NOTE: The following excerpt is culled from The Wishing Place, a mainstream
novel by Larry Schoenholtz. It involves a section of The Angel Book, a mysterious
volume which insinuates its way into characters' lives and offers them clues
concerning events in the larger plot of the book. Currently, Schoenholtz is still
marketing The Wishing Place. E-mail the anthology editor for more information. 


FROM CHAPTER 5:  "Early Whispers of Persistent Grace"

Michael went over to the bookcase and brought the angel book back to his chair. He began searching through it as he spoke.

"Oh, I don't really believe it or anything. I just like the way it sounds sometimes. You know how much I like Indian legends. Well, this book sounds just like them. What you saidÑabout the sky people hating us-I read something like that in here just yesterday. It was in the verses around the 1600's somewhere. Maybe not hating us exactly.... Let me see...."

"Great. I'm in the book. Maybe Terra's got a gospel too."

"There. There it is, Dad. Here."

Michael handed the open book to Sam, but his dad declined. "No. You read it to me. I'm too tired to sit up."

"All right. Let me find the best part." His finger moved down the page, stopping ont he part most related to his father's idea. 

	1616	You imagine that the stars must teem with life, and
		you are right--more strange and plentiful than the
		most splendid of your hallucinations, with every
		shape of mouth and range of voice.  So yes, your
		lonliness confuses you.  We hear it.  We hear the
		whimper of the poor little isolano in the star yard,
		and our temptation to yield to it is very strong.
		But we have reasons.

	1617	As the silence in your dishes grows deeper, please 
		remember this:  all higher covenants exist by grace
		and invitation alone, and only for worlds that speak
		in the main with one voice.  This is what made the
		Tetragrammaton respond so fervently to the ancient
		cry of Israel--the unbounded plea for all peoples.
		But this is unusual for you.  And so there are no gods.

	1618	It is not a question of forgiving you.  We do.  And it is
		not true that we have never helped you.  We have.  But 
		your sovereignty is very important to us.  You must 
		find us freely.  It is no lack of love that makes us mute.
		We have excluded you, yes.  But upon what?  Merely
		upon the merit of your own example, and nothing more.

	1619	Your inability to give up your liturgical sovereignties
		in order to worship with one humble heart is your sin.
		Your inability to relinquish your territorial sovereignties
		to rule wisely as one world is your crime.  Your refusal
		to acknowledge your sin and your crime is your very
		disease.  Yes, Isolano.  This is you.  And still you wonder
		why we do not come down from the sky.

	Michael waited patiently for his father's response.

			-Larry Schoenholtz

All rights to this excerpt belong to its author.

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