The Revelation of Love Gideon Cecil

Amanda's Letter

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Username Password Create an account Forgot your password? Book Gallery Book ads can be viewed at Bookwhirl. Discover the thrilling insights that can revolutionize your life as you serve the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings. Fantasy tale of a family with mysterious secrets to reveal, and a tragic love story five-centuries in the making. How do we apply knowledge, understanding and wisdom in our lives? Throughout this book you can learn the steps to a more positive life.

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This book is about various experiences from the author. Learn about his military and personal experiences. Learn how life can make you or break you. Deep Breaths explores love and living in a way that begs us to also breathe deeply. Be touched and inspired with this poetry book. In D'liberate Ramblings, Leo continues to write from the deepest places that life touches us, expressing his thoughts in a way we can all relate to. I was about to spill the beans. I was going to say yeah this is Elan and he lives half way up the block. I mean who cares what happens to him as long as I survive?

These people seemed to be serious players. But as I was about to confess I found my mouth saying, "Nay good sir, I have never seen such a character. But if perchance I do, may I have some way to contact you? There was a pause and I was handed a business card. The driver in the car snatched back the drawing of Elan that he handed me and they sped away. I looked down at the business card, where on the one side was written a scrawled number. On the other side was an advertisement for a business, "Knight Security.

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It was a cold night and I was looking to end my business early. The four gorillas and my strange answer had really freaked me out! What in the world had happened to my tongue? Being self employed so to speak I had the option of dictating my hours. Of course I had to get along with my associates but we were pretty tolerant. Some kind of instinct told me that tonight was going to be something unusual and it would best to avoid it all together. Then I saw Elan coming down the street.

Derek Walcott “Love after Love”

He was acting odd. He was standing under a street lamp. Like I said it was a trip because it seemed as if he was absorbing the light. Well I got distracted by a car that pulled up. I went over to do my job. An African American lady lowered her window half an inch. It is a good thing to be feared and it is a bad thing as well. To me it was just another aspect of life I had to accept. People from the hood would understand that. Makes you think when people cross the street to avoid walking by you.

Well I retreated back to the sidewalk on the corner and there was Elan. His voice had this squeaky metallic sound in it. I got real nervous now. Elan never spoke to us outside of 'hello' and 'have a nice day'. I knew for certain that I didn't want to get involved with those four dudes that were looking for him. I mean all wild thoughts came into my mind. This Elan I knew nothing of, maybe he was some big time player escaping some heat. His touch was cold and then freezing. Suddenly my belly felt like it took a Mike Tyson uppercut. I crumpled over and almost fell to the sidewalk.

All my associates now began to notice and they flocked towards me. I was going to say 'kill the mother,' when to my surprise my mouth spoke, "It must be some bad Chinese food. All my friends well they had some grand laugh. I shook my head in disbelief. Elan took my hand and we walked down Excelsior Avenue away from my corner.

We had gotten to the next block when he said to me.

It was a dark experience. His cackle was sinister and evil sounding to my ears. I reached into my pocket and gave him the card that the four gorillas had given me. He took the card and looked at it real hard for a long time. The card actually hummed and glowed as if enchanted. Then a grand smile came to his face like he had won the lottery or something of that nature.

I was starting to get real spooked out about this thing. Something was not natural about my recent circumstances.

Then Elan told me what he wanted me to do. Elan looked at me real long and then said. Somehow I knew that Elan had killed before and most likely killed more than once. People who never killed talked big about killing. People I knew who have done time talk small about their deeds. What did he mean by 'or worse'? With no real options then running away for good I agreed. The same dark tinted window Cadillac pulled up. One of my associates ran up there just like I did three nights ago thinking they were coming to buy some of our products.

It was High Wire Carter who approached the vehicle. High Wire was a dude always strong out. Meth and coke were his drugs of choice. As a result he was always on the edge. When he saw the four dudes in the Caddy he took off and ran. Yelling 'police' in the 'hood' was just like yelling 'wolf' in the village except it had the opposite effects. Instead of everybody running to the rescue, everybody was running to escape.

But I knew the situation and if I could trust Elan, I was certain that these four individuals were not with law enforcement, at least not law enforcement from this era. I went up to the car and one of them yelled in recognition, "There he is. The man in the driver's seat looked at me real hard and then finally shook my hand. I am very good at my business, it is why not only have I survived, but I have prospered. Part of the art of the deal is to be aware of what all individuals in your vicinity are doing. So I noticed in the back one of the men fingering a large knife.

I suspected that they suspected something wasn't on the up and up. I had called them telling them that I knew where Elan was. However they were insistent on me giving them his address and I was insistent on them meeting with me. The humor put them at ease. I then reached in my pocket and took out a small black wand the Elan had given me. I pointed it at the occupants. Suddenly the world transformed.

The four white gorillas were now dressed in blue state police uniforms. The black Cadillac became a police cruiser. The small black wand transformed into a gun. Then there were four successive pops though I didn't pull any trigger. Blood was flowing from each of the car's occupants.

I ran in terror. I wanted to toss down the gun but Elan had warned me not to do so under any circumstances. It was a stern admonishment, "Toss down the rod and you will be worse off then dead. So I ran down the street in terror. I had just shot four state police in a police car killing them execution style!!

The name of Big E would go down in history I thought. Big E would also fry on the electric chair, if I made it alive that long in custody. Then I remembered that I was a ghetto defender. I was a soldier in a drug war. If you ain't from the hood I am certain you don't understand. If you ain't from the hood I am pretty certain that you don't even want to try to understand.

No you prefer to remain living in your black and white world of absolutes. Where the police are good, outstanding citizens and those involved in occupations like mine are the scum of the Earth, deserving of death and more. You see, I can see through your eyes but you can't see through mine. I calmed down and stopped running. Something strange was going on. This Elan had powers. It must be magical powers because no science could ever explain the weird experiences I had in connection with him. So with the black rod in hand, which was indeed a black rod and not a gun, I calmed down.

I walked slowly and deliberately down the street just as Elan had instructed. I walked down Excelsior Avenue for about a mile and a half. I passed all those places of worship that I had chosen to ignore for years. I had dismissed them all as a con, just another way to get you away from your money. I passed all the nice houses owned by the well to do with their tidy lawns.

Finally I arrived at Siakake Park. It was night and there were no lights. It was what Elan had instructed me to do. Believe me, I did not by any stretch like trusting him, but at this point I had no other recourse. As I entered in the park I traveled down the secondary road and walked to where the golf course is fenced off. Elan told me to walk past the gate and that I would find a hole torn in the gate.

Following the careful instructions I found things exactly as he said. I slipped in the breech and descended to the bottom of the hill. It was there that I was to meet Elan. There was no moon and no lights so I could not see. I carefully tread down the hill where I saw the worst sight I had ever seen. There before me was a monstrous beast. He was like a giant ball of black feathers standing fully ten feet tall. His hands were claws and his beak full of jagged teeth.

Upon seeing me he raised a paw and gave of a sinister hiss. I fell backwards in terror raising a hand in what was certainly futile defense. Like a puppy being told to sit the creature obeyed lowering his claw. I looked over and saw Elan. In one world I pointed the black rod at four guys in a black Cadillac. In the other world I fired a gun and killed four State Police in their cruiser. I was glad to get rid of the item. It really spooked me out. I was done playing. I knew Elan was something other worldly but still this was my life.

Now I am in a serious situation. I can never go back to my corner. I turned around to see Bert, the large creature, standing in silent obedience. I was no longer self employed, I had been promoted. I guess that was reason to celebrate. As for what the future held who knew. Maybe I'd finally get out of the hood. I did have one further question for Elan though. Two pointed ears were revealed. I trust that if you made it down to my afterword that you enjoyed my little story. The inspiration for this story came from my experiences down in Newark, New Jersey. Some of the characters, events and descriptions are based on real life, even if somewhat exaggerated.

It is available on pre-order for ninety nine cents. Posted by John K at A Day The Poet's Cafe.

Serving as waitress at the restaurant. Chewing Bazooka bubble gum with a smile. Tightly fitting finely filled uniform. Compensates for her lack of style. Her glossy red cheeks speak abundantly. My eyes tip toe over the menu. Rosie smiles savage and cunning. Confounded by a vague reference. Like a ship lost upon the sea. It's the worst thing to say. So dead the corpse is but dust. Embarrassed like cuddling lovers discovered in lust. Jew Boy was two words I heard many times during my four score years and eight years. When I was a boy, a teenager, or a young man, they were often a prelude to a fight.

They were a verbal assault that challenged my sense of manhood, an insult to the ethnic group to which I belong. The subtext of those words was and still is: You're a Jew, and everyone knows that Jew's are too cowardly to fight. It followed me into the army, where I either took a trouncing or gave one. But either way, I fought for the same reasons: The last time I heard those two words a colleague at the college where I was a Professor of English Literature uttered them. It was just after Christmas, and the college, which was marginally a Lutheran institution, continued to hold classes, with the exception of Christmas and New Year's Days.

Walter had two defining traits: He combined them whenever he thought the situation demanded it. But there were times when he misjudged the situation and deeply wounded someone, which was what happened when he referred to me as Jew boy. In addition to his wit and sarcasm, Walter possessed two other qualities that substantially augmented his verbal sallies: The melding of these qualities resulted in an imperious air, a self-importance, of which he took advantage. Walter was in the doorway of her office; some sort of conversation was going on between them. I couldn't hear Susan's voice, but Walter's was, as usual, distinctly audible.

The Revelation of Love by Gideon Cecil (Paperback / softback, 2014)

Stunned, I faced him. He smiled at me. The smile left his face, and he walked back to his office. Though we were colleagues for many more years, I never trusted him again; nor did I seek his companionship again. The best I could manage was a courteous exchange. He had deeply wounded me, even though I'm the most secular kind of Jew: Absolutely nothing, except that it clearly shows that anti-Semitism lies hidden in the most enlightened of environments.

In one way or another Jews have always been exposed to their Walters, and were wounded, some more severely, than I was. And millions lost their lives for no other reason than they were born into the Hebrew faith. It became part of our individual heritage; and in a much broader context, our collective identity.

The day after the incident with Walter, I did something I never thought I'd do; I went to a local jewelry story and had a ring made with a Chi on it. As a symbol of identity, that to Jews is equivalent to the cross. No, it's not religion or faith in God; both are still anathema to me. More important, as far as I am concerned, I found my first language, Yiddish. It was there all of the time, and I didn't recognize it. Perhaps, I didn't want to recognize it. My paternal grandmother, Rose, and my maternal grandmother, Ester, spoke Yiddish. I have a very clear memory of Ester: I didn't like her; and I knew she didn't like me, or my sisters, or my father.

And I also knew, she didn't like my mother because she always argued with her in Yiddish. But my mother must have loved her very much because when she was dying she called for her, in Yiddish of course. Whereas my mother was the oldest of ten children, my father was the youngest of the clan, possibly a love child, a bastard. According to the official papers, he and Rose came from Austria when he was six months old. But my grandfather had already been in this country for years.

To differentiate between grandmothers, at least in my immediate family, it was done by size. Ester was big bubba, while Rose, a diminutive woman, was referred to as little bubba.

Both my grandfathers died before I was born. My maternal grandfather died when he was thirty-nine from tuberculosis, and is buried in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, while my paternal grandfather was buried in the Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. Little bubba lived with my family until she could no longer take care of herself; then, she spent the rest of her life in the Jewish Home for the Aged, on East New York Avenue in Brooklyn.

My mother told me that she'd raised me until I was five. Since her language was Yiddish, it became mine along with English which was spoken most of the time, except when my parents were angry and hurled thunderbolts of Yiddish curses at one another, or spoke about something that they didn't want my sisters and I to know about. Then, something unfortunate happened; my mother brought me to see my grandmother either the day she died or the day before she died; I'm not clear about the exact day. When I saw her, she was delirious and frightened me so much that for years I remembered nothing about her or the language she spoke.

Only within the last decade or so, have I been able to put together a vague picture of what she looked like. But more than likely, it's more imagination than memory.

But oddly, what I have always remembered was the woman in a nearby bed who offered me an orange, which I did not take. So much for the back-story, for the reason why I had forgotten Yiddish: Now go forward; I'm thirty- three or thirty-four years old. I board a plane for a flight back to New York from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was there on assignment for a client, North Atlantic Industries, to write an article about their new Null Meter. It's mid-afternoon on a Friday. The plane is almost full, and there are passengers behind me, when I suddenly see him.

But what the devil is he doing there? Perversely, I decide to sit next to him; as soon as I do, he moves as close to the side of the aircraft as possible, and looks at me with unreserved disdain. I return his disdain with a smile, which further upsets him. We still haven't exchanged a word. Because it's high summer, I am deeply tanned, and am often taken for an Italian or Hispanic. I am sure he's trying to figure out to which of those ethnic groups I belong. By this time the passengers on either side of the aisle, in front and in back of us, are aware of the small comedy to which they are privy.

When we reach our cruising altitude, and the seat belt sign goes off, a stewardess begins to roll the juice, soda, and alcoholic drink cart down the aisle. The juices, and soda were free; but you paid for all alcoholic drinks. And whiskey came in small bottles, enough for a shot; served in plastic glasses, with ice, if requested. Of course, he is too stunned to respond immediately; so I put the question to him again. We touch our plastic glasses together; then drink'.

As it turned out, his command of English was very poor. But he spoke several other languages: Russian, because that's his mother tongue; French and Italian, because he lived for a while in each of those countries; Hebrew, because he was trained to speak, read and write in the language; and German, because he's a survivor of Auschwitz; and Yiddish, because it's the argot of Eastern European Jews. My knowledge of Yiddish was extremely limited; and my knowledge of Russian non-existent, as was my knowledge of Hebrew, and German.

Despite the linguistic difficulties, we carried on a lively conversation in a mixture of English, French and Yiddish for the rest of the flight. His story was a remarkable one, an odyssey that in its own way rivaled Homer's Odyssey. But at the time I met him, he lived in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, which was, even then, an enclave for orthodox Jewry.

When we landed, we went our separate ways, and any Yiddish I reclaimed was lost for almost fifty more years. In the spring of , I had the urge to visit the graves of my parents, who are buried in the Beth Israel Cemetery in Elmont, Long Island. I didn't have a logical explanation for wanting to do that; I hadn't visited their graves for years. But the itch was there, and I very much wanted to scratch it. I had been thinking about my parents more than usual, and dreaming about them more than usual.

But all of the dreams were unsatisfactory, and left me upset when I remembered them. I was the wayward son, a disappointment to both. Perhaps it was my age, or a form of delayed grieving that brought me to the decision to go to their graves. During this waiting time, I had long conversations with sister, Roslyn, the only survivor of my three sisters, all of whom were older than me.

The youngest, Gail, and the oldest, Shirley, are dead. Roslyn is eight years older than I am. That we are on speaking terms after many years of not speaking was not in any way a miracle. It required compromise on each of our parts. Most of our conversations, once we get through our various health problems, what our children and grandchildren are doing, are about our parents.

During one particular conversation, she reminded me that they only spoke Yiddish when they didn't want us to know what they were talking about, and when they were angry with each other and cursed one another, which was, at least in my memory, all too frequently. I rented a car, and he drove me out to the cemetery. It was a hot summer's day, with some large cumulus clouds to the south that were probably out over the ocean. After a few minutes, we found the graves.

I realized that I missed them; not their presence, but the opportunity that would have allowed them to enjoy their grandchildren and great grandchildren. I also realized that I was being foolishly sentimental; but that can happen, even to an old existential-relativist like me. Before we left, we put several stones on the top of each of their tombstones; that's part of a tradition that goes back several thousand years. Supposedly, it lets their spirits know that someone remembers them; this time it was a son and grandson.

But still my recall of Yiddish foundered on the lack of vocabulary and syntax. Then, to my surprise and delight, the Jewish Museum in Battery Park City, in Manhattan, was having, as part of their lecture series, Mr. My wife, Anita, and I occupied an apartment in the building next to the museum. The lecture was a must for me; and I found it informative and humorous, a wonderful combination. I left the lecture feeling reborn, at least as far as Yiddish was concerned. I began to study it seriously on my own. It was something I wanted to do; something I had to do.

The language belongs to me, as it once belonged to my mother and father. Tuesday, December 26, "Bipolar". Rapid cycler that's super intense. A greater connection to the whole. A secret within your soul. A band of brothers and sisters we are.

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