by Chris Martin
When it fades, we are back to a non-rotoscoped reality.
A slow glide over several framed portraits set on bronze and glass end tables and a white plaster fireplace. They are photos of a large man, variously handsome and pensive and tired, who sometimes smiles, sometimes stares woodenly, but other times can’t hide his inner bafflement.
“My father died in 1997,” Carson narrates. “He had a heart attack leaving his office. Not a massive heart attack, his doctor said. He said more people survive this sized attack than die from it. But after a lingering, sad several days in the hospital, my father gave in. None of us were glad. But we weren’t surprised either.”
He continues over more home movies: his father stirring a martini shaker in their Neutra home, at the beach in a swimsuit hoisting the mailloted Dianne over his shoulder caveman style, sleeping on a lounger with a newspaper cathedraled on his chest, bloody mary within reach, waving from his post at the barbecue, sunglasses on, beer in hand.
“My father was not a religious person. Not that he said anything about it. He simply had what he needed, religion-wise. He was punctual and consistent about attending church, though didn’t go for any religious experience. That would have been way too much for him. If he believed in anything, it was useful rules of thumb. Like play fair. Or be able to look a fellow in the eye.
“After the ‘92 Rodney King riots, for example, my father really took to Rodney King’s admonition, ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ It was a question without any answer and my father liked it that way. Part plea, part accusation. He would say ‘Why can’t we all get along?’ whenever something happened that he didn’t like in the family. Or at work, or on the news. More than that and he was philosophically exhausted. Or forced to respond a second time: Why Can’t We All Get Along?”
A black and white sitting portrait of youngish Bill Hancock, not quite smiling under black frame glasses, a face indistinguishable from the kind, placid photos of gray flannel strivers like him taken during the early ‘60’s.
“I think the reason Why Can’t We All Get Along? achieved relentless truthfulness for my dad was the way it was revealed to him. When he and everyone else watched Reginald Denny get beaten during the Rodney King riots, when complete strangers descended on someone who was a stranger to them, pulled him from his truck and beat on him for an abstract, impersonal reason, he was suddenly exposed to an unresolvable fear.
The photo of Bill Hancock withdraws to the archival footage, the infamous, helplessness-inducing aerial footage of Reginald Denny and the drawn out assault that leaves him on the ground, in a pool of his blood, having a cement block heaved onto him for good measure.
“It was a fear he probably didn’t know he carried with him until then: that things happen to other people, and if you aren’t careful, they could happen to you. And why that is, who knows? That was the worst part, not being told why random violence should be in the mix. He was a wealthy, successful man at the top of a wealthy successful culture that emphasized that anyone could become a wealthy, successful man if he was careful about it. And if you weren’t you’d become like Reginald Denny. Therefore, Why Can’t We All Get Along was not just a reminder or existential plea. It was also the first line of defense, intended to stop harm from coming by forcing the harmer to answer the question himself: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”
We trail a woman making her way through her house, pulling on a shawl, talking on her cell-phone. The bronze and glass end tables and dining table, the relaxed whiteness of the walls, the framed photos. It’s Dianne, years later.
“Yes, we’re on our way. You’ll be free? Great. My son promises it won’t take up too much time. Yes, I think he is. Very smart and charming.”
“My mother has had a different relationship with religion.”
Slight but indomitably large-headed like Nancy Reagan, Dianne has brought prettiness with her into her advanced age (if you rewind far enough, you can see the resemblance to the grandame presiding in the Christmas armchair. Minus the steel gripped self-possession.) Dianne sets her enormously round sun glasses on top of her translucent, and thickly coiffed, hair. A flowery scarf loops loosely around her neck. She’s looking at photos on a white piano.
“You were in the choir – “ Carson proffers, off camera.
“Oh I loved it. I loved singing. I loved the robes. Rising from our pew behind the minister in unison, the rest of the church was so quiet. And then we’d sing our hearts out. Mother and poppums loved it, loved seeing me up there.”
It’s difficult to make out what Carson says, the camera has located a photo of teenaged, teenybopper Dianne with other girls in the choir, but her answer fills us in. “No, dear. No singing today.”
Now she’s perched on cream colored, Danish modern couch that doesn’t really give beneath her.
“When your father and I got married, it was in a church of course. Methodist. I chose it because that’s how I was raised. He didn’t really care, so I chose. And then I had the kids. Your brother and sister. And of course you. But religion really wasn’t a priority, back then. It wasn’t. Back then, we were modern. It was good to be questioning. That’s how everyone phrased it. We were questioning. And anyone who wasn’t came off a little ... odd. Fruity, your father would say. Bible thumpers. And they were a little. Odd. Religious people then just were. Plain as day.”
We’re in a car, Dianne driving, winding through gently curving suburban streets with towering mini-mansions jammed into tiny hillside plots. There is no traffic here or pedestrians on sidewalks for that matter. Just tight green lawns among the desert succulents. It looks hot outside.
“After my father died,” Carson narrates, “it didn’t take long for my mother’s great awakening to come on. She sold the house in Brentwood, sold her catering company, and bought a condominium here in Hosanna Hills Estates, near San Clemente.”
“Tell me about Hosanna Hills,” Carson says to his mother, driving. He’s in the passenger seat. Someone else – we’ll later learn it’s Carson’s girlfriend Sasha – is now shooting. Dianne answers with delicate diplomacy.
“Well, as you can see, it’s a lovely place. With lovely people. We have all chosen to live here ...” she waves at a man watering an organ pipe cactus, “... because of the affinity and love we have for one another. And for the Lord.”
Emerging from that minefield, she energetically changes topics. “That was Dan Morales. Our very own Congressman. He and I have great fun together. A very funny man. El es Latino.”
Carson would rather stick to Hosanna Hills. Over other drive-by shots of a golf-course; a football field-sized, candy-colored playground; and a pedestrian plaza with fountain and music stand and mall, Carson says, “Hosanna Hills is what you might call an insta-town, founded and fully formed on 2600 acres in the Southern Californian desert hills. It’s also what outside people call an evangelocal community. Evangelocal being the next step beyond mega-church evangelism. Because, why stop at just one church?
“There are nine schools here including two high schools, a hospital, a library, parks, PGA golf course, and a mall. And its own graveyard: a columbarium.”
And there we go, to the bleached Mediterranean columbarium with its half-moon walls of little gold plates that look like mailboxes holding the ashes of the dead, and which cup an open, marble-floored atrium. An empty stone table in the middle seems like it’s meant for something, though nothing’s on it.
“This is my favorite place here in Hosanna Hills. Hundreds of people who lived elsewhere in their lives wind up here for all eternity after just a couple years spent in a low tax, high quality of life Hosanna Hills residence.
“It’s a peculiar trait of evangelocalism.”
The camera turns to the rosy, side-of-beef Tennessee marble walls and finds among the mailboxes the one foot by one foot square claimed by his mother.
Dianne Turley Hancock
1947 to ---
My Family Meant Everything To Me
“Look,”
Carson says off camera and Sasha turns toward him. “Reindeer.” Sure enough, a small herd of wire reindeer, twined with unlit lights bowing to the green grass in the bright noonday desert sun.
“Why would they allow reindeer in a Christian evangelical community?” Sasha asks from behind the camera.
Carson shrugs. The camera lingers on the reindeer.
“Maybe they’re here to scare off the condors,” Sasha offers.
Carson smiles, then considers it. “I should ask.”
Back in Dianne’s car again, on the Hosanna Hills tour. She turns onto the long, rising driveway of the Hosanna Hills Promontory Ministry. It is huge, with spectacularly stained glass panes which alternate with translucent ones. Visible from the street are gold crystal chandeliers and oyster-white adobe plaster walls. As we drive up, the camera locates an enormous nativity scene on the lawn, populated with hundreds of plastic, internally bulbed statues.
Carson’s shooting now. He says to Sasha, “That’s the nativity scene I was telling you about.”
“Wow....”
“It’s the life of Christ, from manger to mission and miracles to bearing the cross through the streets of Jerusalem to Calvary.”
“Pretty neat, huh?” Dianne asks.
Carson’s camera finds Sasha in the back seat. “Pretty amazing,” she nods, staring out the window. “Pretty amazing.”
“You should see it at night,” Dianne adds.
“I would. I’d like to.” Carson catches Sasha with her is-this-for-real? glance.
The camera ambles along with Carson’s handheld gait. Following a one-handed pull of the 10 foot glass door, we walk inside to the foyer of the Ministry. A gaping, out-of-scale narthex, bathed in the colors of the desert sunlight transformed by the intermittent stained and glare proofed glass. The camera grabs quick introductory views of the Ministry interior: carpet designs featuring posterized, Shepard Fairey-like faces of the apostles and Jesus; forty foot tapestries depicting a panoramic view of Golgotha; directional signs re-imagined with Christian humor, (to coat check: a robe with wings hanging from a wire hanger; to rest rooms, the international male and female figures have international halos above their heads); and in a distant corner, a lonely glass counter with t-shirts, bibles, DVDs and postcards. Glimpsed through open doors on the curved interior wall is the capacious, leather stadium-seated auditorium slash sanctuary.
A hefty energetic man, dressed in early ‘90s business chic with purple pinstripe shirt and white collar, strides across the apostle-faced carpeting of the narthex.
“This is Mike Battle, Reverend Mike Battle,” Carson narrates. “Hosanna Hills is his creation and his mission.” Big Mike Battle, large hands, thinning pate but a crust of red hair circling his lips. He is just old enough for his face to begin the slow rollout of a double chin but young enough that his grins are quick and wide.
“God be with you guys,” he declares, a little out of breath. He lifts his eyebrows conspiratorially. “Some place, huh?”
Sweeping panorama of Hosanna Hills and its dense cluster of tricked out Mediterranean villas and neat green lawns, with Mike speaking over the view.
“Hosanna Hills wasn’t this sudden bolt of Godly inspiration. I almost wish it came that way, fully realized in a single vision. I probably would have understood Paul better that way.”
“Instead God saw fit to drop hints and suggestions, like bread crumbs over a number of years. Meet with this person, because they may be able to help you. Buy that parcel of land because you may be glad you did. God knows how you lead a horse to water: by not scaring him half to death the first time.”
Mike Battle’s executive-styled office. His broad desk is in the background, the room’s power spot. We’re in a casual meeting space with couches, chairs, coffee table. He sits comfortably, legs crossed.
“What my revelation was,” he continues, “was that God wants Christians to live together. We are, in our hearts, taught to be gentle. We have gone into the villages and homes of the differently believing to preach, to spread the word of God from Day One. And in a world that continues to persecute Christians? That takes guts. You have to admit.”
Images of Hosanna Hillers in cars, in stores, playing after-school sports, washing cars. Dressed in jeans, flip-flops, mu-mus, track suits, polo shirts. Young, old, gentle, conversational. Every walk of life.
“But now it is time for us, as Christians, to come home. Tend to our own flocks. To live as purely and traditionally as the ancient Hebrews and await the coming of the Lord. That is the mission of Hosanna Hills.”
Over these images, Carson narrates, “Though Reverend Battle has substantial concerns about the world-wide persecution of Christians, there are other reasons people move here.”
Dianne, perched on her sofa.
“When your father died, there was so much, too much ... stuff. That huge house, the organizations, the country club. And my company, too. It was more than I could handle suddenly. You were all gone and of course your father hated pets. Not even a goldfish to come home to.”
“I never took you for an evangelical, is all,” Carson says. She cocks her head with a frown.
“That’s a silly way to put it. If I were, why do I care less what you three children are up to? An evangelical could hardly choose three riper candidates for preaching to, and yet my lips are sealed.”
“You’re talking about me, Shannon and Humphrey.”
“Yes, that’s who I mean,” Dianne replies needling Carson and his interviewer’s clarifcation. “The three of you could honestly do with some better guidance, but that’s really not any of my concern now is it? I did as much as I could, when I could. Probably not so well, but that’s it.” As if feeling she’s allowed too much, she laughs at her own mischief, trying on hipster attitude, interpersonal abdication. “Oh well! It’s up to you now. Mama’s done.
“Any way, to your father. When he died, it was so surprising, so dreadfully final, as you probably know. I remember contacting Reverend Becker. You remember him – “
“Not really.”
“Well, he baptized you. A fact you should be aware of and can’t change. I asked Reverend Becker to lead the funeral, even though your father wanted to go straight into a pine box. He told me once he’d rather be eaten by sharks when he was dead than be cremated. Not that he was ever on a boat. Any way, Reverend Becker did the whole thing, robes, hymns, eulogy. And, I have to tell you: that eulogy? It was awful. Just awful. All death, mourning, dust, tears, everyone dies, even the beasts and the trees, you can’t avoid it, the dead are victorious, the world is awful, all is vanity. I remember that: all is vanity. I went up to him afterwards, really very disappointed. I mean very. But trying very hard not show how ticked off I was.”
“What did you want?”
“In the eulogy? Well, my god: that my husband’s spirit will live on. That he’s sitting next to God or Jesus or golfing with the angels. I don’t know. Heavens.” She crooks a finger beneath her nose, stifling.
“You can see, I’m getting upset again. Any way, to finish. Just bear with me. I went up to him, thanked him, but asked, politely: Did he write the eulogy for Bill? Just for Bill? And he says, ‘It’s Ecclesiastes, with a touch of Revelations.’ ”
She gapes, all over again.
“I mean: Bill – your father – wasn’t Revelations. He wasn’t Ecclesiastes. He was ... I don’t know. Dragnet. The History Channel. Mixing goddamned cocktails, I don’t know. Just not what Reverend Becker did to him, for him. A whole life spent and at the end all you get is bible verses from someone who doesn’t know you enough to give you, I don’t know, a pretty Psalm, for godsakes? There’s something plenty wrong with that.”
Dianne wants Carson to understand this, and he holds on her, close up, tenderly, giving her displeasure a chance to resolve before turning to more images of Hosanna Hills: the cross at the fifty yard line of the high school football field, the fully lit Life of Jesus diorama, people in prayer waiting for the GoMesse
nger shuttle bus.
“Hosanna Hills almost guarantees no bad eulogies,” Carson says. “It’s about likeminded Christian people living and working together in the kind of all-hands, all-sharing way you usually find, or used to, on communes. Only, as an evangelocal municipality, it costs a lot of money to live here. Behind a well-staffed 24-hour gate.”
We’re on a scrabbly, yellow dirt hilltop overlooking the tree and house, canyon stuffed community of Hosanna Hills. Carson, with jeans, a long sleeved shirt and sunglasses sits on a white rock that looks pretty uncomfortable, truth be told. He says, “You’re probably asking yourself at this point what I mean by evangelocalism.”
He turns to the development beyond him, as permanent looking as the barren desert hills surrounding it. “That is evangelocalism. A newfangled flavor of American evangelism. Evangelism 2.0, if you will.
“Though if you look hard enough, American history is full of places like this. Where likeminded people live together and preach to one another with safety and certainty. The Puritans. The Amish. Mormons. Waco.”
Cut to Carson’s apartment where he sits, later, before a coffee table with magazines, books, DVDs. The word evangelocal is on all of them. It’s just him, one-on-one with us. The sound quality changes slightly, flatly.
“Until my mother moved there, I didn’t know that evangelocalism has been sort of a hot topic, not only among evangelicals, but on the left, too, the secular left.
“Here’s an article in Mother Jones by Carrie Midway called ‘Jesus at the Gates,’ in which she lives with her father in a community a lot like Hosanna Hills. There’s Inside Crossroads, a documentary about life in Crossroads Estates in Florida which played at Sundance. And there’s How Do You Want Your Jesus? a book by Daniel Fleischsinger, about the evangelocal movement in general.
“They all touch on a central point: evangelocalism appropriates progressive impulses to buy local, to trust your local crafts-folks and farmers, share in the costs of raising food, clothing and shelter using CSAs. There are other cost arrangements known elsewhere as dues or annual fees or taxes, but in evangelocal communities they are called commitments. To residents, evangelocalism provides that satisfying balance of commitment to yourself and others. To progressives, it’s ballsy, galling
appropriation.”
Carson’s now walking down a sunny, Hosanna Hills sidewalk. It’s narrow, the color of sand, alongside a white gutter running dry and the freshly black asphalt roadbed. He’s like a foreign correspondent on cable. Richard Engels.
“I can’t really argue with either insight much. People who can afford to live in, say, Hosanna Hills don’t have to knit hats for a living, but they do it because they like to. When the mood strikes. And then they put them in a box and take them to an Hosanna Hills store or one of the supermarkets for sale. Sort of the Amana colonies meet Whole Foods.”
Shots of aisles and hat racks in a supermarket and other stores with signs saying,
Pray and Buy Local!
and,
Local Handcrafts Spread
the Word of God, Too!
We discover little boxes of beads and bits of turquoise, scattered and left on a table somewhere in Dianne’s home.
“Even my mom tries her hand at jewelry, but not all that much.”
“Truth is,” Carson continues on the sidewalk, “evangelocalism does pretty well. It succeeds because it gives evangelicals more than just a mega-church, even a franchised one. It gives them a town, the pride of community, a place where the rest of the secular world can’t interfere with your personal ministry. You don’t have to worry your florist is a closet pagan or homosexual or your kid’s teacher is a closet humanist, relativist, or just a regular spirit-bumming sinner.”
More Hosanna Hills: kids playing soccer, neighbors waving at the camera in the parking lot. Bake sales. Guards in proto-police uniforms at the community entrance also waving.
“Other benefits are that you don’t have to worry that other evangelicals might mess with your ministry. Stir things up into heresies. Because evangelocalist developments, like other gated communities are ruled with by-laws. Everyone signs a contract that says Jesus is your personal savior, that you are not a Muslim or Jew, that you are not homosexual. Or have a lousy credit report. And, most importantly, that you believe He will find you in the tumult of the apocalypse. Falter on any of these and you’re gone.”
Carson sits on the hillside lawn of Promontory Ministry. “What people who live here like the best is that two thousand years of argumentative Christian canon has been pressure cooked into diamond-strength theology, a single branded message: Jesus is your savior. And that’s it.”
Behind him is the welcome sign for Promontory Ministry: “Jesus Saves You. Every day. Rock on.”
“Everything else: work, money, success, grief, frustration, that’s all gravy. Even his teachings. Not really necessary. The apocrypha, the crazy Jesus-purists like Mel Gibson and his difficult movies, debates over degrees of morality, abortion, even the Bible: all pesky intellectualism. Who needs that? They have bookstores here, but probably because that’s where they sell coffee and wrapping paper.
“So the win for evangelocalism is its ‘we all agree Jesus is tops so don’t bother me’ anti-academicism. ‘We all get along, generally. The details are unimportant.’ ”
Still on the lawn, Carson adds dryly, “My mother disagrees with this assessment.”
In Dianne’s kitchen. She’s dressed as if back from church, an apron tied around her long print blouse. She’s making a salad. Carson sits at a kitchen bar watching her.
“Are you saying we’re a bunch of dummies because no one’s interested in holding bible readings?”
“No. I only asked if I could go to one. And you said –”
“Don’t be smart. I know what you’re getting at. I told you no one needs to go to a bible reading here and so there aren’t any. And you’re about to take that way out beyond what I mean. So don’t be insulting.”
“Ok.”
With giant wooden spoons, Dianne energetically tosses the salad. “Truth is, if you ask anyone here, most likely they’ve already read it any way.”
She sprinkles little brown bits over it. “If Jesus is in your heart, then reading about Him is – why would that be important? Rev. Mike has a saying: if He’s already won the war, why start the fight again?”
She shoots a look at Sasha, behind the camera, alarmed. “I just forgot you don’t eat bacon.”
“That’s ok,” Sasha answers. “I’ve learned to pick around.”
Carson, Sasha and Dianne eating outside in a robust garden patio. They aren’t glum; just not talking.
Carson narrates: “I don’t know why an incurious form of religion bothers me. Especially after thousands of years of
religious warfare and torture. In Hosanna Hills, pure faith is all anyone wants. A wish upon a star.
“Which leaves room for the one thing they love to do here: put on talent shows.”
A young, sullenly longhaired band concentrating on their playing under a pulsing red and white lightshow. A large woman in blue floor-length dress singing. A skit of vaudeville tramps peeking into the Bethlehem manger. Five girls trampolining for Jesus. The Ministry is in full swing under Reverend Mike Battle and his Christmas Eve service. It looks, in fact, like a polished, well-produced variety show, the kind that used to be on television Sunday nights. Preacher-in-Chief Battle, the master of ceremonies, is always the first to applaud as he makes way across the stage to thank and interview the performers.
Carson narrates: “In a way I’m glad my mother found a place like Hosanna Hills, although it still take some recalibration to see her as a Christian. Before this, I mostly knew her as a modern upper-middle class mother, housewife and business owner. Like my father, interested in Hollywood gossip, going on expensive vacations, and drinking martinis.
“Now, she has a place to belong to and is, I think, happy. Which makes me happy. It even fee
ls like I’m quibbling when I wonder how much money she spends just to ensure her eulogy won’t be a downer.”
The Rev. Dr. Mike Battle, in handsome Italian cut business suit and Christmas tie performing Christmas services at the Ministry. He preaches to his congregation while they recline and bob to the music in very comfortable looking stadium seats with cup holders. He prowls the proscenium, wireless mic in hand, mid-parable:
“Jesus, I told him – and remember, I’m in the DMV – a godless place if there ever was one [laughter] – I tell that young man behind the counter – Jesus never needed to take an eye test. He can see for miles and miles and miles and he sees you and me right now. He sees everything. [He looks up at the cross behind him] Don’t you Lord? Yes, you do. And thank you. Thank you for helping me see those tiny little letters on the DMV eye test. I owe you one.”
[turning back to tickled audience] “And you owe him one too, don’t you? Who’s going to deny that we all owe Jesus one? Maybe more than one? Maybe something for real? Like your heart. We’ve all been entertained this evening by our youngest apostles tonight. They’ve been so good, so gloriously good. And do you know what our young people call it when you applaud them like that? They call it giving ‘props.’ Am I right, guys? [a couple of young voices: ‘Whooo!’] You’ve heard them use that word. Your sons and daughters and grandkids. ‘Props.’ Well, I give props to Jesus. Props to Jesus! [woot-woots and applause] That’s right. Woo-hoo! Props to Jesus!”
[later] “So when I say, did you get the memo? Let me tell you what that memo says. [lifting a piece of paper, reading] ‘The Christmas memo, dated December 25th, signed by Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior.’ Drafted in three parts. And it sounds a lot like what the angel said to the shepherds. A long long time ago.
“ ‘One – Celebration. There’s an invasion underway. It is I and God and the heavenly host and I am coming down to earth and nothing will ever be the same again. There’s nothing to be afraid of. ‘I bring you great news of hope and joy.’ You all have heard that, right? Well it’s time to celebrate, before it comes. Because it’s going to be too late to celebrate when it comes. You’ll be too busy ascending.
“ ‘Two – Salvation. ‘He whomsoever believeth in me will be my friend tonight and every night and will sitteth with me in heaven on the right handed side of God.’ Need I say more? I didn’t think so.
“ ‘Three – Community. ‘Christmas is a time of coming together.’ Just like we’re doing now. All of us. Give yourselves a hand, for coming out on this night. Go on [lots of sustained applause]. There may be sadness and there may be heartache, out there and in here. We’re only human. But today, none of that matters, because Jesus is here and so are you.
“So say hello to that person you’re sitting behind. Go ahead, they won’t bite. [squeaky sounds of people turning in their leather seats, getting up and saying hello]. You may not agree with them. You may not even like them. But Jesus wants you to love them. Goodwill towards men. And women. And children. And dogs and cats and birds and fish and hamsters. Merry Christmas, everyone! Merry Christmas!”
Mike Battle’s comfy office discussion area.
“I’ve prayed long and hard on this, long before your visit. The what is Christmas question,” Mike Battle says to the camera, to Carson. “In the best, general sense, Christmas is a time of encouragement. At the end of the year, you may have plenty to look back upon, and plenty to look forward to. That’s an indispensable mission of Christmas.
“The reindeer – and you didn’t mention the Santa parade, but you could have, I know – but all of those things, the trappings of Christmas, letting those things in here in Hosanna Hills took a lot of soul searching, for all of us. Other Christian communities, other leaders are very very stern and disapproving of these things and perhaps they have a small point. But God doesn’t like small points.
“When these things were brought to the board here, there was no argument, no opposition on the board of governors. Just a lot of prayer. Is this what we really want here, this much of the outside, secular-evil world? When you’re a shepherd, in a leadership position like mine, you have to be remarkably sensitive to the swells of emotion in your flock. In my case, 23,000 people.
“So we decided that reindeer and the parade and all that jazz are for the children. In all of us. You can’t just say – and I know a lot of ministries that do – that reindeer and Santa are blasphemous. We prayed and realized by grace: that just doesn’t fly. God understands that. And you have to think Jesus probably does too, He kinda likes those things. A little.” Two fingers show just how little.
“Christmas is the day Jesus was born. You just have to celebrate that. It has to be the greatest day of the year and the greatest day of your life. You can’t wish Him happy birthday enough, in thanks and praise. And if everyone celebrates that, then wonderful. That’s better than I or any other poor wretch of a preacher could hope for. I think it’s only a good thing that Jews, bless their souls, celebrate it. And Asians, and Indians, and Africans. The entire world celebrates the birth of Jesus, because Jesus loves the world, and the world loves him back. You know what I’m talking about. I don’t even need to say any more than that, do I?”
Mike Battle, and his slow fade to black.
* * * * *
Part Five
In which Carson visits his sister and the fans of Tillie Harm get a rare glimpse
of her new domestic life; plus, a tour of post-Iron Age, proto-medieval earth-sculptures
before a solstice party with fireworks, bonfires and the arrival of Beiwe
A black screen, another chapter begins:
CHRISTMAS WITH MY SISTER
