Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: OVERSEAS VACATION (08/13/15)
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TITLE: On a Faraway Hill | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hugh Houchin
08/20/15 -
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Spell bound, he’d gazed upon the majesty of the Himaji Castle in Japan. In China, he’d stared at the stone of silence called the Giant Buddha. He’d felt the stoic stillness of Lenin’s tomb, which contrasted the reddish hue and hubbub of Russia’s Red Square. Enraptured, he’d heard the 13 ton bell, known as Big Ben, peal 12 consecutive melancholy tones.
When he tired of not knowing what people were saying, he’d jet the other way and vet the sumptuousness of the United States, hemmed in between two coasts.
Jeremy was the sole beneficiary of a large inheritance, and his stream-of-consciousness centered on his favorite person who had the same name and shoe size that he did.
Eventually, though, traveling the world to see things and stuff bored him. He no longer impressed himself feather dusting his trove of treasures from around the world.
When his homing device led him to his abode in the United States, Jeremy took a vacation from vacationing.
One afternoon, he looked out his front picture window. Filled with sullen green leaves, the outstretched tree branches beckoned him to walk below years of shady growth. Strolling under them, he felt rays from the setting sun that filtered through the branches.
Jeremy scolded himself. “Why, do you fly throughout the cosmos hoping to stumble on this kind of peace and beauty when it’s in your front yard?”
Continuing his walk, his eyes scanned the four directions in fluid motion. A grey squirrel, with a brown stripe running down its back and a bushy tail, leaped from a tree branch to the top rail of a white wooden fence. It scampered along, going to wherever squirrels scamper.
He noticed birds nesting. “Wonder if there’s an egg in there, or maybe there will be one in the morning. Do birds lay eggs at night?”
He waved to neighbors in their yards. At least he assumed it was their yard. “Hi, I’m Jeremy Trotter. I live a few houses down the street. Did you see a squirrel run by?”
Replies, if any, were in the form of unintelligible grunts.
He stopped. His ears strained to hear again what it was they’d heard. “I think it came from around the corner.”
At the corner the sound mellowed. “It’s from inside that little church. They’re singing something about a cross on a faraway hill.”
Never a church person, the words were meaningless. Jeremy knew of a Jesus but didn’t know Jesus. “Where is it? I’ve been all over the world but never heard of anyplace that has a cross on some distant hill.”
Back at his house, Jeremy called a Chinese diner to deliver a sweet and sour pork meal. When his food arrived, he gave the delivery person a healthy tip and asked, “You know where the old rugged cross is?”
The delivery person’s eyes bulged; he hurried out the door muttering and shaking his head.
Hungry, Jeremy sat in his recliner and bit off the corner of the foil package of malt vinegar; he poured it over the pork and rice. A few meaningful gulps later only the aroma of sweet and sour sauce remained in the carton.
Sleepy, he put the empty container on the floor; he pushed a button and the recliner settled into a previously prescribed position. He dozed into the land of adventures.
Squinting into the sun, he walked on some forsaken path somewhere in some forsaken wilderness. “Oh, wow, on that hill. It looks like a cross with someone sitting next to it.” Jeremy began to run and reached the base of the small hill. Panting, he wiped his forehead and then brushed off his shirt and cargo shorts.
He stared at the Man sitting next to the cross. “Do you know anything about that cross?”
“It’s mine,” the Man said staring back at Jeremy.
“Yours?”
“Yes, about two-thousand years ago I hung on it.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one reason, so I have the right to oversee your overseas vacations.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Let Me tell you,” the Stranger said.*
All scripture NASB
*Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. Luke 24:27
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