"Without the Spirit of God a knowledge of His word is of no avail. The theory of truth, unaccompanied by the Holy Spirit, cannot quicken the soul or sanctify the heart. One may be familiar with the commands and promises of the Bible; but unless the Spirit of God sets the truth home, the character will not be transformed. Without the enlightenment of the Spirit, men will not be able to distinguish truth from error, and they will fall under the masterful temptations of Satan." 17
The small Bavarian village, nestled among
the Alps, lay slumbering peacefully beneath a benign sun. Cows
chewed their cubs on the hillsides while children played those
age old games common to all youth, with infinite variations suitable
to climate, geography, or time.
It was the evening, maidens strolled along
the narrow tree shaded street, between the picturesque Austrian
houses, unmindful of their grace and beauty for these were familiar
to them, homes of classmates and friends. Cobble stone lanes wound
up hill from the main street, flowers adorned windows and the
front steps of most of the houses. A pretty village, serene in
its quiet contentment among the timeless mountains, remote from
the hubbub of the larger cities. Seldom did the world penetrate
this corner of the country, where children could grow up unconcerned
and unmolested.
Three teenagers, school books tucked beneath
arms, or carried in satchels over their shoulders, walked quietly
along the street, chatting amicably, exchanging school gossip.
Two boys and a girl, with only a few years difference in ages,
they were modestly dressed, unobtrusive in their manners, neat
and orderly as befitted the Lavine children; Gilbert, the oldest,
Leopold, the youngest son, and Berta, the only daughter of the
village shop keeper.
Prosperous and hard working, the Lavine’s
owned the bakery, butchers shop, grocery store, and the only gas
station in town. They dressed well, as befitting successful merchants,
dinned at fancy restaurants in Innsbruck, and drove a Mercedes-Benz,
much to the envy of many in the village.
Approaching the bakery, Leopold noticed
a young man nonchalantly leaning against an ornate lamp post smoking
a cigarette
“That’s Fritz,” he said,
“standing lookout for the others.”
Berta sighed, as the trio slowed. They considered
taking the alternate root home to avoid trouble. “Don’t
they have anything better to do then bother us,” she asked
plaintively?
They paused, while Fritz pretended to be
interested in a blond girl across the street, but they knew, from
experience, that this was only a ruse. The cafe was a short walk
from his lamp post and would be filled, this time of evening,
with unemployed, tough young men and boys looking for a fight.
The Lavine’s were resented in this idyllic village for their
success and wealth and thus the object of hatred.
“Lets cross the street,” Berta
suggested.
“And let them know we’re afraid
of them, never,” Gilbert said resolutely, with less enthusiasm
then he displayed.
They walked on in silence, knowing what
to expect and also knowing that no one in the village would come
to their help should trouble develop. Papa and Momma were busy
in the bakery, and couldn’t drive them home, they would have
to fend for themselves.
“Good afternoon, Berta,” Fritz
greeted her in a lazy drawl. “On your way hone?”
Try as they might, the brothers and sister
could not hide their fear. Seeing it, Fritz felt emboldened.
Lazily, he left his lamp post and stepped
between them and the bakery, blocking the side walk. “What’s
your hurry, Berta,” he said, eyeing her suggestively.
“I’ve got to help Momma in the
bakery,” she said, trying to slip past him.
Reaching out, Fritz grabbed her arm, “I
want to talk to you,” he said, “don’t be in such
a hurry.”
“She’s needed in the bakery,”
Leopold said, gesturing down the street where a blue sign clearly
proclaimed Lavine’s bakery, fresh bread and bagels.
The cafe door opened and seven men and boys
leisurely strolled out, glancing up and down the street as they
puffed on cigarettes or sipped beer from aluminum cans.
Fritz held her arm in a tight grip. “You
wanna go dancing with me Friday evening?”
“You know I can’t, Fritz, its
the Sabbath and we go to the synagogue Friday nights.”
Leopold and Gilbert, concerned, yet not
knowing what to do, being out numbered three to one, watched helplessly
as Fritz’s grip tightened on their sister’s arm.
The other young toughs surrounded the trio,
plying them with questions, while crowding them together in a
tight circle.
“How come you don’t go to church
like the rest of us?”
“Why don’t your Papa hire some
of us to work in his bakery?”
“Where’d you get them fancy clothes?
You think your better then us?”
A young man stuck his cigarette into Leopold’s
mouth who promptly spat it out.
“What’s the matter, Jew boy,”
the tough said, “don’t you like smoking?”
They were being pushed and showed this way
and that, while Fritz still held Berta’s arm.
“Let me go, Fritz,” she pleaded,
“your hurting me.”
He jeered at her. “I’ll let you
go when and if I please. We don’t like Jews in our town and
we don’t like you. Why do you Jews work so hard, can’t
you give us some jobs. Its not fair that you keep all the work
to yourselves.”
Leopold, coming to the aid of his sister,
was punched in the stomach while Gilbert was slapped in the face.
Berta screamed as Fritz yanked her arm upward, forcing her to
her knees.
The brothers struggled with their antagonists
who were egged on by other men who changed to drive by at that
moment.
“Jews, go back to Israel, we don’t
want you here, steeling all the jobs, keeping all the money to
yourselves, not letting us have any jobs.”
Gilbert was kicked and pummeled until he
fell to the ground while his brother fought with two other toughs
until a third man struck him from behind.
Reeling under the merciless blows, blood
streaming from numerous cuts and bruises, Gilbert watched helplessly
as Fritz dragged his sister behind the cafe, followed by three
other boys.
Kicks reigned down upon his prostrate form,
arms shielding his head and face, he could only endure until their
pent up rage was spent. But they were not easily satisfied this
evening. He was kicked in the small of the back. Waves of pain
enveloped his mind. With a sudden clarity, this young lad, intent
only upon returning home to help in the bakery, realized that
he would never return home, not this night, not never.
“Mamma,” he cried in terror and
freight, “help me!”
With his last conscious breath, he heard
the familiar chant, Hial Hitler, Hial Hitler, Hial Hitler shouted
from dozens of throats.
Exhausted, their fury satisfied, for the
moment, at least, they would tend to the older Lavine’s and
their shop later, the neo-Nazi mod dispersed, leaving Gilbert
and Leopold lying in their own blood, a dying testament to the
undying hatred of the Jews that sill lingered in the breast of
the Germanic peoples.
* * *
The Syrians were relentless in their artillery
bombardment. The earth shook under the explosion of the heavy
shells. Dirt, debris, and bodies were tossed about in the predawn
attack that erupted just beyond Joseph’s position. But now
the contending forces were evenly matched for the first time in
the war, Joseph reassured himself.
Sheltering on the reverse slop where it
was difficult for the artillery shells to reach him, he watched
fires erupt in the valley below as several villages, the obvious
targets of the Syrian shells, became masses of burning rubble.
The civilians had long since departed this sector of the battlefield.
Waiting for the barrage to subside so he
could resume his observation post and direct his battalion’s
return fire, Joseph remembered his last trip home. Here, well
behind the lines, he expected to find safety, rest, relaxation,
and perhaps some diversion from the incessant fighting at the
front, but such was not the case. The streets were littered with
burned out cars, and street barricades. Burning tires marked the
front lines in the civil unrest that the Palestinians were fomenting
to distract a large segment of the Defense Forces from the front.
The tactic was working. Fighting two wars simultaneously, the
country was growing exhausted.
He watched as Palestinian youths taunted
soldiers in camouflage uniforms with bricks, fire bombs, stones,
and the occasional rifle shot fired by a sniper from an apartment
window. The response was ruthless. Fighting for its very existence,
the government was determined, at all costs, to suppress the Palestinians,
so its precious resources could be redirected to fighting the
main threat, the Syrians advancing on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Joseph was horrified at the ferocity of
the Palestinian fighters. They cared nothing for civilian casualties,
women, old men, and children were special targets of bricks, burning
pieces of rubber, and sharp glass. No one was safe on the streets
or even in their own homes. Gun battles were fought along dimly
lit corridors of apartment houses, every door or window contained
a potential threat, every stairwell became a death trap, every
squeak or rattle was a gun man in hiding ready to spring upon
an unwary civilian or soldier and send another hated infidel to
Allah.
The war and carnage, forced upon his country,
sickened Joseph. For two weeks, he heard nothing from his parents,
his sweet heart, or his friends. He neither received correspondence
from them nor heard of their welfare, so intense had been the
fighting and disruption caused by the insurgent Palestinians.
Civil society had almost disintegrated. People were terrified
to venture out to the market for food. Hunger and malnutrition
stalked the country, and the specter of plague threatened to finish
what the Syrians and Palestinians could not accomplish through
force of arms.
Joseph watched a refueling truck slowly
moving toward several tanks suddenly disintegrate in a huge ball
of orange yellow flames. What needless carnage and loss of life,
he thought, tightening his grip on the rife. If only he could
strike back at the enemy, hurt them as badly as they were hurting
him and his country. If only he could just make them go away and
leave then alone in peace. Peace, that’s what he and Israel
wanted, to live in peace, but was this possible, surrounded as
they were by ruthless enemies bent upon their destruction. Fighting,
killing suffering, flames, thunder, wreckage, for what he wondered,
why couldn’t they just go away and leave them alone?
Joseph considered himself to be a devout
Jew, who longed to be in Synagogue rather then on this desolate,
bullet and shell swept hillside. Why must they fight on the Sabbath?
It was bad enough to fight at all, but on the nation’s most
holy day, but then nobody ever considered such niceties as holy
days or religious observations when making and waging war.
Joseph sighed, hefted his rifle and binoculars
and prepared for another day of fighting and dying to preserve
peace. What an irony, he thought, to fight a war for peace, to
kill to preserve life, to destroy to build. He wasn’t a pacifist
or defeatist, he would fight and die for Israel, but he was so
tired, so bone and soul weary. Would they never leave him alone?
Would he ever see his family again? Where they even alive? Was
his house still standing? These questions occupied Joseph’s
mind as he scanned the probable penetration point for the Syrian
armor, an area less then two miles away, a narrow ravine between
two heavily defended hills.
There they were, the first of the Syrian
infantry. Like ants crawling over the nearest hills, attempting
to dislodge the unit holding that portion of the defensive line.
If they held another day, another hour, perhaps reinforcements
would arrive in time, and this attack, at least, could be blunted,
but what about the next one, and the one after that, how long
could they endure?
* * *
The flight from Chicago to Colorado Springs
was a short one for which Judy was thankful. She hated flying,
hated and feared anything to do with airplanes, but today the
weather was clear, no clouds obstructed the sky, affording her
a truly marvelous view of the planes and farm lands below. In
regular squares, the roads and fields, marked a checker board
of orderly farms and civilized life on the planes of Nebraska
and Kansas.
They were at their cruising altitude of
31.000 feet, the stewardess was calmly moving among the passengers
dispensing orange juice or small bags of peanuts which reassured
Judy. If anything were amiss, she would quietly issue the needed
instructions.
Judy, slightly overweight, with short, curly
hair, and a dimple in her chin, began to relax, allowing her mind
to wonder from the window and concern over the performance of
the twin engine jet airliner to the Presidential race. She was
undecided this early in the campaign. Neither candidate addressed
her concerns. As a single female in a highly competitive business,
she felt vaguely uneasy working with high powered men climbing
the ladder to success.
Unlike other women, she had not encountered
any sexual harassment, but assumed it would happen any day just
as this plane could crash without the least warning. Glancing
out of the window, she reassured herself that the wing was still
attached and the left engine was still working. They were, she
concluded, so she went back to scanning the headlines of the Chicago
Tribune that she held in her lap.
“Would you care for something to drink,”
the stewardess inquired with a smile of reassurance that momentarily
humbled Judy, but only momentarily as the plane bumped through
some air turbulence, causing her to grip the arms of her seat
in genuine freight.
“Maybe some orange juice,” she
said through clinched teeth.
“The stewardess handed her a small
white napkin, then poured the juice over several ice cubs in a
clear plastic cup.
Seeing her fear, the stewardess leaned over
and whispered, “just think of it as a bumpy dirt road in
the country.”
Judy smiled her thanks while gingerly sipping
the orange juice as her stomach knotted in fear. Bumpy road, not
up here, she thought. Its supposed to be smooth flying this afternoon.
The liberal candidate seemed more in tune
with her fears then the Republican candidate. He said he cared
for her, for her job and chances for success, and, besides, he
was cute. That mattered to her more then she realized.xxx The
other man was articulate but she preferred someone who spoke her
language and understood her fears.
The plane was turning southwest. Momentarily,
the full brilliance of the sun flooded through her window, causing
her eyes to water.
The engines hummed reassuringly, conversation,
in the cabin, was muted, the stewardess was returning with her
cart to collect empty glasses, while the Chicago Tribune lazily
floated toward the ceiling of the cabin as her stomach entered
her throat. Having violated one of her primal instincts, Judy
had unbuckled her seat belt just moments earlier.
The jet dropped for an eternity, but it
was only a second, Judy reminded herself. Glancing about the cabin,
she was reassured by the sight of the stewardess collecting empty
plastic cups. Nobody, except herself, seemed to have noticed the
plunge.
The voice of the captain was speaking. “Ladies
and gentlemen, we seem to have encountered some light chop. For
your safety, please return to your seats and buckle your seat
belts.
So calm and reassuring, Judy thought. The
captain was fully in control of the giant aircraft. Forcing herself
to relax, she was slow to comply with his request. Surprised by
an unnatural feeling of buoyancy, her first hint of trouble come
when several passengers began screaming as they were propelled
out of their seats.
Paralyzed with fear, her hands slipped off
the arm rests, as her body rose toward the cabin roof. A man slapped
her in the face with his outstretched hand, as he floated by.
The stewardess was desperately clutching a seat back as her legs
ascended over her head. Cups, bottles, coats, and carry on luggage
were floating around the cabin. At first, Judy didn’t notice
the sharp angle the plane had assumed, as it fell thousands of
feet toward the ground. Momentarily, the sky and earth reversed
themselves in her orderly world, but as suddenly as it began,
the plane righted itself, causing Judy to be flung to the carpeted
floor.
Momentarily loosing consciousness, she awoke
to find herself once again airborne, as the plane banked sharply
left. For the second time, she was slammed to the floor hitting
her head on the corner of a seat. The screaming stopped as a deathly
silence filled the aircraft. Judy gingerly sat up, feeling her
head as a thick, warm, viscous fluid flowed down her face from
two deep gashes in her forehead.
It was then that she felt the pain. Something
was wrong with her legs and back. Groaning with the effort, she
reached for an arm rest and pulled herself upright. Her skirt
was torn, she was missing both shoes, and she felt a vacant space
in her mouth where formerly had lodged three teeth, but it was
the pain in her legs that concerned her. They didn’t seem
to be working properly.
Vaguely conscious of other people, through
the waves of pain that were assaulting her brain, she saw the
stewardess sprawled in the aisle, a bunch of plastic cups scattered
about her body, while other passengers were slumped over seat
backs, or crumpled in between rows of seats.
The plane was once again flying smoothly,
but Judy was no longer frightened. In detached fascination, she
watched a man, holding a white handkerchief to his forehead, move
down the aisle, bend over the body of the stewardess for a moment,
then move to other forms lying in awkward positions. Reaching
her seat, he smiled, noted her condition, living, she assumed,
then moved on. She wondered if he was a doctor.
The plane was descending, not abruptly,
as before, but in a normal glide path. They were landing. Soon
they would be on the ground and paramedics would take care of
her.
She closed her eyes, heard the landing gear
descending, felt the familiar and reassuring bump of the wheels
on solid ground, felt the backward thrust of the engines and sensed
the plane showing. Would they taxi to the terminal?
She heard voices. Opening her eyes, she
watched in fascination as emergency personal moved about the cabin,
removing bodies and assisting others toward the ramps.
Two men, wearing fireman’s uniforms,
with gentle hands and the kindest faces she had ever seen, laid
her on a stretcher. After bandaging her head, they fastened her
legs to the stretcher with more bandages. She was lifted and carried
from the plane to a waiting ambulance.
Glancing back at the aircraft, now surrounded
by emergency vehicles, with their red lights flashing, she blew
it a fond kiss. Never again would she be frightened of flying.
Having faced the dragon and slain it, she would soon board another
aircraft for the return trip to Chicago and months of intensive
orthopedic surgery and therapy to her paralyzed legs and broken
hips, but she would fly again, she promised herself.
She was lucky. Out of 157 passengers and
crew aboard the stricken flight, she and 18 others survived the
worst instance of clear air turbulence in aviation history.
