“More than two thousand years ago the Creator allowed an infinitesimal fragment of Himself to gestate in my womb and become human.  He dwelt among a subjugated people who believed in a single God and He planted there his message of kinship between all humans.

“He said He would return and now He has, but He is not pleased with the way His message has been distorted and manipulated and prostituted and profiteered during the intervening millennia.  You all have the same Parent, therefore you are all kin.  He did not create you so that you would divide into warring factions.  Yet you have done just that.

“You, His children, have warred incessantly, with one part or another of your world engaging in slaughter, blind to the glorious future that is yours if you can but learn to see past the walls that divide you.  There is no peace between nations, but a nation is a fabrication.  There must be peace between people.  One to one.  You must learn to recognize the walls that divide you and break them down.  One by one.

“Tear down your walls, children, and find Harmony.

“You have become masters of your world.  You have struggled to the apex of your corner of Creation.  You rule it now.  But with mastery comes obligation.  The rulers of Creation are also responsible for it.

“Remember this: Every living thing, animal, reptile, vegetable, contains a spark of the Creator.  You hold within yourselves the brightest spark, but not the only spark.  It is arrogant of you to think that all other living things were put here merely to be disposed of at your whim.  They were not.  A balance must be struck.  It is a law of Creation that one thing must die that another may live, a law that holds true for all things, for the plants as well as the animals.  But you fail in your responsibility when you wantonly lay waste to the land.  You dim the spark within when you kill for sport and not for sustenance, when you kill for mere vanity to steal another creature’s beauty to wear as your own, or cause a creature pain to test the paints and scents you daub on your bodies.  All life has value.  Yes, there is a hierarchy in that value, but nothing that lives is without it.

“And if you must respect the place of the lower life forms in the world around you, certainly you must cherish the life-right of your fellow humans a thousand-fold more.  You must not diminish, must not damage, must not shorten the lives around you, for in doing so you also smother His spark within yourself.  And nothing dims that spark, nothing hardens the human heart to the value of human life more than the ghastly slaughter of war.  You must halt all war, children, including the unseen war: Never shall there be true peace around you while you wage war on the unborn lives within you.

“Respect all life, children, and find Harmony.

“Abolish your ceremonies, your communions, your sacrifices, real and symbolic; discard your dietary laws, cast off your clerical vestments, disband your sects, cease calling yourselves Catholic or Christian or Jew or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist, for these customs, these identifications, these sects, these labels serve only to set you apart from your kin.

“Stop your worship. Cease your kneeling, your bowing, your prostrating, your fasts, self-denials, and self-inflicted injuries.  You demean not only yourselves but your Creator when you believe that such obeisance pleases Him.  He did not create you for that.  You insult Him by thinking that He requires worship.  What worship could the Creator of all that is possibly need or take pleasure in?

“Put down your weapons, you murderous, wild-eyed defenders of faith and God.  What sort of God would need defenders, especially such puny and misguided warriors as you?  He is quite capable of defending Himself.

“Silence your prayers.  He will not answer because He will not listen while you call out from within walls that separate you from your kin. Harmony is the only prayer He heeds.

“Abandon your rituals, children, and find Harmony.

“Do not look to Him for guidance or relief; look instead to each other.

“Your churches, your temples, your mosques have been removed, for these are the most tangible and obvious walls between you.  Gather now instead in the streets and parks and squares where there are no walls.  Try to reach Him by reaching each other.

“Discard your Bible, your Koran, your Torah, for each is only partly true, and al lead you into the belief that you have found the One True Path to God, or the One True Voice that will catch His ear.  You have not.  And that delusion raises another wall, a wall of exclusivity.  He did not create you to be divided.

“Forsake your dogma children, and find Harmony.

“I say again, use your own lives well, and respect each life around you.  You are all kin.  Touch one another.  You are all living this life together.  And so you must all work together toward creating Heaven.  It is possible.  You have the power.  You need only use it.

“If you do not, if you continue along the same path you have trod these thousands of years, you will create a Hell for yourselves and your children.

“Look not for a Third Coming.  And act not in fear of eternal reward or punishment.  Your reward or punishment is here.  This is your world, these are your lives.  He has given them to you.  Use them well, make the most of them, make them mean something, make them count.  For this is your Heaven or Hell.  You have the power to make it either.  The choice is yours.

“Do not wait for the Rapture of the faithful, or for the Tribulation of the unbeliever.  They will not come from on high.  Your rapture arises from each other, as do all your tribulations.  Heaven or Hell will be of your own making.  You have but to choose.

“Here, now, today marks the end of the age of faith and belief, and the beginning of a new age: the Age of Knowledge.  For everything I say here is being recorded a million times, and thus you will have no further need for faith.  You will know there is a God and that He is watching.  Act accordingly, children.

“Let this then be the whole of the law:

“Find Harmony, children, and you will find Heaven.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Paraiso

Dan had listened raptly.  She’d been speaking to the world, he knew, to all of humankind, but he’d felt as if she were speaking only to him.  For what she’d said reflected exactly his innermost thoughts and feelings.  Because of his vows, his membership in the priesthood, he’d been afraid to vocalize them, even to himself.  But now that she had said them, he could acknowledge what he’d sensed, known all along.

He wondered if that was why he was here, in this house, in her presence—in His presence—why he’d been with her all along.

As the Virgin finished speaking she touched Carrie’s bowed head and said, “Come, my devoted one.”

Carrie rose to her feet.  The Virgin held out her hand and Carrie took it.

The Virgin said,  “Our time here is done.”

Our time is done.  What did she mean by that?

Dan swallowed and addressed her again.

“Wait...please.  Can’t you...bring her back?  Make her live again?  You can do that, can’t you?”

The Virgin shook her head.  “Her time here is through.  She is coming with me.”

“With you?  You’re taking her away?  Where?”  Dan felt a sob building in his chest.  He still hadn’t come to terms with Carrie’s death.  “Oh, please.  I’ve only just begun to know her.  You can’t take her away from me now.”

“I haven’t taken her away.  One of your brothers did that.”

And then Carrie and the Virgin began to rise.

When they were floating half a dozen feet above the floor, they began to drift toward the ruined windows, toward the sea, toward the towering column of water that waited for them.