The Shadow Lamp

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  The very next morning the Zetetics had begun arriving. How they had been summoned Kit never discovered, but over the next two days the members who could make the journey descended on Damascus. As he met them one by one, Kit had quickly become impressed with how very much alike they all were in temperament, hardihood, and outlook—spirited, adventurous, wise, and a little cranky: very much, in fact, like his dear departed great-grandfather, Cosimo.

  As to that, news of the deaths of Cosimo and Sir Henry had been received with dismay and heartfelt sympathy. One member—an elderly firebrand named Tess—took it upon herself to organise a memorial service for them. That had taken place at evensong in the nearby chapel of St. Tekla’s convent where most of the Zetetics were staying. The service was simple and sincere, and during the prayers Kit found himself moved beyond mere affection. When Brendan stood up to say a closing prayer, grief such as Kit had never known surged up from somewhere deep within and overwhelmed him. With his head bowed, tears flowed down his cheeks to splash onto his clasped hands. He had not really known Cosimo all that long, but the blood tie was strong, and for the first time since his great-grandfather’s untimely demise—murder, actually—Kit allowed himself to mourn; the long-pent feelings of sorrow and regret spilled over his natural defences and the tears flowed in bittersweet remembrance.

  If I had been more alert, acted sooner, Kit thought, I could have done something to prevent Burleigh from killing him. If I had been a better friend to him, Cosimo would still be alive—and Sir Henry too.

  The service in the little convent chapel—spare to the point of spartan, but more potent for its simplicity—proved an affecting and fitting tribute to the memories of two good men so cruelly cut down. After the service there followed a light supper, and then the opening session of the gathering to which the Zetetics had all been summoned.

  “Before I officially convene this special assembly,” Mrs. Peelstick was saying, “in observance of society bylaws and protocol, we have new members to induct. Brother Gianni Becarria, Christopher Livingstone, Wilhelmina Klug, Dr. Anthony Clarke—would you four step up here, please?”

  Kit and Wilhelmina passed a fleeting glance to one another, and Kit could not help thinking that she looked very much in her element: fairly glowing with pleasure and anticipation as she took her place between him and Gianni, who appeared to be a natural participant; only he and Tony seemed nervous and out of place.

  “I will ask Director Hanno to do the honours.” Mrs. Peelstick yielded the floor and Brendan took her place.

  “Fellow members, friends,” he said, opening his arms to include them all, “many of you will recognise this moment as an answer to prayer for new blood to enrich and strengthen our society.” He put out a hand to indicate the unlit candles on the table. “Tonight we rejoice in lighting not one but four candles to mark the induction of four new members into our fellowship.”

  He went on to introduce each one, giving a concise appraisal of the skills and resources each candidate brought to the society, and then moved on to a brief ceremony that somehow managed to be both pithy and profound. By the time Brendan got to the part of the pledge where he enjoined the candidates “to fight valiantly against evil in all its insidious forms to the glory of the Creator who made and—by perpetual loving care—continually sustains the Omniverse and everything that lives, moves, and has being within it,” for the second time that night Kit found himself deeply touched. He had fully entered the spirit of not only the ritual but the society itself, and when Brendan grasped his hand in official welcome, Kit actually grew misty-eyed with a sudden surge of emotion.

  As the newly minted members returned to their seats, he sighed under his breath. “Whew, I didn’t see that coming.” When Wilhelmina failed to answer, he glanced at her to see her eyes closed, head bowed, and hands folded in her lap.

  “Thank you, Brendan,” said Mrs. Peelstick, returning to the podium. “I’m certain we would all like nothing more than to give our new members a fitting welcome, but that will have to wait for another time. This convocation has been called to address a matter of utmost importance.” She wasted no time breaking the bad news. “It has been brought to the attention of this directorship that the world as we know it teeters on the threshold of a cataclysm of unimaginable magnitude . . .”

  This bald pronouncement sent a wave of alarm coursing through the listeners. One or two voices called for clarification, others asked for greater detail, and still others demanded to know the source of this information. Not one to be easily derailed, Mrs. Peelstick banged the gavel on the podium. “The tidings are fraught enough without everyone flying off the handle,” she said, her austere Scottish character coming to the fore. “And the situation won’t be helped by bleating like woolly-headed sheep.” She passed a stern eye over the assembly, daring anyone to speak before continuing. “To begin, we have asked Brother Gianni to present a little background on the nature of the threat. We will then entertain questions and motions on how best to proceed.” Still holding the gavel, she extended her hand to the Italian priest. “Brother Gianni, would you please come up?”

  Dressed in his ubiquitous black suit, his beard freshly trimmed, his expression open and engaging, he looked the image of everyone’s favourite natty uncle—if said stylish relation happened to be an Italian priest. He thanked Mrs. Peelstick and Brendan for allowing him to address the society and begged the members’ kind indulgence if his English was not adequate to the task. He then launched into a concise discourse on creation that soon had everyone struggling to keep up.

  “In my years as a priest and a scientist, I have been guided by two allied principles,” Gianni began. “One, that the universe was created for a purpose. And two, that the purpose for which it was created was guided by a loving Creator who desired that its purpose should be fulfilled.” He held up two fingers as if exhibiting proof of this assertion. “From these two principles all things under heaven and earth derive their meaning.

  “From these two simple principles, we gain our understanding of Creation. The first thing we see is that creation is not an event that took place only once at the beginning of time—instead, it is the relation of every moment of time to the eternal reality of the Creator, who continually nurtures and sustains His creation out of His desire that its purpose may be achieved.

  “From this we may discern the active, ongoing involvement of a wise and benevolent Creator directly engaged in the work He has ordained in bringing every part of His creation to its fullest fruition in relation to the Divine purpose.

  “We may pause a moment to ask ourselves, what is this purpose for Creation that God desires? In other words, to what end is the universe directed?” Gianni gazed slowly around the room, the round rims of his glasses glinting in the candlelight. Posing the question again, he then supplied the answer himself: “We believe that the universe was created in order to produce conscious agents who can share in the apprehension and appreciation of Divine goodness, which is the nature of God; Divine beauty, which is the delight of God; and Divine truth, which is the wisdom of God. Further, we believe that the purpose of the universe in bringing about independent conscious agents is directed towards the ultimate aim of uniting all creation with the Divine Life.”

  Gianni began pacing slowly back and forth along the front row of chairs, reminding Kit of a professor lecturing a class. Kit also realised that what had just been said was so freighted with meaning that the implications would take some time to unpack, and he wasn’t sure he had the proper tools.

  “Thus it follows that human beings are central to the ongoing purpose and function of the universe. As the objects of Divine intention, we are entangled with the cosmos from the beginning. Our very bodies are made of the elements forged in stars that were born and lived and died in far distant galaxies billions of years ago. We are, literally, stardust. All is as it had to be in order to bring us into existence. We are not flukes, or accidents, or trivial and inconsequential parasites who have arisen by
chance only to disappear into nothingness when our survival is exhausted.

  “Rather, we are the beneficiaries of complex processes that began before the Big Bang—the Alpha Point, yes?—processes that were put in place to produce active and independent conscious agents able to respond to their Creator in love. Thus, it follows that we are the reason for Creation’s very existence. Consequently, the destiny of the cosmos and human destiny are bound closely together from before the beginning—the Alpha Point.”

  Gianni paced to the other side of the room, hitting his stride as he warmed to his thesis, his hands describing complex Italianate gestures in the air. “As there was a beginning, so there will be an end. In this, we believe that the Creator desires for time to run its course and not merely end at some arbitrary point short of the final completion He desires—a destination known as the Omega Point—which is the perfected, harmonious, and joyful unity of all Creation in Him for the purpose of engaging in the ongoing creative activity of a redeemed and transformed universe—forever.” Gianni raised a finger in the classic style of a teacher beginning a quote. “For as the author of Ephesians, having glimpsed this, was moved to write, ‘He has made known to us the mystery of his will, . . . a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.’ Again, the Omega Point.”

  Returning to the podium, he took a moment to collect his thoughts before starting in again. “A plan for the fullness of time,” he said, repeating the ancient words. “Let us consider what this means, for time is, after all, an essential quality of our existence. From the human perspective, time is a linear progression consisting of a swiftly retreating past that can never be altered or recovered, an ever-moving present that consists of a fleeting moment that can never be fully grasped and held, and an unformed future that consists of many possible outcomes to any action or event, only one of which will pass into actuality. Is this how we see it?”

  There were nods all around the room.

  “But from the Divine perspective, time may be very different. For the Creator, the past is never lost, never beyond recovery—because it can always be reclaimed by weaving it into a wider pattern of ultimate goodness so that even the most horrendous disasters of life may come to play a significant part in achieving the intended purpose of Creation. In this way, the past can be redeemed.

  “From the Divine perspective,” the priest said, “the present is not a fleeting moment—here for an instant, then gone. For the Creator, the present is a malleable substance that may be held, nurtured, and guided towards a realisation of its fullest potential as a vehicle for the expression of goodness, beauty, and truth and therefore a reflection of the Divine.

  “And the future”—Gianni paused as he drew out that word—“the future is a most marvellous creation. For in it lies all the mystery of raw potentiality—a boundless reservoir of all that could be—formed by the illimitable interactions of conscious human beings with their individual environments, circumstances, and conditions, and in concert with their fellow humans. Here we pause to ask ourselves—does the Creator control this process of interaction? Does our Wise and Benevolent Sustainer direct these interactions that produce the fabric of actuality that we know as reality?”

  The physicist priest passed his gaze around the room; every eye was on him and many a brow furrowed in thought. “A moment’s reflection should tell you that He does not. To control the interactions of those agents would be to negate the purpose for which those agents were created. If proof of this assertion is needed, we have only to look at ourselves, because each and every one of us in this room has experienced not only the wonder and beauty of ley travel but also its intriguing limitations.

  “In our travels, we move about from place to place, inhabiting different dimensions, participating in times not our own. In each place and time, we are caught up in the life and events of that particular destination—is this not so?” There were nods all around. “Yes, we may bring our intellect and understanding with us—that is only to be expected—but we do not float above or move outside the reality of that alternate existence. Indeed, wherever we travel we are caught up in the life of the world we visit in precisely the same way as those for whom that reality forms their only experience of the world. We live with them, subject to the same basic structures of life as they know it, whatever our prior experiences may have been in the world into which we ourselves were born. In other words, we live a common life with them and—as we have been so poignantly reminded earlier this evening in the memorial service for Cosimo and Sir Henry—we may share a common death with them.

  “Nothing about our ability to leap across the dimensions of our universe insulates us from life and death, nor from the unfolding reality of the places we visit, and that, we further note, is always, always some variation on the past of our home world. For all our expertise in manipulating the ley lines, we acknowledge our inability to separate ourselves from participation in the ongoing reality of the multiverse. Each and every one of us has pondered the mystery of our powerlessness to reach, much less influence, the future.

  “All our travels and experiences have brought us no closer to an explanation of why this should be so.” He spread his hands, inviting each member to consider the conundrum. “So, I ask again—does our Wise Creator alone control the future?”

  He let the question hang as he returned to his place at the podium. “No.” Gianni shook his head slowly. “It is my belief that the future is not controlled in any way. To control the future would impose a deterministic outcome on the created order, thereby destroying both the freedom and independence of the freely interacting creatures it is meant to produce and, likewise, negating the very purpose for which the future and even time itself was created!”

  Gianni spoke with easy confidence, his speech betraying none of the linguistic defects he confessed. Rather, it seemed to Kit that the priest went from strength to strength, his fluency matching the clarity of his mind. For the second time in his life Kit had the uncanny awareness of being told a truth he had always known instinctively, but which had always remained just beyond his ability to articulate. Hearing it now, spoken aloud in this place by a man of unquestioned passion and commitment, produced the sensation of standing too near an open flame—as if he lingered any longer in proximity to the source of this sacred knowledge he would be consumed.

  “We must remind ourselves,” the priest was saying, “of the repository of pure potential; it is that place in which the myriad possibilities of each and every action reside, where the infinite outcomes of our participation in creation are generated. The future exists to allow the created order to achieve the highest expression of goodness, beauty, and truth, in harmonious and joyful unity with the Creator. And while the Creator intends our free and willing participation in the ongoing realisation of His desires, and aids us in bringing about His purposes, He does not control the results of our participation. We know this because the result the Creator desires—that is, the active creation of new and higher forms and expressions of goodness, beauty, and truth—is one of the primary reasons for our existence in the first place.

  “Thus it follows—if the future is to be that realm where possibility becomes actuality—any interference or alteration would produce catastrophic results for the entire created order. Anomalies would creep in, discrepancies would proliferate, irregularities would arise and subvert the natural course—all these things producing swiftly multiplying contradictions that would ripple backwards through the cosmos like a tsunami that gathers force as it travels over many miles across the deeps to wreak unimaginable destruction when it finally breaks upon a distant shore. Any interference in or tampering with the future would wreak untold destruction at every level of creation.”

  Gianni rested his hands on the podium and leaned forward with the air of a man imparting a terrible secret. “My friends, it is with the most profound foreboding that I inform you that the future—our future, the future of the cos
mos, and even time itself—even now stands under threat. Indisputably, it is the greatest threat humankind has ever faced . . .” He paused as if unwilling to make himself say the words. The whole room seemed to hold its breath, awaiting the dire pronouncement. “. . . The wholesale collapse of the universe.”

  There were puzzled expressions and glances all around. Kit, too, felt a queasy uncertainty about what this meant. Before he could wonder about it further, Gianni continued, saying, “Dr. Clarke and I have been in consultation over preliminary data obtained from the Vatican observatory that indicates that the expansion of the universe may be slowing. This initial finding is now being investigated by the Jansky Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico, and according to our preliminary calculations, if the deceleration were to be confirmed, the outward expansion would eventually halt and a reversal or contraction would begin.”

  From the frowns and muttering following that announcement, it was clear few of the listeners understood the implications of this singular discovery. Several hands went up. “Could you tell us what they saw—through the telescopes, I mean? What did they see to make them think the universe is shrinking?”

  Gianni nodded, thinking how best to explain. “Measuring the outward expansion of the universe is a fairly simple routine procedure these days. Data is collected from sensors that measure high-energy frequencies coming from various sectors, and by comparing recent measurements with data taken a few weeks ago, JVLA astronomers have been able to detect a slight but significant alteration in what is known as the cosmological redshift velocity—the speed at which distant galaxies are moving away from us. For the first time since these measurements began, the redshift velocity has lessened. Obviously, more measurements from other observatories will be required to confirm this, but early indications are that the expansion is indeed slowing. Like a rubber band stretched to the limit, once expansion stops, contraction begins.”