Parable of the Prodigal Son

A Look at the Key Chapter of The Prodigal Band Trilogy that Decides the Fate of the Prodigal Band, and Their ‘Redemption Draws Near’ (Part One)

It is within Chapter Eleven of The Prodigal Band, the third novel of The Prodigal Band Trilogy, where the most important key to the purpose of writing this trilogy is found. It is where the prodigal band named Sound Unltd decides to ‘return to the Father,’ that is, God, as the Luke 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son states. It is where they collectively decide to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and Redeemer.

It has been over three weeks since I posted my last post which related to The Murder Rule, the post being inspired by the near-assassination of Slovakia leader Fico and the assassination of a military leader of Iran, Raisi…on top of other important assassinations and near assassinations that have been done recently—and throughout history. But last night as I was reading this section of The Prodigal Band, inspiration came into my head to write here that this section ‘sealed the deal’ so-to-speak—the band would accept and carry out their ‘missions of God’ given to them by God’s angels, the Tooters, at their hometown festival, during the final note of a song the Tooters gave them years before.

This section is long and somewhat complicated as each band member sparks his personality into the conversations they carry out within a ‘void,’ a timeless, soundless, unknown dimension they think just might be ‘heaven.’ It is a void they were ‘caught up’ into having been taken out of a jet that was about to burn due to a bomb going off, a bomb placed by a minion of evil to force them to ‘toe the line’ or be murdered. They were headed to a ‘Directorate meeting’ where the agenda was to force them to finalize their ‘sell their souls to the devil’ pact, on paper, to finalize their ‘oaths’ to the satanic spirit figure, Corion. The section begins with them getting onto their 747 jet from Philadelphia to London and ends with their collective decision to accept Christ. The section will be divided into a few parts, and, unlike the snippet posts which tended to be longer, each sub-section will be explained as to the personalities within the conversations and various events that happen to them in the void, including those with Biblical implications…being “caught up,” but not quite in the clouds…

Before I post the segment that begins this series of posts, let me review for the reader’s sake the names of the band members ‘caught up’ into this ‘heavenly’ void—from Chapter One of Battle of the Band, with the names of the band members inserted in parentheses:

A lead singer (Erik) with dark brown mid-back length hair accentuated by sensuous bangs on a baby-face was slender, thin-lipped and of medium height. Voice a Godly gift. Yet, some said, the devil’s tool.

The tall dirty-haired guitarist (Jack) possessed an angular face and had hair growing on once side-shaved sides of his head. Now without the screaming instrument he fired into immortality.

The dark, strapping bass player (Keith) with bushy black curls and coal-dark eyes walked without his trademark gold chains.

The tall, lanky, beak-nosed, ringlet-haired master of many guitars (Mick) worried over his past perversions.

The pot-bellied, biker-esque synthesizer player (Bryan) famed for red hair as wild as the wind, fiery as his brew, bore a downcast of regret.

A short, curly-blond percussionist (Tom) once angered by lost love approached with the others to an unknown destination, glad with a full life behind him.

Below is Part One of this series; the scenes are a prelude to the ‘caught up’ into a ‘heavenly realm,’ with the band members at the jet and on it headed to London. But there will be ‘note’ interruptions to explain what is going on in the segments and the characters involved.

Continue reading “A Look at the Key Chapter of The Prodigal Band Trilogy that Decides the Fate of the Prodigal Band, and Their ‘Redemption Draws Near’ (Part One)”

Leaving Spiritual Emptiness Behind: Another Reason I Was Inspired to Author The Prodigal Band Trilogy Novels

Happy Resurrection Day, aka Easter. And sorry, trannies, I am not honoring Brandon’s “Transgender Day” or whatever he’s calling it… I do Christ, not politics!

But in honor of my Lord and Savior and Redeemer’s arising from the dead or grave days after His crucifixion and burial, I will state another reason I was inspired to write the three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy. Having been laid spiritually empty on some occasions beginning in the early 70s when I was trying to ‘find myself,’ and also having experienced some spiritual emptiness in the 90s (dealing with New Agers had something to do with that), I had to incorporate spiritual emptiness within my main characters—the band members as well as their women—because they had to overcome this spiritual emptiness as I was overcoming it. Thus, the novels aren’t just about the journey of the band and women out of spiritual satanic-like darkness into the Light of Christ based on the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son, but are also based on my own journey from spiritual emptiness to spiritual fulfillment and happiness and without fear (think of that line from Dune here: “fear is the mind killer.” © 1965 Herbert Properties LLC).

I do not remember the exact date some spiritual entity ‘spoke’ into my mind that I had to begin the novel series—get the characters I had created in the late 60s out of my head at last—but it was in October, and I think the year was 1993. So, while mothering a baby girl and also raising a toddler boy, I began writing what I knew of the story of my rock band characters. But, as I was writing the book that would later be called Battle of the Band, I realized the plot and theme were, well, spiritually empty! Yes, they were into the ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’ lifestyle, but that rock star lifestyle would, by the mid-90s, drag them and their women as well into addictions, alcoholism, sexual perversion, and personalities that were empty shells of their former selves. In other words, spiritual emptiness and even suicidal behavior. The climax to end the novel has two of the band members nearly dying of heart attacks as the rest of the band and women live in fear of their passing—until God’s spirit beings dispense with the evil ones and guide the two out of death spirals and guide also their watchers: the novel ends with them realizing they have to change their ‘riotous living’ ways! This event takes place in the second novel, The Prophesied Band, where, at the climax, they were given their ‘missions of God,’ because they were ready for these missions…well, almost. In The Prodigal Band to end the trilogy, they do ‘missions on themselves’ so-to-speak: they accept Christ as Lord and Savior, which guides them into completing their missions they were given. The spiritual emptiness had been overcome, first by witnessing and partaking in a miracle, and then later witnessing another life-saving miracle.

So that, in completing the trilogy, spiritual fulfillment took a hold of me beginning in late February, 1997, when I witnessed my own personal ‘shining’ so-to-speak, which inspired me to complete my own authoring ‘mission.’ That is why, on this day, Resurrection Day, I wish spiritual fulfillment on all who read this post. Blessings!

Why All of My Novels Contain Spirit-Being Characters, Fictitious or Not

Allow me to sum up the answer to this ‘why’ question in one simple sentence: My novels contain ‘spirit-beings,’ whether angels or demons or other spirit-beings, because the theme of ‘Good vs. Evil’ is paramount in my novels. That is, ‘the Creator’ (aka God) and His angels and a part-human/part spirit being battling against the satanic character Corion and his demons (and those evil human characters that allow the evil to control them for power and money and control over Earth) for the souls of my prodigal band characters, their women, and more.

If one is going to write a novel based on ‘good vs. evil,’ spirit-beings (in my opinion) must be included. The beings in question likely depend on the religion themed in the novel. Any Christian-oriented novel likely contains at least a mention of and various Bible quotes by Christ, while some (The Shack for instance) contain various angelic characters.

Continue reading “Why All of My Novels Contain Spirit-Being Characters, Fictitious or Not”

Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Five)

Chapter Four of Talent For A Mission ends with the final verses of Luke 15: 25-32 of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the brother of the prodigal son, who has always been faithful to his father and has always done the work his father required, becomes angry with the father because his “lost” and “riotous living” younger brother, upon returning to his father, is feted with a fatted calf—while this always faithful son was NEVER treated with such a reward! So this older brother gets on his dad’s case for this “royalty” treatment to a wayward brother who wasted his inheritance when he could have not wasted it.

Below are the verses from Luke 15:25-32—

{15:25} Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing.

{15:26} And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.

{15:27} And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.

{15:28} And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.

{15:29} And he answering said to [his] father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:

{15:30} But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.

{15:31} And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.

{15:32} It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

To sum up, the elder son is angry because the younger ‘prodigal’ son is getting a hefty “fatted calf” reward just because he gave up the “riotous” lifestyle and returned to his father, a hefty reward father never had given to him. One would think the elder son would be thrilled his younger brother gave up that wasteful lifestyle and returned to his father after learning the negative consequences of that wasteful lifestyle.

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Five)”

Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Four)

This post, Part Four of Chapter Four of Talent For A Mission, covers Luke 15: 20-24 about “returning to the father.”

{15:20} And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

{15:21} And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

{15:22} But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put [it] on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on [his] feet:

{15:23} And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill [it;] and let us eat, and be merry:

{15:24} For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

In other words, the six members of the prodigal band, having been given “missions of God” by God’s angels, the Tooters, “returned to the father.” For, in order to do their “missions of God,” they had to “return to God.” Further, in order to “make merry” and “be found” after years of being “lost” (since “prodigal” means “lost” in this context), they had to repent of their many and grave sins and accept Christ as Lord and Savior and Redeemer, the “rewards” being an eternity in Heaven with their “father,” not an eternity with the satanic Corion “gnawing their bones forever.”

The other “reward” was that, with their jet having had a bomb placed within a cabin seat by a minion of evil, they were taken out of the jet right before the bomb went off, and then existed in a timeless white void where they would make their fateful decisions regarding their “missions.”

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Four)”

Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Three)

Note: This is a continuation of the previous post, Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Two), which I had to split into two parts (Two and Three) since the post would have been quite long had I not split it.

Throughout the remainder of The Prophesied Band all six members go on their journey to find their true selves after their Asia-Pacific Island tour ends; being fathers and husbands, vacations in various places with friends, family, or both, partaking in projects to discover the meaning of some songs or some historical figure one of them was obsessed with, and one of them, synthist Bry, trying to unite with wife and children again after a separation. Upon certain truths being revealed and discoveries made to them, their ‘father’ (that is, God) tells His agents, the angels known as the Tooters and their own agent, Morwenna, the ‘witch of the Hovels,’ to set the band on the course of becoming ‘hired servants,’ letting them know that they are about to make their decision about their ‘mission of God’ which is revealed to them in the final Chapter Ten of The Prophesied Band. Here are Luke 15:18-19 about becoming ‘hired servants’:

{15:18} I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

{15:19} And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Three)”

Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Two)

In the previous post dealing with Part One of Chapter Four of Talent For A Mission, I posted how The Prodigal Band Trilogy used the three novels within the trilogy to encapsulate the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son. The first of the trilogy novels, Battle of the Band, relates to the first three verses of the parable: how the ‘riotous living’ of the six members of a top-rated late-80s and 90s rock band ‘wasted’ their lives and true selves, which led to heart attacks of two of the band members in the novel’s climax, leading them to realize they needed to ‘change their ways.’

In Part Two, I will post how the second novel of the trilogy, The Prophesied Band, shows and tells them giving up their ‘wasted ways’ as a beginning to them ‘returning to their father.’ This novel climaxes with the spirits of Good telling them how they will accomplish this ‘return.’ But they still have real issues they’ll have to deal with, as did the prodigal son, as seen in the continued parable below. Part Three deals with what those spirits of Good tell them so that they can choose, or not choose, to ‘return to their father.’ Since I did not want to make this post very long, I will post this ‘spirits of Good’ part right before Christmas.

Part One featured Luke 15:11-13. Part Two features Luke 5:14-17, below—

{15:14} And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

{15:15} And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

{15:16} And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

{15:17} And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

I will only feature one snippet showing the spiritual “hunger” the six band members experience due to their “riotous living” and the consequences, both physical and spiritual, of that lifestyle. In Chapter Four of The Prophesied Band, band singer Erik and bassist Keith—who nearly died of heart attacks in the final climax chapter of Battle of the Band, realize the “hunger” for meaningful lives as not only members of ‘the band of the 90s,’ but as husbands and fathers, as well as their true selves outside of the celebrity spotlights—for they both know it will take a bit of time to physically recover (and later, they have their Asia-Pacific Island tour rescheduled over it). They discuss this “hunger” while recovering in a private hospital in the town they grew up in, Walltown.

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Two)”

Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part One)

Folks, this trilogy is called The Prodigal Band Trilogy for a reason! And the reason is this: the parable within the Gospels spoken to the Apostles by Christ Himself that gave the most inspiration to this trilogy was the Parable of the Prodigal (Lost) Son within the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15. This parable has been, during my entire life, one of my favorite parables. My other two favorite parables have also been referenced in my Biblical References Snippet posts—the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard and the Parable of the Talents. All three work together to impart my mission message, but it made more sense to me, what with my trilogy about a rock band that gains fame and fortune but loses their ‘souls’ so to speak, to call this the Prodigal Band Trilogy, where the ‘prodigal band’ meets (spiritually) the ‘prodigal son.’

Before I go on and repeat posting parts of the Parable of the Prodigal Son which was posted in Chapter Three, let me explain the meanings of prodigal and prodigy. The ‘prodigal son’ is ‘lost’ because of wasteful extravagance. He is wasting his ‘inheritance,’ or (in the case of my prodigal band members) ‘talents.’ Three of the band members, singer Erik, bassist Keith, and keyboard synthist Bry, are also child prodigies, possessing ‘extraordinary talent’ at singing and music playing as children through inheritance from ancestors. Instead of throwing their given talents into classical music or opera singing where they could make good incomes, they instead choose rock stardom, as they could then acquire extravagant fame and especially fortune. And we all know the lifestyles of rock stars, right? Sex, drugs, and rock and roll…

In part one of this “prodigal son meets prodigal band” set of posts is explained the first part of the parable, verses 11 through 13, the ‘riotous living’ part, and Chapter Six of Battle of the Band is loaded with these scenes. The prodigal band is partying at an estate outside of the fictitious California coastal city of Richmont, which is considered a hotbed of occultism. The estate called Hellside Horror House is owned by a horror TV channel couple that host a horror TV show, Andre` and Cheetah. Along with the band are fellow rockers, celebrities and groupies that are also witches.

Here is the parable in the Gospel of Luke chapter 15, verses 11-13, “the riotous living” part, and then three snippets from the first trilogy novel, Battle of the Band.

{15:11} And he said, A certain man had two sons:

{15:12} And the younger of them said to [his] father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth [to me.] And he divided unto them [his] living.

{15:13} And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part One)”