6th entry –
Yesterday I got disappointing news from the literary agency in San Francisco. They sent a letter rejecting my manuscript, saying it was "too erudite for the standard reader." I guess I did not "dumb-down" the book enough. Anyway, I still have several publishers that are reviewing my book, and I hope for better luck with them. If I get the nod from one of the three top potential publishers, I won't have to go through a literary agency. That will save me time and money. Hope and Pray!!
Now for the “Mystery Quest” and the 5
th clue:
“Then Grace will guide your steps.”
He opened the envelope and found the expected card. On the front was a capital letter E, and on the back was a picture of a labyrinth. He immediately recognized the labyrinth and connected it to the cryptic words, “Then Grace will guide your steps.”
He drove his car across Market Street to Nob Hill, where the third largest Episcopal cathedral in America, with roots to the Church of England, stood tall and concrete strong in its Gothic grandeur on top of the hill with its front facing east. The 329-foot long building covered an entire city block, and its two towers soared 174 feet from street level into the sky. A gilded steel cross atop its centrally placed spire rose 255 feet above the street.
Apollos quickly climbed the forty steps of the wide stairway and approached the world-renowned Ghiberti Doors, which stood closed behind a locked waist-high metal gate. Apollos used the side entrance. He had it in his mind to look for the red envelope near the labyrinth inside the cathedral. He had not noticed the folded up red envelope between the bars of the gates, which guarded the bronze doors that depicted scenes from the Old Testament.
The envelope was nowhere near the archetypal floor tapestry, which was modeled after the medieval pavement eleven-circuit design at Chartres Cathedral in France.
He stopped for a moment and gazed at the six-leaf design in the center of the circular labyrinth. He recalled when he stood together with Sophia in that center on New Year’s Day, and they resolved to make the journey of life together. Apollos took off his shoes and stepped once again on the path to that center. He needed to release the anguish of his mind and to clear his thoughts. He tried to re-enact his journey thus far with his beloved, and he intuitively felt her walking in front of him, guiding his steps. When he reached the center, he closed his eyes and felt the kiss of her lips on his lips. He knew in his heart that love would guide his steps back to her. He sensed a calm reassurance in his soul as he stepped out of the meditative circle of the inner world and back into the outer world. He put his shoes back on.
He tried looking for the envelope in the nave and in the transepts. He tried to find it in the area of the high altar. He tried to find it in the adjacent Chapel of Grace.
Instead, he found an icon near the southern side exit that stopped him in his tracks. It was an icon of Martin Luther King of Georgia, with the halo of a saint around his head and a scroll in his hands that said, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” He remembered that this modern apostle of civil rights for all people had spoken here at Grace Cathedral. The words of the martyr echoed in the walls: “We are engaged in a struggle to establish a reign of justice and a rule of love all over this nation and in every community.” Apollos also seemed to hear the preacher speaking of the esoteric Book of Revelation: “This is a book which is puzzling to decode, shrouded with impenetrable mysteries, and with apocalyptic symbolism, but within it are eternal truths which will ever confront us.”
All of a sudden Apollos remembered the doors which Michelangelo had marveled at and called the “Gates of Paradise.” He recalled Sophia’s words about the seemingly impenetrable mysteries hidden in the stories of the Old Testament.
“Look at these beautiful replicas of the original doors created by the Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti,” he remembered her saying. “It took him 27 years to create these three-dimensional panels, which marked the true spiritual beginning of the Renaissance when they were installed in 1452. Within its ten panels is the story of humanity, past, present, and future.”
“How can that be?” inquired Apollos as he tried to decipher the pictures in gilded bronze which looked so life-like.
“Well, look at the picture of Adam and Eve and notice the cosmic egg design of the creation of Eve in the central scene. It’s as if man in his original androgynous state became a polarized being with two halves. And the story of the two brothers, Abel and Cain, notice how one becomes a meat-eater, and the other a vegetarian. Sound familiar? And Noah, a story that hearkens back to the legend of Atlantis and the sinking of that great civilization, which is represented in the panel by the pyramid-shaped ark. Look here at Abraham, who brings the mysteries of the land between two rivers, including the mystic sacrifice of his son, to a new land. Now Jacob and Esau, that’s the all-too-human story of a younger brother who outwits his older brother for his father’s inheritance. And Joseph and his brothers, well, that’s what I call the most ancient of stories, the one about the sun and moon and all those constellations in the heavens. Moses, well, that’s the wisdom that he brought from the Egyptians. And then the Promised Land story. How do you figure a human being can make that journey of the soul and finally achieve a state of bliss? The answer is in David, or soul, defeating the towering physical giant of a man, who needs to die so that the King can reign. And who is the King par excellence? Why, of course, Solomon the solar deity, who performs the rite of the mystic marriage to the lunar deity, the Queen of Sheba.”
When Apollos finished looking contemplatively at the ten panels, he noticed a red envelope folded up and stuck between the bars of the iron gates in front of the Doors of Paradise. He opened the envelope and saw the capital letter N, and on the other side a picture of Twin Peaks.
