide to become a part of statecraft so that there is need for a 'christ' sufficiently plastic to be programmable by the State.

It's a culmination of II Corinthians 11, where they were already at a new Jesus, another Spirit and a different Gospel. Now they slide, slither and verbally dither, in case it ever became clear, until they have the sheep - or whatever they drag off - in their hands.

Crafty all right, so that man without God uses His very name in order to defy His rules and help man worship himself.

Of course: it's been like that for well over a century in this country.

And now we go to the moon ...

 For our part, to rescue the sturdy youth which loves enterprise, and away from the mundane -

You mean, the terrestrial ...

To bring some of them, not back to earth, but on to heaven where God actually is without the tribulations of rebellious earth. I'm hoping to find some who wanted space, to gain a site, "sitting in heavenly places" in Christ. You know, I always love that expression in Ephesians 2:6, as if speaking of  someone in high Alpine territory seeing seascapes and landscapes, with the massive covering canopy of the heavens in sheer space with clear air, the massed created units, the world of astronomy,  offering sublime praise from their sheer variety and affinity for infinity, as near as inanimate creation gets to it. Yet it is not in simple creation, but in its Creator's presence and power that they sit.

I think some of them who love the lunar work are in fact seeking for God, as if a bit of space could bring you nearer.

Probably, we will see, no doubt; but it is certain that being far from earth, with a vast space-scape shattering any sense of littleness, some will be awakened to consider the Geometrician. Undoubtedly, they will seek for a cause for laws and a meaning for man.

Until some little thing like physical survival reminds them of mini-morals and continuing alive.

Sometimes, things like that stir the heart to seek beyond the immediate to the ultimate.

Fierce passions for political advantage, economic priority, national prestige, power in space to intimidate opponents on the earth: these will certainly be at work.

A lunar microcosm, surely, but not only that. There is always that sense of being different, regrouping, re-assessing when you are in the super-remote, the arcane, the vanguard; and this will be at work also.

Harry's upbringing had rendered him a little cynical at times, but his thoughts were not so crimped by culture that they were bankrupt, since he had been converted through Ralph several years before. Margaret for her part, had found Christ in a nurses' fellowship earlier in her career. She responded after a little, to Harry's words.

God will be at work. Remember Armstrong's small lunar step and large leap for mankind.

Harry was not too impressed. His response was challenging.

I also remember the question, he responded: In which direction! Just where is man leaping! Steps are not good or bad, until the result is known, and the principle is realised.

Moving into hostile space, specifically an environment NOT for man, excluded moreover in Psalm 115 which declares that the heaven's are the Lord's, but the earth He has given to mankind, may be exciting; yet it is not the brightest song of the race.

We won't be singing it, merely going as missionaries to rescue what we can, and make a testimony as John Glenn did when he became the first American in space, in 1962, a year after the Gagarin effort from Russia. Americans took fright then, in many cases, for was not Russia with its little Sputnik also ahead of the US, when it put its first Sputnik into orbit in 1957, a year before Glenn did his tour. But the victory in the end was a triumph in 1969 for the US, first MAN ON THE MOON!  Russia, then the USSR, was left if not for dead, at least in the red.

Now it is all international, in appearance. Yet there is a large scope for a scoop, for one nation to utilise by deceit and craft, some advantage, and suddenly turn it to a payload the others cannot answer. Then their ideology might prevail, they will think, and the moon will be the agent. In most cases, this means they take what they want whether in moon and on earth. After all, the moon beams, as I think of the space people as being, cannot shine without the sun; and similarly, man on the moon needs earth as his support.

Yes, Margaret replied, eyes shining with the interest Harry created. It’s an adventure in disobedience with an end clearly enough foretold it seems to me, in Acts 2:20, excavated from the prophet Joel 2, where "the moon" will be turned "into blood."

Might not that 'blood' mean an atmospheric colouring from explosions and the like ?

It might be, but that is far from likely in view of Acts 2:19, the very verse in front of this. Terrible sights on the earth are to include "blood, fire and vapour of smoke". Luke refers to these sights too, in Luke 21:11.

How are you so well-informed sister ? Isn't medicine enough ?

You have heard of hobbies ? This, prophecy, is one of mine. That, in any case, is why I think war on the moon is on!

Sounds great: man in disobedience to God, moves from the heavily protected realm of the earth, with its magnetic Van Allen belts, its atmosphere, its cleansing tides derived from closeness to the desolate moon. Thankless in wild excursion, man is found flinging himself far from his native planet’s abundant water, its magnificent poetry of beauty in sky and lake, earth and mountain. Earth’s forests and ozone layer being feverishly and simultaneously reduced by a largely rapacious race, man belts off to the moon to make trouble.

Don't forget its dark side, not permanently so, but for days at a time; and  when it is the side permanently turned from the earth that is dark, it is doubly so for us who observe from the earth. Unilluminated and averse, it is available as such for many days at a time, unseen its occupants, dark their atmosphere.
Therefore there comes a dimness at some time on the moon's far side, as its near side moves to receive the sunlight: as the light goes from that far side, rather like light moving away from Arctic areas for a time, darkness descends like a screen, leaving abundant scope for dark action. Observation modes may seek to cover this, but conditions become complex through distance, darkness and uneven terrain.

Then of course there are dark holes which never see the light, near the lunar poles, where the sun rises only a tiny spectre, very few degrees around the lunar poles because of the small tilt in its plane of rotation, relative to the ecliptic, leaving many things permanently shaded.

Infra-red could probably pick it up.

The way it could get bin Laden ?

Well it makes it easier, anyway, in the dark.

So easy that it is just conceivable you might get what you want ?

Certainly there are always technical problems in having something able conveniently to be posed beyond the dark side of the moon, when it is made so by the moon getting in the way of its own illumination source, blocking out the light.

Like man, blocking out his own  light source by getting in the way! Again, there is scope for excavations to add to the dark craters in places which are thought never to receive the light, while detection efforts can be marred by interference methods, when wit meets wit, leaving a lurking presence invisible and sinister, ready both for its own mission and to mar any other.

Dark deeds in dark places, to turn red with blood ? Just the place for a career - for bats.