The Book you might write - Abridged for those who "already know what's in it, but haven't studied in a while"

Let's say you, personally, had a complete, albeit complex plan for your whole family's enjoyment of your wisdom, wealth and treaure and you wanted to pass it down - not just one generation but to many.

And that you wanted your descendants, in addition to enjoying the goodness of life on earth, to also avoid the common problems, to remember you down through the generations and to know you were absolutely serious about their successes and completely cognizant of the fact that many stumbling blocks, roadblocks and false detours would confront them on the way.

Likely you would codify the "rules of the game" and then provide examples of people who followed those "rules" and those who didn't follow - you'd likely also throw in some examples of people who kept "jumping on and off the bandwagon". If written in English it would likely be a long book - with the examples taking up most of the pages.

Let's say further that, just like an author of the above-mentioned "long book", you already know the "end" of the book's story and use foreshadowing and themes throughout to hint about what will occur on the "final pages of the final chapter" but subtly -without giving away the ending.

One good way of foreshadowing a) the immediate illustrative story and b) the whole book is by giving the people names that typify their behaviour (or behaving that will unfold) - like Patience or No Hope or Wasteful etc. In this way the "named" human attribute is typified and the circumstances of the of that type of behaviour double-exemplified.

Likely this book-for-humans would have a beginning, a middle and an end


You'd likely start by describing yourself and how you created the "environment" in which the life of your descendants would be experienced, let's call those descendants your "children" (including the spouses and adopted children of your children) from now on.

If your were an North American, born after 1940 you might set the "environment" like a Western movie - a family (with a long history in the old country) lives out in the prairies in their own house, on their own little plot of valley land with a stream and trees and vegetable garden and domestic animals.

They'd look and act like today's people/family .... just dustier and without gas engines or computers.

You'd likely have them encounter and react to good days, bad days, good weather, bad weather, bad people, good people, good nations and bad nations. A few examples of bad people within good nations and good people within bad nations wouldn't hurt either.

To make things really 'normal' you'd have bad people who know they're bad and good people who do bad things and then also bad/bad folks and good/bad people who come to a realization of their mistakes, change their hearts/minds/actions/attitudes and enjoy a fruitful life "in harmony" with the rules established for their(and humanity's) greater good. (Plus a few folks who never change their minds and don't care ... while seemimgly wilfully leading other 'innocents' to jump off the bandwagon just to round out the scenario)

No wonder the book gets long & complicated. It's about human life.

So the book starts out with the history of how the little "Western movie" family got to the little valley they called Eber (after their family's great-great ancestor) and the life they led in peaceful isolation following the "rules".

Then it continues about how they lose possesion of the farm in a drought and spend a while "in town" surrounded by all the shenanigans that go one when there's no "marshall".

The family listen to town-preachers and convince themselves that it's OK to bend the rules and to add rules that were suggested by the town-preacher and/or his advisors and accountants.

Many times an itinerant holy man drops by and warns them that they've forgotten the essence of the rules and are just doing what is right in their own eyes - nothing at all like what the rules say.

One day a strange-looking, geezer shows up and announces that "the end of this world is near", he talks about the future as golden and wonderful while predicting the arrival of a Great Teacher who can straighten out everything if they'll just change their hearts/minds/actions/attitudes to be in harmony with the original "rules". The "Eber valley family" understand what he is saying.

The Teacher arrives and performs many amazing acts and gives many sermons that appeals to the 'in harmony with the Creator' beliefs that the "Eber family" and others know in their hearts to be correct.

The Great Teachers presence, knowledge and method of communication amazes both his foes and adherants alike. So amazing in fact that people say he's so audaciously forthright that either he must be totally right or a total charlatan - most who actually hear AND listen agree he's right.

As a result, the Great Teacher draws the townsfolk away from the existing peacher's meetings (& disrupts his revenue-flow) and so the Great Teacher is arrested convicted of sedition by a kangaroo court composed of the existing town-preacher's henchmen and he's killed by them .... but not before he condemns the preacher, the henchmen, the town & the accountants.

Almost immediately a small group of friends and relatives of the 'Eber family' who realize that the Great Teacher was right is established.

They meet in private and quietly grown in numbers. Numbers so great that soon the existing town-preacher and the Mayor (who heads the local milita too) decide it's better stop fighting the Great Teacher's words and to just take-over the group, amalgamate it into their existing practices and assimilate "most" of the Great Teacher's words into the official religion for the town.

This mayor/militia/accountants-sanctioned religion spreads and as it reaches each town "a local elder of good character" is put in charge but often, after a time the original Great Teacher's rules (as already modified by the first-preacher and Militia Mayor) gets watered down. A great amount of time is invested(wasted) creating many slightly differing-doctrine "ecclesia" and arguing about who's human-made teaching is a purer or better interpretation that the others.

Finally the people get a copy of the orginal text of the history of the "Eber family" and read that these developments were all predicted therein.

An new chap arrives one day (a son of the former deputy assistant accountant of the first town-preacher) who seems to understand the original "rules" PLUS understand what the Great Teacher was talking about. NB The chap's personal, radical, change of heart/mind/actions/attitude occurred after a vivid personal epiphany that can only be judged by others by its transformative effects.

This well-schooled, but now-humbled chap tours the far-flung & nearby ecclesias and writes to them about what he's heard and seen about their actions, the teachings they and others are following perfectly and imperfectly and gives praises, rebukes and recommendations. He also recounts how the long-lost mysteries/secrets about a future world on earth (foreshadowed in the old book of the Eber family) make sense once the 'modern-day' folks read it in context WITH the now-revealed new mysteries/secrets from and in light of the Great Teacher's arrival.

This new chap is also audaciously forthwrith and gets on the wrong side of the-then incumbent preacher's accountant's henchmen - he's also jailed and killed but not before preaching an writing to anyone & everyone he knows.

Contemporaries of this chap, later-generation followers of the Great Treacher and disinterested historians continue to write about the Great Teacher and 'how we should live'. In a way, they describe an easy life and in another way they describe a hard one - it seems to depend on whether you wholly subscribe (or not) to the "rules" as distilled and simplified by the Great Teacher.

I all-of-a-sudden realise that I've been writing the most recent paragraphs as if you'd already written your inter-generational book and I've gone so far I cannot stop.

The book (the one so similar to "your" book to your "children") does have an ending that I don't want to spoil, but it involves appreciating a little bit more about the "environment we live in" than what we 21st Century folks should-call our "currently accepted principles of finite wisdom and explanations about infinite things", Newton's Laws for example - no energy can be created or destroyed-only transformed; there is no action without an equal and opposite reaction and stuff like that .... that we know so well we cannot even be bother to exactly remember.

Also the ending shows how things we thought we knew all about like gravity, magnetism, electricity ... we actually know next-to-nothing about once/if a full revelation of the actual explanation is presented to us.

Again not to spoil it, but as a hint ... pieces of the ending are actually scattered all through the beginning and middle of the book. Paying attention to recurring themes, words, concepts, phrases and (and especially the meaning of) names is important as you go through, but ONLY after you get to the end do you see the "whole thing" - and how blatantly obvious it was all along .... if only you'd paid attention (not ignoring any details) all the way through.

Good reading ... better than any Agatha Christie mystery or crime/love/hate/war melodrama ... I 'think' I heard on CBC yesterday that it (the book so similar to the one you might write) is recommended as excellent summer reading.

Or for an Executive summary Check Deuteronomy 28-30


rce