What I am about to write happened only two days ago. So as you can well understand that the situation is still raw in my mind and some of the things that I went through are still only starting to set in. First let me begin with a bit of a background. This is always good.

        I was born to a tired old individual who had married a person twelve years her junior many would say to prop up her ever fading ego. My mother was an heiress to the Judd Clan money. Her father, a wise Romanian, had invested in gold bullion at the turn of the twentieth century. During the wars he had hidden away the gold expecting to retrieve his treasure at the opportune time. He of course had been dead before the wars were over but he had made sure his one and only child was aware of the hidden treasure.

        When the war was finally over the gold was retrieved by my mother and grandmother. They later loaded the treasure into leather luggage bags and had escaped the old country and left for England in the hope of living off their gold. But times were hard in England as the war had cost them dearly even though the Allies had come out on top having ended Hitler's desire to rule the world. Well, that's how I see the oppressor and probably always will. But history has such individuals and will continue having such human beings for that matter in its midst to make individuals squirm under their tyranny.

        Oh, where was I? I always become sidetracked when I think about the wars. Mother always said people in power find it so easy to send others to the front-line when it's not their own blood that has to do the fighting. I always thought she was talking in this elusive way concerning grandfather's death, but whenever I pressed her on it she would clamp up and I could not get another word out of her.

        Anyway my mother and grandmother decided to get on a ship leaving for New Zealand of all places. In those day's America was the land of milk and honey and everyone who wanted to leave their country went to the United States. But that was exactly why my mother and grandmother had decided to come over here to New Zealand. Not many people. Far away from the rest of the world.

        Before they had arrived in New Zealand the ship had made a stop in Australia. All mother could remember of that incident was that there were not that many Australians there then mostly natives.

        When they arrived in New Zealand they were shocked to find that there were natives here too. Maori's, they called themselves.
         "Most looked European," grandmother often said when I was growing up.
"The way they were dressed you would think they had just arrived from France or some other continent."

        The gold was quickly banked away in numerous banks by my mother and grandmother so as not to arouse suspicion of their riches. Grandmother had said she had learnt that from the Bible, something about placing your bread on many waters cause you never knew which one might come in handy and when. I never understood it. But then again I never understood religion. Well, not until two days ago. But more on that later. Grandmother had hers all down packed into a daily routine. Mother on the other hand did not care for much, that is except for pleasure.
And she taught me well on how to get the best oUt of life.

        For my mother life was all about enjoying herself. She had her whole life ahead of her when she arrived in New Zealand. Grandmother was past her glory days according to my mother and she really did not nor desired the finer things in Life. Grandmother had settled into a quiet life, but mother wanted to enjoy herself and the gold grandfather had left her and grandmother. And so mother wandered and found joy in the arms of a young Maori lad by the name Hori Tamaiki. He was a quiet fellow. My mother quickly decided that the young boy deserved her undivided attention and set forth to get the sixteen year old fully educated in a private school.

        But first she had to get permission from the teenagers' parents. It took a bit of persuading as the Hori was a firstborn and according to the family tradition he should have been sent to his grandmother. But being an only child Hori had been kept back. My mother had to virtually buy Hori from his family. His father was not too happy to see his son go to a pakeha (whiteman) home. But the deal was made and money exchanged from gold bought my mother a young individual who she put through school and later married and provided grandmother with a mixed-blood (mokopuna) grandchild.

        They brought me up with the greatest of care, obviously because there was a lot of money around and no one had to do any work. Everyone was usually home most of the years I grew up. Watching me sprout-up was their leisure time. Growing up in our villa was my pleasure time. Home educated. Mother did not want me to leave home to study so she hired private teachers to teach.

        I grew-up and left home to find my way in life. Of course no one stopped me as the call of the wild was in my blood as it was in mothers and she was easily persuaded to let me go. So I set out for the big world with grandfather's money in my pocket, grandmothers' prayers and my parents tear. Grandmother was ninety-two by then.

        I had been enjoying life. You could say life was enjoying me. Every day was a new experience to be savored. Each moment to be relished. And yet despite the endless supply of cash and all the pleasures it brought me I still thought that there must be more. Somehow at the end of every day I would lie back and wonder if there was not something else. You know like a pot at the end of a rainbow. Or a greater experience.

        It had been on one of these occasions when I first had my run-in, which was two day's ago, with the Subtractors. I heard their whispers in the room that I was staying in. At first I was not sure what they were. All I could make out were a little flicker of light. The whispers had gone on for a couple of days. And then the freakiest thing had happened.

        A person appeared out of thin air and asked me if I wanted to experience the something more I had been thinking about recently. I looked her over and saw that she wore a black denim jacket over a camouflaged top with the word 'Righteous' printed on it in black paint. On the left arm of the jacket was a thin gold plate with the word 'Shield' embossed on it. Her pants were also black denim and were held up With a belt with the word 'Truth' pressed into the black leather. The belt also carried the holster for the Bereta pistol she held in her hand. The gun had the word 'Sword' carved on the side of the silver barrel. She wore a bandanna with the word 'Helmet' written on area covering her forehead. I had to look at her boots and yes you guessed it. Words were there too. 'Good News', splashed in blood red leather on black suede.

        As you can expect I was not so sure if she was real or the accumulation of a very bad trip. I looked at her and asked who she was.         "I am your movie attendant and your desire to leave is you pass out of here," she responded with emotion. Something flickered in the room and we both turned to look. "I think you better decide quickly cause they have come for you." I watched as the flickers of light that had been in the room now grew into pairs of eyes that stared at me. "You better hurry because if they fully materialize we will be in for one bad, bad situation." Another person like the girl appeared. This time the person was male.

        "Is he ready? Parakletes advises me that the prince of this city is about to send in reinforcements," the stranger stated. "We have to get our A into G or we are in for it"

        "What do you say? Are you ready to leave this life and come with us and become one of us or would you rather stay here and wait for Crusher and his minions to show-up. We can last the fight with Crusher and we will win in the end, but it is you we are concerned about. We will not be able to help you if you choose to stay," the female said to me. I looked at her and then at the eyes that seemed to be getting more features of the face, if you could call it a face, appearing on it. I nodded to her and she grabbed my arm and pulled. The lights dimmed and I felt as if I was in a dream floating through the room or something.

        Suddenly we were in another place or so I thought. I looked around and saw that everything was the same but that we were just in another room of the house I was staying in. My house.

        "Where are we?" I asked a little nervous trying to come to grips with the situation.
        "Don't worry," she smiled. "We are in the same place but we nearly lost you, you know."
        "Yeah, it was touch and go," the male interjected turning around to scan the room. I noticed that he was similarly dressed as the female. And there was the word 'Blood' patched on the back of his jacket as was on the females. I must not have noticed the words on her jacket cause she had been facing me all the time. "But we got you out."
        "So why do I feel weird," I asked.
        "Don't worry, the feeling is normal. It will take a bit of getting used to, but you will be able adjust to quicker if you just release control and allow the significance of what you have done settle in."
        "And what is it that I have done?"
        "You have just entered a world that you were created to be a part of, even before you were ever a thought in your parents mind." Obviously my heart missed a beat. "Everything is normal except for you. Your desire for a better life brought your attention to EL1 and he sent Paraklete to get us to come and help you make the transition from the fake world to the real world."
        "What do you mean fake world?"
        "Where you were living isn't the real world. This is the real world. That was a shadow. This is the real thing."
        "How can that be?" I interjected. Bewilderment most definitely must have shown on my face.
        "Why don't we step through the portal and take a look at the world you have just left behind?"
        And then we were there the room was now a war zone. There were hideous creatures running around obvious searching for something.
        "They were here I tell you," one of the monsters uttered. "I can smell the Blood. And I can see the Good News boot prints on the floor." Others started materializing out of the thin air. The female grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the Real World.
        "So, am I dead?" I asked after a while still not having understood a thing.
        "No," the female replied. "You have just started to live. You see you were dead in your sins."
        "So why did you come to my aid?"
        "Because when you chose to come with us. You made a commitment to follow EL1 and you turned your back on that situation. That's why you felt strange cause the New Life suddenly injected into you and the Blood was used to wash away
you sins left you left you feeling..."
        "...Alive and the shock of it made me think I had died and gone to heaven."
        "If you had died in that state back there, which was the plan of Crusher, you would not have gone to heaven because you were a sinner and sinners don't go to heaven. But now because of your choice to be saved from the old ways you are able to enter heaven not because you deserve it but because of what EL1 has decided for you"
        "So what now?" I asked. Mind you I still ask a lot of questions.
        "You can either help us bring others who are looking for something more in to the New Life. Or enjoy the New Life. The choice is yours."

        I chose the action and nearly got myself caught yesterday helping bring others into the New Life but it was worth it. A child and her mother were the first ones I helped cross over into the New Life. And because I myself had just been saved from my sins I was able to help them adjust more easily.

Plight of the Sparrow | Why is God Dancing? | The Journey