ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, THEY BEGAN to notice a change in the landscape. Waves of luminance washed over everything as the gray, sterile desert that surrounded the pillars slowly gave way to a scattering of green bushes.
Life! Ruth thought.
Finally, trees appeared. Dwarfish at first, they grew larger as they continued deeper into the land. At last, they came to a stream. In the Amazon, all the streams run muddy, but Ruth could see this one was clear. On impulse, she bent, cupped her hand, and drank, sighing at the sweetness of the water. She picked a broad leaf from a nearby bush, rolled it up to collect some water, and carried it to Akhu.
Once they crossed the shallow stream, things changed dramatically. The forest thickened.
“Ruth, do you notice anything peculiar about this place?” Jerry asked, his eyes scanning their surroundings.
“Only that it’s very beautiful.”
“But have you ever seen a forest without any underbrush? Or broken limbs or dead leaves?”
“You’re right. None since we crossed the river. Strange.”
“And something else.”
“What?”
“The whole forest looks manicured, like the grounds of an English country estate. It’s as if someone’s constantly taking care of the place.”
As he spoke, they crested the brow of a low hill and saw a valley stretching out below whose elysian fields beckoned them with haunting beauty. They saw it clearly, because like everything else, the light was changing. Inner luminescence had completely replaced the half-light of the stars and seemed to radiate from everything.
“Ruth, try casting a shadow.”
Ruth looked at Jerry quizzically as she held out her hand in front of a tree. Nothing. She held it close to the ground but still no shadow. Finally, she put it near Jerry’s face and exclaimed, “I see one here.”
“I think it’s because we’re different,” Jerry replied. “We have no internal light. At least not yet.”
“Maybe soon,” she said longingly.
She had no idea where her insight and feeling of anticipation came from, only certain of its rightness as she feasted her senses on the green freshness of the trees and plants, the sweetness of the air, the untouched purity of this place that shimmered as if being bathed in a shower of sparkling light.
At the bottom of the hill, two rows of stately trees marked the boundaries of a grassy path leading to the center of the valley. Pausing, they looked down the avenue toward a bank of fog in the distance. Though there was no hint of a breeze, it slowly lifted, curtain-like, to reveal a solitary tree.
Far larger than any they had ever seen, it was its shape that captured their attention. Some thirty feet above the ground, its trunk divided into two identical sections whose branches appeared as large as sequoias and continued upward in perfect parallel another hundred feet. There, as if by design, they separated and curved out and down in graceful arches toward the earth in perfectly balanced symmetry.
“The tree! Like the sign on the stone,” Ruth whispered in awe.
“It is the mark of Shi,” someone said behind them.
Ruth and Jerry both turned, startled to see Akhu standing tall and erect.
Ruth rushed to his side. “You shouldn’t be walking! Your wound—” She stopped abruptly when Akhu pointed to his side.
All the blood and the gaping hole had disappeared. As she watched in astonishment, even the faint pink scar marking the bullet’s entrance faded away.
“And you, my son?” the Shaman asked.
The two men who had been supporting Jerry stepped away as Akhu gently removed the tourniquet from his leg.
Like his own, the wound had healed completely.
Ruth’s eyes were captured by Akhu’s face, where his deep wrinkles of age were melting away like snow in a spring thaw.
“I have one last duty to perform, little sister,” Akhu said resolutely. “Not just for my people, but for all the others Shi has chosen. It is His will that I do this thing.”
Gently he took the stone from Ruth’s hand and set off up the pathway toward the giant tree. Jerry, now walking as if a bullet had never torn through his body, took Ruth’s hand as they followed Akhu whose bearing and stride had become that of the warrior he might have been.
As they drew nearer to the tree, they heard singing, singing that was spreading down the long avenue from tree to tree like ripples on a still pond until it seemed every branch vibrated with the melody.
Ruth surveyed the Edenic scene, feeling her spirit yield to the music’s call to worship, just as it broke free of the garden to spread its doxology of praise around the world.
She felt her soul fly upward on its message. Faster and faster, farther and farther. Beyond a billion stars, beyond billions of galaxies of stars, beyond space whose distances the minds of men could not conceive. Her soul thrilled as the music of the invisible choir breached the wall of ice, vaulted the great deep, and filled the Sanctuary of the Third Heaven. It was there in her spirit, she joined with the angelic chorus and all creation in singing praises to Christ who was making all things new.
“You are worthy” they sang, “to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every kindred, tongue and people and nation. And have made us unto our God, Kings and Priests: and we shall reign upon the earth…worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and wisdom and riches and strength and honor and glory and blessing.”
The song faded, and Ruth was aware that she, Jerry and Akhu had reached the tree as a reverential silence settled over everything.
“We’ve entered the Holy of Holies,” Ruth whispered to Jerry as they watched old Akhu, now young again, approach the trunk of the tree and kneel.
“He’s looking for something,” Jerry said.
After a moment, Akhu stood and held a small stone block in his hand, which, when he turned it over, revealed its significance. Etched deep into its face was the engraved sign of Shi, identical to that carved on the amulet he carried.
“The stone cut without hands,” Ruth whispered, remembering the Prophet Daniel’s description of Christ.
Spellbound, they watched as Akhu raised his face toward heaven, his lips moving silently in prayer. Then, gently he inserted the amulet into the stone’s indention.
The effect was instantaneous. Just beyond the great tree, the stone columns that had marked the border of the taboo land suddenly materialized. Out of the warm light spilling between them, Ruth and Jerry saw Timmy, Miss Flowers, their parents, and Father Bodien all running toward them to the accompaniment of the same beautiful singing they had heard as they approached the tree.
As the music swelled, each knew within their soul that the mighty deep between God and his children had been bridged by the smiling man who now stepped from between the columns; a man, though never having seen before, they knew with an inner certainty born of faith. Faith that now accepted his invitation to draw near – faith, having given way to sight, rejoicing in his words of greeting when he said, “Welcome home, my children, to the place I’ve prepared for you. Welcome home to Paradise.”
The time had rolled round again.