Merging Reality, Mythology and Religion (Revised Edition in Prose)
Table of Contents
The Frame 1
Preamble 2
Chapter One ~ Sebastian 4
Chapter two ~ Diocletian 5
Chapter Three ~ Come, Walk With Me 7
Page 1
The Frame
Eirene - Greek Goddess of peace, expressing her diplomatic nature
Ereshkigal – Sumerian – Goddess of Attalu, the land of the dead and ancestral memories. Her name translates as “great lady under the earth”
Isis – Egyptian – “she of throne” meaning Queen of Goddesses. Isis has so many different aspects, her most important roles being as Goddess of life and magic
Achilles – hero of the Trojan War and a central character in Homer’s Iliad
Endymion – lover of Selene, granted eternal sleep so as never to age or die
Page 2
Preamble
WE TAKE fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, and combine them. We allow the mind to wander, our thoughts to step outside our boundaries. By so doing are debate and discussion provoked, dialogue established, earnest minds quest more for knowledge, and having received, seek still more.
With this comes that crucial bridge across the ugly divide.
The hope that communities and nations will speak. That we will see similarities in culture, the homogeneous rather than the heterogeneous ... So that we may, indeed, see that silent but oh-so-yearned for action that has swords turned into ploughshares... missiles melted down and converted to harvesters.
When I set out yesterday - Sunday, June 1, 2014 - I had no idea that by the day's end I would be writing about the character Sebastian and studying afresh Greek Mythology side by side with the Bible. Moreover, observing how the two interweave. Reactionary minds, fundamentalist minds, will be offended by that observation.
I am grateful to Canada, that a friend sent me the image, for it perfectly captures the essence of this short exercise of merging reality with mythology.
By this simple act of sending an image as a response to reading a draft is a great work performed in bringing unity where, previously, there stood those two repulsively, Division and Strife.
Kenneth Thomas Webb
June 2, 2014
Image is by Courtesy of Carlos Pereira, originally sent on reading the poetry version in 2014
Ereshkigal, Goddess of Attalu, Great lady under the earth gazed upon Sebastian, Eirene, Goddess of Peace cradling his hand, and young and troubled at the feeling of life ebbing from him.
Page 4
Chapter One ~ Sebastian
Let us tend him, sister. Diocletian should not have done this terrible thing. Leave him be for the moment. He is not yet departed this temporal realm.
Ereshkigal, Goddess of Attalu, Great lady under the earth gazed upon Sebastian, Eirene, Goddess of Peace cradling his hand, and young and troubled at the feeling of life ebbing from him.
Eirene, my young sister, be of good courage. Isis, the Queen of Goddesses will not permit his life to be squandered. She of throne, She has many roles, two of which are life and magic.
But he is a Christian Ereshkigal
What of it?
His brethren will reject magic.
That is just a word, I speak not of magic. I speak not of gods and goddesses, I speak of the powers and principalities, I speak of the Grace of the Holy Spirit, The Ruach HaKodesh, Den Heilige Geist. I speak of Endymion granted eternal sleep so as never to age or die. But I speak also of I AM, Baruch Haba beshem Adonai.
Yes, sister. I understand you now. The Emperor has this very hour been summonsed... He has seen the writing on the wall. His folly his misfortune, his wickedness his downfall
Fear not, Eirene, The Most High Ancient of Days has a way with justice. Think not too hard on books and writings and literal interpretations. He is far, far beyond that. See! His Spirit is present!!
Sebastian stirred, gazing, unaware of the arrows within him, yet anchored to the floor. His eyes glazed over... Death played... Endymion stepped in... and death backed away.
Not today my friend. He is not yours to claim nor ever will be. His spirit is of The Spirit. And he is resting now.
Ereshkigal was quiet but firm in her deliberation
His work has been acknowledged. His fearsome reputation, protecting the people who look upon The Most High who gaze in horror at the execution stake yet see not death but see Salvation.
See, sister! The myriad angels in attendance now wait in the wings, waiting patiently for that one sign from Him to attend this soul. Already there is a great stirring in the cities. The people are disquieted. Unhappy. Resentful. Much talk of thrones disappearing, and the day of reckoning.
Such is the plight of hapless Diocletian, arrogant in his palace, evil in his thinking. Who dared to look upon Righteousness and think he could discredit him?
As it is written, It is a terrible thing to fall into the Hands of the Living G-D!
A Shimmering …Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian caught an image, An Incredible Being … A man? The Man! Christ Jesus – Yeshua HaMashiach, He of Tanakh fame. I AM the Commander of the Army of the LORD. And Joshua fell upon his face and worshipped. Joshua, take your sandal off your foot, for the ground upon which you stand is holy.
Page 5
Chapter two ~ Diocletian
Diocletian looked on in his sleep. Hapless, bereft, his bed a blackness, a rack of pain.
Diocletian, learn well from this. You do not do these things. But learn too that I AM your Salvation… In Me and in no other. You are no god. Nor is Sebastian. But he is My emissary, My Ambassador Extraordinaire, and Plenipotentiary.
Yes Diocletian! Think well. Entertain that line of thought. Sebastian does indeed stand in My shoes.
I am leaving you awhile, you are not lost. But I am giving you time. Time to study afresh and think upon your misdeeds, many and repulsive are they. It is time to revisit history and study the life of Nebuchadnezzar[i]. Seven years he defied me, Seven years he lost his mind, Seven years he lived amongst swine, like you, this once great king …
Where is he now, you ask? Diocletian study your history. He is with Me!
I leave you with this thought as in your restless, nightmare of sleep. You gaze upon Sebastian wounded and torn, clubbed and tended upon by my servants Ereshkigal, Eirene, Isis and Osiris, and Endymion. Such are your dreams, fact, and fiction bemusing you, frightening you.
It is in your hand to put aright the path by which you have bypassed Me. Consider afresh. Bring to Me your misdeeds. I AM righteous. I AM forgiving. I make no demands. I look upon the broken heart, not upon the outward frame.
See! Achilles – killed by an arrow through his heel and yet now in your sleep, he stands before you resplendent. See who stands at his side …The very man you twice executed and you defied Me when death was robbed of him.
I stand outside time Diocletian. I have all the time in the world, in your world, in the Universe. Outside Time, I am the sum total of this Universe upon which you gaze and think you fathom but have no mind, no ability, no construct … a mind that is right to ask me, ‘how is it that if you are the sum total of this Universe, that you are in the same instant outside this Universe?’
As you would have it…
A day is but a thousand years to Me
And a thousand years but one day[ii]
And I do not intend to lose you. I leave you now in your troubled fitful slumbering. Think upon this. To another king did I appear, a hand, writing upon the wall.
Study your history again. For the writing is upon the wall again.
A Light even Greater Shone
Page 7
Chapter Three ~ Come, Walk With Me
Come, My daughters. Come Endymion. Leave Sebastian to rest awhile. There is work to do in this evening hour. I have others who need your gentle nursing too. Walk with Me in the Garden. I am sending you to attend an entire people.
Kenneth Thomas Webb
Liverpool and Gloucestershire
August 20, 2022
All Rights Reserved
United Kingdom - Denmark - Austria - Germany - Australia - New Zealand - Canada - USA
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022
One of the Fifteen Founding Members of Leaders Lodge
Composed June 1, 2014, in Stanza Format
Purely as an aside, I find it soothing to play the original recording of the first performance of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Henry Wood in 1938. by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1938. Ralph Vaughan Williams sits on the steps just below Henry Wood, reading the score. Serenade to Music.
The Banner Image is a Photo by Henrik Dønnestad on Unsplash
Index
“great lady under the earth” Ereshkigal 1
“she of throne” Isis 1
Achilles 1, 6
Attalu, Goddess of 1, 3, 4
BBC Symphony Orchestra 7
Bible 2
Canada 2, 7
Dønnestad, Henrik 8
Egyptian 1
Eirene 1, 3, 4, 5, 6
Endymion 2, 4, 5, 6, 7
Ereshkigal 1
fundamentalist minds 2
Goddess of life and magic 1
Greek Mythology 2
Heilige Geist 4
Homer’s Iliad 1
I AM 4, 5, 6
Isis 1, 4, 6
Osiris 6
Peace, Greek Goddess of 1
Queen of Goddesses 1, 4
reactionary minds 2
Sebastian 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Selene 2
Serenade to Music 7
Sumerian 1
Trojan War 1
ugly twins
division, strife 2
Unsplash 8
Webb, Kenneth Thomas
© 2022 KTW 2, 7
Williams, Ralph Vaughan 7
Wood, Henry 7
Endnotes
[i] Daniel Ch 3,4 and 5
[ii] 2 Peter 3 : 8
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
