Walking Raven

Works for Me

Agnes by Tony Cochran

Back Story: Melchizedek

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These next few entries might be a little tricky because although I’ve carried around inside of me the core “who” of these characters for some time, some of the who, and almost all of the what, when, where, why and how have come to me along the way, in drips and drabs, often years apart. These entries will focus on the who. The rest I save for another day.

Ever since deciding Melchizedek would be a character in my novel, I’ve had a sense of what he looks like. See September 1, 2005 Post. I’ve given considerable thought about whether to provide physical descriptions of the characters in The First Voice. For the most part, I personally (is that redundant?) find such descriptions in the novels I read distracting, sometimes even annoying, no matter how cleverly an author might convey the information. Sometimes, of course, it is necessary to provide certain details, e.g., the hairy-footedness of hobbits, to enable a reader to formulate an accurate description of a character in his or her own mind’s eye (think about that one for awhile). At present, none of my characters has any unusual or distinctive (not redundant) characteristics, so I have decided to refrain from giving any specifics, though I may include an occasional generic remark that might register in the mind of an observer from time to time, such as the fact that Johanna is “strikingly handsome.”

Shortly after my marathon read of Revelation (see September 29, 2005 Post), I closed my eyes and said to myself, “Self, who is Melchizedek, then and now?” I started playing around with his name to come up with a modern iteration. In no time, I had settled on Michael Zedek. I also decided that despite Hebrews 7: 3 wherein he is described as “[w]ithout father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life,” my Melchizedek would have a genealogy, and hence, a beginning. Continuing with closed eyes, I came up with the idea that the archangel Michael had fallen in love with a mortal woman during his stint guarding the eastern gate of Eden to keep Adam and Even from eating of the Tree of Life. See September 13, 2005 Post. From their union was Melchizedek born. His mother, being mortal, had died some time before the flood, but Michael obtained permission to bring his immortal child to heaven to ride out the flood. Melchizedek returned to earth after the deluge and has since been charged with the overall supervision of the construction of the monuments, the temples and cathedrals, which have been built to the glory of God over the centuries. And that’s how he’s gotten to New York. He is currently in charge of ensuring the completion of the only Gothic cathedral which is still under construction, St. John the Divine.

With those parameters in place, I made the first of many, many forays onto and into the World Wide Web to perform research for The First Voice. I still have the print out of what I found during the initial search I conducted on March 18, 1999, a four-page document by Birger A. Pearson entitled “Melchizedek: Ancient Sources.” Turns out, Melchizedek is an important figure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a/k/a the Mormons.

Reading Pearson’s article those many years ago elicited the first of many “plate o’ shrimp” moments I have experienced in connection with my story. See August 12, 2005 Post. For instance, according to Pearson, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls “features Melchizedek as a heavenly end-time redeemer, with attributes of the archangel Michael.” Melchizedek is also mentioned by Philo, a first century Jewish philosopher of Alexandria who sees Melchizedek as a “reference to the divine Logos, the thought of God in which the pattern of all existing things is conceived and the ‘image’ of God according to which man was created.” An early Jewish text, 2 Enoch, attests to early Jewish interest in the figure of Melchizedek. According to Pearson, Chapters 71-72 tell the story of a child who is

born miraculously to Noah’s recently deceased sister-in-law, and the child, marked on his chest with a priestly seal, speaks and praises God. The boy is named Melchizedek by Noah and his brother Nir, whose wife had been posthumously delivered. In a night vision Nir is told of the impending flood; he is also informed that the Archangel Michael will bring Melchizedek to Paradise, thus enabling him to escape the flood waters. Melchizedek will eventually become the chief of priest among the people, and in the end of days he will be revealed yet another time as the chief priest, in this text, Melchizedek has three different earthly manifestations: born before the flood, serving in the postdiluvian age as a great priest, and functioning in the end-time as a messianic priest.”

Finally, a fragmentary text from a work entitled the Nag Hammadi translated by Pearson contains an “apocalypse given by angels to Melchizedek” wherein it is revealed “that he will ultimately reappear as Jesus Christ, Son of God, to do battle with the cosmic forces of darkness.” I’m still not quite sure what to think about these synchronistic hits that cause The Twilight Zone themesong to start playing in my head. When they happen, though, I feel exhilarated and inspired to keep going because I know I must be on the right track.

Dante and Joe Show

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See photos in the Dante and Joe Show.

Message to my Loyal Readers

Hail and well met to those of you who may have wandered by to see if there’s anything new this week. Alas, no. I’ve been feeling a bit puny for a couple weeks and haven’t had the energy to put together much in the way of posts. It’s just as well, given the metaphoric orange barrels dotting the site during the transition to the new publishing application. My beloved blogmeister, mjh, is in the midst of implementing my blog happiness list. I’m quite pleased.

In the meantime, thought you might be interested to know, I heard from a fellow at Dell yesterday, name Michael – well not THAT Michael, but we had a nice chat anyway. See October 4, 2005 Post. He’s going to make sure my account gets properly credited, and he’s sending me a system battery. I’m not sure if I’ll get charged for the battery, but shipping will be free. I’ll keep you posted on any further developments. (Pun intended.)

We Interrupt This Blog . . .

Some of you may remember a great movie that came out nearly 30 years ago called Network starring William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch, and others. Peter Finch portrays an aging news anchor who, fed up with the current state of affairs, goes berserk during a broadcast. He encourages his television audience to get up off their seats, go to their windows, open them up, and begin yelling, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” The camera shifts to the network muckety-mucks who are watching the broadcast. Once of them goes over and opens a window through which can be heard the sounds of voices chanting, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Some years later I met Ray whose motto was “I will never be a victim.” He never accepted less than was his due in any situation. He did it nicely, rationally, and firmly. I have tried to live by his example. As a result, I have endeavored to rectify, and have often succeeded in rectifying, many unfair situations for myself, and just as often, others — though there was that one time that the IRS agent hung up on me (and I was being really nice). Threatening class action lawsuits has been particularly effective — especially since I knew of what I spoke having defended a couple of them. I’m proud to say I have been an example to my friends and family in this regard. Call center folks, on the other hand, think I have entirely too much time on my hands. I can almost hear them muttering under their breath, “Get a life.”

This was going to be a post much different from the one you are actually reading. The last two weeks have been particularly frustrating, and so I started an entry wherein I planned to tell you in great detail about the mix up with my Dell order, the lack of problem-solving skills on the part of the cable guy (“I don’t know what to tell you ma’am. It should work; I hooked up the box.”), the notice from a collection agency because a healthcare provider had failed to update information I had dutifully provided to them, and the software program I could not install no matter what I tried (including, but not limited to, reading the “Installation Instructions and” the “read me” file, and checking (and installing) the “patch” program provided on the website. By and large I got every thing worked out. Even so, I don’t feel like talking or writing about incompetence anymore, even when, in retrospect some of the stories are amusing in a twisted sort of way.

The latest Dell fiasco has put me over the edge. I went down fighting, at least. In the last couple weeks, I have made fourteen “from scratch” phone calls – that means cycling through fourteen interminable voice menus – simply dialing “0” out of the gate no longer works, it just makes the main menu start over again. Two calls ended in hang ups on the part of the sales representatives, two ended in disconnects, and one ended in an especially annoying busy signal. I spoke to seven sales representatives, one sales specialist, three entry level customer care representatives, an extension supervisor, a floor supervisor (impersonating a manager after being told I expected to be speaking to a manager), a customer care supervisor, and, finally, a manager. I left two voice mails, both of which remain unreturned. No one I talked to listened to what I had to say. I finally asked the last couple of folks to repeat back to me what I had just told them until they finally got it right. In the end, the last guy (the manager) quit even pretending he wanted to help resolve the issue, and I just quit asking for help. Instead, for the first time ever, I’m packing up and returning a perfectly wonderful, reasonably priced, editor’s choice technological device along with many cool accessories. I’ll sell my stock. I’ve prepared, and mailed, a six-page single-spaced letter to the Executive Support Team (an entity so secret even Dell supervisors and managers don’t have a telephone number for it) explaining why I am severing ties with a company from which I have personally purchased, among other things, 3 pretty much state-of-the-art desktops and which I have recommended to friends and family over the years.

I am so disgusted by this latest episode, that I’m not only done with Dell, I’m done with them all. I’ll pay the stealth handling charge that gets added at the end of an online order for which I have been promised “free shipping.” I’ll pay the “office co-pay” my health care insurer charges for a lab test (and try not to think/care about the folks who don’t realize they don’t owe one and for whom fifteen bucks matters). I’ll meekly accept the pronouncement, “Well whoever you spoke to was mistaken,” when, in anticipation of a problem I’ve actually called customer service before making a trip to the brick and board store. I bet none of you ever thought you’d hear/read me say the bastards got me down. But they did. I’m still mad as hell; I just don’t have the time or energy to verbally strong arm people into keeping their companies’ promises anymore.

Postscript

So, I’m just putting the finishing touches on this entry when I hear the phone ring. As is often the case these days, I can’t find the phone in time to answer it before voicemail kicks in. I wait a bit, and check caller id. One of my guys, who, like me, has severe COPD had called. In my memory, he’s never left a message before, but this time I have a voice mail. Of course, I immediately imagined something bad had happened. On the contrary, he told me I didn’t need to call him back, but he just wanted to let me know that because of my encouragement, he met with his health care provider who, in turn had agreed to contact his recalcitrant insurer. He had just received word the insurer would pay for a new drug that up to now been he’d been paying for out of his own pocket because it hadn’t made the approved list or whatever. He’ll save $132 a month. In his words, he had “won that battle,” and thought I’d like to know.