Chapter 23

  SIZZLE

  He was standing in a great courtyard surrounded by massive stone walls. Thousands and thousands of people were milling around and talking to each other.

  “What is this place?” asked Dev.

  “You’re asking me?” Said Deke. He looked around, and there was Zenek seated on the ground, surrounded by a few who were listening to him. Alice was seated with Zenek. Kelton recognized her from the first time he had met Zenek. He and Dev approached and listened to the conversation for a few minutes. Once again, Zenek was talking about God and answering questions with his own questions.

  Kelton almost laughed when he heard Alice and Zenek say to the group, “Yes, it was painful. What has your pain taught you?”

  Kelton approached the group, “I don’t know if you will ever get a straight answer out of this guy.“

  Zenek looked up at Kelton, “We were just talking about your situation.

  Alice said, “It must make you so angry that your colleagues turned on you.”

  “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. My body is not going to make it to the hearing.”

  “How did you do with your message sending?” asked Zenek.

  Kelton answered, “I think I was able to communicate with my wife a little. I was almost able to get her to go to her parent’s cabin to find me. But at the last minute, she was distracted by a phone call, and now she is on the way back to the University to try to find me at the hearing. I heard her tell one of my team that she was going to the cabin to find me if I wasn’t at the hearing.”

  “That’s better than I would have expected. You’ll be together by the end of the day, God willing.”

  Kelton became impatient. “‘God willing’? If there were a God, why would he ‘will’ something like this to happen? I am about to be cheated out of my work, a fortune in licensing revenues, and my scientific reputation. It’s all about to vanish as a small, angry man exploits his power…”

  “This is a very important question you have asked. If you are really interested and not just wanting an argument, I have a few questions for you.” Zenek said.

  “What a surprise! Zenek has some questions.” Kelton told Dev sarcastically.

  “You already have the answers. You just need to remember them.” Alice chimed in.”

  Dev was surprised at Deke’s sarcasm. “I have never before seen you act disrespectful. We came here looking for help from this man. Now you don’t want to listen? This is not like you, Deke. Please do not add to my regrets. Allah knows I have enough regrets of my own.”

  “I’m sorry. I am stressed out.” Kelton conceded. “Zenek, Alice, I am interested. I’d be foolish not to listen. I’m sorry about my outburst, but I can’t imagine how you can make me understand why a God who supposedly loves us lets garbage like this happen. Why do people who think they have a little power use it to grind others down?”

  Alice smiled a gentle smile. “Dr. Kelton, those sound like first-world problems to me. I don’t think you are being very sensitive to the others gathered here. Maybe they can put your problems into perspective. Kim, tell Dr. Kelton your story.”

  Kim stood. She was a tiny Asian woman, no more than 4’6’. “ I am Kim. I was forced to watch as soldiers dragged my husband and sons into the street. Soldiers slaughtered my husband and sons with machetes. The soldiers killed them just because they were men. I was taken prisoner. For more than 5 months, I was tortured and abused. I was given so little food that I finally died of starvation. My body was dumped in the center of town near the fountain. No one was willing to bury my body for fear of the soldiers. Most people who came for water turned away without water because my body lay rotting in the sun and rain for more than 2 weeks. ”

  Alice said, “I must ask you Dr. Kelton, do you think that Kim would have traded places with you? Would you have been willing to put yourself in her place? Would you agree that your problems pale in comparison to Kim’s experience?”

  “Wow! My complaints are just embarrassing now. I don’t belong on the same scale, but I think you are making my point. Certainly, any supreme being would not allow those atrocities to happen.” Kelton countered. What are God’s objectives? What does he want?

  Zenek answered quietly. I was just going to ask you the same question. Let’s talk first principles. For any of this to make sense you need to know: God does exist. He loves you, and he wants the best for you. I have been in his presence, and his love is overwhelming.”

  Kelton said, ”I can’t argue this whole life after death thing. I can’t deny it now. I have had an entirely new life view forced on me. Last week, I would have thought anyone who believed in life after death was deluded or misguided, but I still haven’t seen evidence of the existence of a God. To me, your friend Kim here is a powerful witness that there is no God. At least not one who loves us.”

  “You are not a man of lazy intellect. Why are you unwilling to apply your scientific method to what you see and experience?” Zenek countered. “Once again, we find ourselves covering the same material, Dr. Kelton,” said Zenek. “The same questions apply. Can you come up with a hypothesis that reconciles your observations?”

  Impatiently, Kelton said, “I think you want to reconcile the irreconcilable. You tell me God loves us. He created us. He wants the best for us. If he is responsible for the whole of the universe, then he is pretty powerful. He could do anything he wanted to, and yet 95% of the world lives in filth and blood and poverty. These are the people he loves? I would hate to see the condition of anyone he didn’t love. Look, I’m embarrassed that I even compared my problems to Kim’s and billions of others who have had it worse than me, but it doesn’t change the way I see things.”

  Zenek said, “So, because God doesn’t treat you like a pampered pet, he can’t possibly exist? You, a scientist, should be able to come up with at least 2 or 3 hypotheses to explain that problem.”

  “OK. Here’s one. If God exists, he is a scientist himself. And we are his lab rats.” Kelton challenged.

  “That opens a door!” laughed Zenek. “Try another hypothesis.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “We are the pets of a God who is indifferent to our pain. He is the equivalent of a pit bull breeder, who raises animals to fight to the death.”

  “You are thinking now, aren’t you? Can you come up with a theory that is a little less angry? Humor me. Try to come up with a theory that fits your observations with my report of a loving God.”

  Kelton replied, “ You are going to have to help me with that one. I’m drawing a blank.”

  “May I share a memory with you? I have an experience that may help you with this.” Zenek reached out his hand to Kelton.

  Kelton’s point of view suddenly lurched. He was now in a city. People and animals walked the narrow streets between houses made of logs and stacked stones. Kelton knew that he was approaching the royal estate of the king of the city. The compound was grandly ornate, with carvings and designs that looked kind of like a Polynesian block house. It was raised on a mound of earth so that it overlooked the other structures in the city. Kelton climbed the mound. He walked in through a grand entrance that opened onto a courtyard. There were rooms and dwellings situated all around the courtyard. Kelton walked to one of the larger rooms. There were seven children of various ages. Each sat on a mat on the floor, side by side with an adult.

  “This is a day in my life. I was a mentor to one of the chief’s children.” Zenek said.

  “Where are we?” asked Kelton.

  “I suppose you could say that we are near Toledo, Ohio.”

  “When are we?”

  Zenek smiled. “According to your calendar, this is roughly the year 342. I want you to see the school where I was supposed to teach one of the king's sons. You are seeing my memory as I saw it.”

  Kelton felt like he sat down next to the boy, pried open a clay tablet, and began to read aloud. As soon as he began to read, the boy jumped up and began playing with his brothers and sisters in the room. The other tutors seated on the floor were reading aloud as well.

  Zenek’s voice narrated. It felt to Kelton like he was watching a DVD with the director's commentary. “You will laugh when you see the school. I'm now embarrassed I was involved in it. However, the king had very strong opinions about educating his children. We were given the best of tools and the best rooms in the great house for teaching; we had the best of everything. No expense was spared. The king demanded that his children be taught. He wanted the best for them. There was a catch, though; the children were to be indulged in their every whim. The king insisted that the children were to expend no effort. They were royalty, and no work should be required of them. It was our duty as mentors to learn for the children. The mentors read and studied while the children ran about. They would occasionally show some interest, listen while the stories were read. They would watch for a minute or two as we wrote in the clay tablets, but the king insisted that such menial labor should be left to us as the instructors. The king said it was beneath his children's station to soil their hands with the clay. Or even to pick up a stylus.”

  Kelton asked, “How did they learn anything?”

  “How, indeed? They learned only what we shouldn’t have wanted them to learn. We taught them to let us do their thinking for them. The King's children became quite dependent on their mentors. They were quite useless as scholars and completely worthless as successors to the King.”

  “How did things turn out?” asked Kelton.

  Zenek opened a collage of memories to Kelton. He watched as mentors manipulated the children, using the children as leverage as they vied for power in the city. Over time, the teachers became advisors and, ultimately, puppeteers. The youngest son was manipulated by his advisor to murder the oldest. The murder set off a decade of intrigue and backstabbing, both political and literal. The advisors prodded and pushed, and one by one, the children of the king disposed of one another.

  “You were part of this? You were one of the manipulators?” asked Kelton.

  “Yes, to my shame. Today, it feels like someone else was doing those things. My pupil, Estinalor, came out on top. Under my influence and my direction, we formed and dissolved alliances as it suited me to do so. Together, we disabled, poisoned, blackmailed, and murdered his brothers and sisters. I effectively ruled the city. Estin was completely incapable of rule. He was unable to make the simplest decision without me.”

  “So, you got what you wanted?” Kelton asked.

  “For a time, but our infighting had weakened the city. I thought we needed more people and resources, so I began a campaign to attack and enslave the neighboring city-state, Maher. I wanted more gold, power, and riches. We were on the verge of victory. A few more days and Estin’s realm would have doubled. Unfortunately for both of us, Estin started thinking for himself for perhaps the first time in his life and decided I was getting in the way of what he wanted, so he had me blinded and my tongue cut out.”

  Kelton was dumbfounded. “That’s just crazy!”

  “It was definitely insanity,” confirmed Zenek. “For me, it was the best thing that could have happened. Without my help and support, the tide soon turned for Estinalor and his armies. The people of Maher regrouped and counterattacked. They swept into our city and killed Estinalor and his cronies. Everyone else who was unwilling to swear an oath of allegiance was killed or banished from our city. I lay nearly dead from blood loss and fever, and the insurgents dragged me from my cell and threw me into the street. I was no threat. They thought they were freeing me from my imprisonment-and they were, but not in the way they thought. I spent the last years of my life begging in the streets. It gave me a lot of time to reconsider my career path. For the purposes of this conversation, we have strayed off course a little. I want to ask you now, what did you think of my pedagogical methods?”

  Kelton was confused at the sudden shift of the conversation. “Your what?”

  “What do you think about the way we were teaching the King’s children?”

  “Were you teaching them anything?” asked Kelton.

  “Excellent! I have taught you something. You are answering questions with questions,” laughed Zenek.

  Kelton grinned, “Am I? Seriously though, did you teach them anything?”

  “Nothing that benefitted them. To their detriment, they learned that they didn’t need to make any effort. They learned to be dependent on people who turned out to be wholly unreliable. However, we are straying again from our lesson. Why were our teaching methods counterproductive?”

  “ You were trying to learn something for somebody else. If I do your homework for you, you are not going to score well on the test. Your students didn’t even learn anything from the test. I don’t know why you even thought of yourselves as teachers. You were effectively crippling your students. They were meant to be kings and queens, princes and princesses. Your teaching methods left them unfit for power or authority. They could have been rulers. Instead, they were useless lumps of hedonistic flesh.”

  “Exactly! At the command of the King, I ensured that Estin never struggled and never had to make any effort. Under my tutelage, he never experienced anything unpleasant. He never struggled, didn’t grow; he didn’t develop. He was completely unprepared for the hard knocks that were to come. I crippled my student by removing any challenge or obstacle in his path. I saw what was happening to my poor Estin. If I had loved Estin, I would never have let him stagnate.” Getting back to the lesson, Zenek continued. “Can you tell me how my story relates to your question?”

  “My question?” Kelton asked.

  “You wanted to know why God lets bad things happen to his children.”

  Kelton was not ready to concede. “That’s quite a cautionary tale. I see how you connect growth with the need to struggle, but the amount of evil in the world is just beyond anything that I can reconcile with a loving God being in charge. I just can’t see it.”

  Zenek smiled. “So, are we neglected pets of a disinterested God, subjects of an elaborate experiment by a scientist God, or are we something more?”

  Kelton held out his empty hands. He didn’t want to go down that path right now. “We have gotten well off the track of what I needed from you.”

  “Which was?”

  “Can I have any influence on my hearing today? It’s very important to me. Things are spiraling out of control.”

  Zenek asked, “What influence have you had?”

  “I think I got through to Gillian a little. She was almost turned her car when I told her to, but then she was distracted by a phone call,” said Kelton.

  “Those phones appear to be very distracting. What other success have you had?”

  “I think Gillian was missing me when I tried to talk to her.”

  Zenek asked, “Would your presence if it was felt by the others, give you the result you want?”

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  “Probably couldn’t hurt.” Zenek corrected.

  “That wasn’t a question! Am I getting some answers from you now?”

  “I don’t know, are you?” Zenek winked. ”Where is your wife now?”