"The passerby army's mission is to bring peace, faith, hope, freedom, and above all love to the entire world. Our mantra is 'memento mori'. These words remind us that our mission is urgent, and that when death comes to anyone, at 18 or 80, a mortal life proves to be short. We are reminded by Memento Mori to never waste a moment without advancing the mission. The fate of our children and grandchildren depends on how we use the time we are given. At a recent gathering, my heart broke as I looked over the passerby army. These men and women were ready to live and die for love, yet somehow they had gone from fighting the enemy to bickering and fighting each other. I thought through what I could say to encourage them again. With all the strength of my voice and my heart I commanded 'Unified Diversity! Functioning as one body....
As I looked over the battlefield today, I was reminded of what we were fighting for. I thought of all of my loved ones. When I started thinking about my daughter, I was overwhelmed. She can be so much like me....The way her heart breaks with every injustice. She prays like everything depends on God, but then lives like it all depends on her. Even though she's strong, there are times when she tries to carry all the weight of the world on her own and she ends up crushed, brought to her knees. As she cries out for relief, she will finally let go, surrendering all the burned believing that everything has a purpose and will work out for good...It's only here that she finds air to breathe again. I wish she would come to this place quicker sometimes. So often she feels guilty for not being able to hold it all herself, but if only she knew how wonderful she is. I've written several times to remind her of these things but I haven't gotten a response in months.
While the enemy was losing the battle today, they cried out to us, 'Memento Mori! We are human too! We are in pain and we are dying!' I answered them; hoping they would listen, 'Break off your pact with the Dread Army! That is what is killing you! Walk away and take your life back! I know it's all you've ever known, and walking away will leave a wound, but it will heal! When it does, do not enter into your pact with those vultures again! You don't have to be slaves to Death! We've come to bring the truth of freedom! You were meant to be free!' But they wouldn't listen and kept crying out, 'Please give me something! I'm so thirsty.' I tried again with more urgency. 'If you die here this way, you will have wasted your life on death and you will have never lived! Once you die here, the chasm will be fixed and you can never undo it. Turn from Death and drink this life-giving water we are offering you!' The battle continued to rage, some turning and joining thee Passerby Army, others dying.
Today I finally heard back from my daughter. Her letter was so sad. She said she no longer believed in Love and was thinking of joining the Dread Army. She wrote, 'down here, love wasn't meant to be for me. All is vanity underneath the sun.' Feeling defeated, I prayed and wept bitterly for what felt like hours. I cried out, 'Why am I here fighting to bring love to the earth, when my own daughter doesn't believe in it anymore?' Afterwards, I was comforted to remember that everyone who seeks truth with all their heart will find it. Love is true. My daughter will know Love. All is vanity underneath the sun. Everything and everyone on earth will leave us empty and unfulfilled, because there is only one Love. She was already finding truth in her searching.
Tonight, I can't seem to get my daughter's words out of my head...'All is vanity underneath the sun...'
I had two nightmares last night. In the first, I dreamed that I was in a huge crowd of people. We were all dead, but we pretended that we still lived. We did everything we could to experience that we still lived. We did everything we could to experience the highest heights that life here has to offer, but we all started to feel a vacuum growing within our souls. All happiness was only as brief as a snowflake hitting a warm tongue. It began to drive us insane. I realized I was fighting for the Dread Army. All of the sudden a man appeared in the sky and we were all watching him. He was more alive than any of us had ever been and it made us all want to live. From the depth of every heart we began screaming in union, 'I don't know who I am anymore! Not once in life have I been real, but I've never felt this close before! I've been walking dead, watching you, long enough to know I can't go on!' I woke up devastated at having felt the emptiness of our enemies. I love them all. Later that night I dreamed fire fell from the sky. I remembered prophecies I'd heard about Hell, ones I'd scoffed at. I never wanted to believe in it, but somewhere in the back of my heart, I worried the prophecies might be true. Here in my dream I saw the reality of it. This is the fate of our world without love, and so many people I loved were lost in the midst of this fire. Again I woke up weeping at the potential fate of our enemies. I love them all so much.
The dread Army is very Rich. To them, everything has a price, even their own souls. Their people fall madly in love with money and rob their minds to serve her. I watched one of our finest soldiers fall into her trap, and he and his wife joined the Dread Army. His family suffered severe emotional damage because of his betrayal. The Dread Army mutilated him and he lost an arm. Ten months later he came back to the Passerby Army with such humility, begging to be a servant....to simply clean our toilets and be among us. We nursed his wounds, gave him a clean uniform, and made him a captain. He is now in charge of a thousand men. Today he is a remarkably loyal brother and has kept many men from falling to the allure of money and ending up toiling in the ranks of the Dread Army.
Many of my soldiers don't know this, but I grew up in the Dread army and was a slave to Death as a young man. The Dread Army lives in the dark, so that's where I lived when I was with them. I loved the darkness because I could hide all my flaws there. I never realized that darkness is a deceptive enemy. Everyone in the Dread Army is afraid of silence, so they fill every moment with empty, idle words. They all lie, so you can never truly know the genuine identity of a Dread Army soldier. One night I was spying on Passerby territory when I was captured and brought before the King of the Passerby Army. At the foot of His throne, where I laid trembling on the ground, was the most brilliant light I'd ever seen. There was no darkness to hide in, and for the first time I saw all that I really was. The silence in this place was immense because in the light of the King, there is nothing to say....only things to realize. I had been an enemy of this powerful King all my life and if He had sentenced me to death right there it would have been right...it would have been justice. Amidst these heavy thoughts, I was startled to feel the King's hand under my chin as he leaned down and lifted my face to his own. He spoke with a Love I've never known before, saying,' we only want voluntary allegiance in the Passerby Army. If you stay here, you will be changed and it will feel like the old you has died, or....you may remain in the darkness as a slave. Either way, I Love you, My Son. You are Free to choose.'
As I left to go back to the Dread Army camp, I questioned everything I'd ever known. I realized in the face of the King's Love that all my love was selfish and not really Love at all. It was true that the only way for me to be changed would be for the King to kill who I had become, and raise me up to Live again, making me new.
Remembering my days in the Dread Army gives me such an urgency to keep my daughter from joining them. I think often about when I was a baby. Every night I would tell her that she was beautiful and precious. I wanted to make sure she knew that she was worth more than anything in the world. I would tell her about the King of the Passerby Army and that he ruled everything, including her. I would tell her that since He is the King and Father to all, that she is a true princess. I used to dream of her growing up into a beautiful, wise woman that would change the world. I used to pray that over her, pleading for her to be spared from the things that every other man and woman in our family had to go through. However, with all the potential that our free will gives us to freely love, we also must face the risk that our free will gives us the same potential to freely hate. My worst fears were realized when we found that she had been abused by a man who used his free will to try and destroy her. Her desire to join the Dread army was simply the result of her having been hurt in the most unjust way possible. So my prayer for her as a baby was the same one I prayed for her tonight, to set apart this dream.
I miss my daughter so much. I haven't heard from her in so long. Tonight, as I prayed for my daughter's searching to turn into glory, it gave me hope to remember my own time of searching and finding truth. The day after my capture and release from the Passerby King, I went to our morning meeting, where the Dread Army commander was speaking as usual. She was a beautiful woman who always seemed to encourage us in our mission with eloquence and passion, but on this particular day, I began to see holes in her speech. Evil fell from her pretty mouth, wrapped in her classic voice. She was Angelic in her syntax, but demonic in her motive. In the middle of her speech she nodded to a man in the back and I turned to see him lean down and walk quickly from the room. Just then, an explosion went off and so people were killed instantly. The Dread Army commander yelled, 'Help your brothers! The Passerby Army is full of murderers! Avenge your Brothers!' As everyone turned to assist the wounded, I looked back at the commander and saw her begin to smile. As she scanned the room with pleasure, her eyes fell on me and her smile vanished. Her face filled with hatred and my heart raged against her. I made my way to the stage and began to yell so the soldiers could hear what our commander had done. Everyone was silent as we argued and I picked apart her lies. I told the Dread Army about my meeting with the King of the Passerby Army and how much Love He'd shown me. Hundreds of them began to cry. She ordered me to be executed on the spot, but the guards were all weeping. I asked if anyone wanted to join the Passerby Army with me and thousands of open hands went up. She was outnumbered and slipped away before we could seize her.
After more than two years of writing letters to my daughter and getting no response, I tried one last time.
- Favorite one,
I love you so much. I miss you desperately. I know you are searching for truth and you honesty in the last letter you wrote was beautiful. You are growing up and you need to learn for yourself what you believe and why. This is a good thing even though it can be confusing at times. Don't stop questioning, my love, and hear me when I tell you how I see it. I believe you feel like something is missing inside because you were created to commune with our King, the leader of the Passerby Army. He will show you what it means to truly be loved and will teach you how to love others. You aren't listening or searching for Him and you will feel empty until you do. The King is known for singing over His children and if you listen to Him tonight, you will hear Him say: 'Tiny heart, stuck inside yourself, when will you open up for me? I love you and I want to meet you again, before one of us must go. You lips touched every hand but mine. When will you get back to me? Tiny heart, you're not by yourself. When will you recognize the beat of my heart grieving in your hand? You crush me when you run that way. You will never know what you have done to me, and you will never know losing Love from me, and you will never know a single day alone. If you choose me, I'm waiting for you....always waiting.'
-You are my favorite. I Love you Always.
When my daughter received my letter, she decided to look to the King to learn about Love like I encouraged her to. She fell deeply in love with what she found, and the change in her was amazing. When I asked her about any romance in her life, she said that she had asked the King to pick her husband. She explained that she was going to stay asleep in regard to romance until the King of Love itself decided to wake her. A year later, she revealed that the King came to her to say that it was almost time to arise for a new morning. Sure enough, He woke her up and introduced her to a valiant young soldier of the King's. Another year later, she wrote me, saying that this man had asked her to be his bride. When she said yes he kissed her for the first time. She said, 'that night I felt like I had become something...treasured....different.' She had never felt anything more passionate in all her life than the deep slow burn of waiting on him to lead her. The wedding was glorious.
Our most loyal captain that we put in charge of a thousand men was replaced today. He will be greatly missed. He was the strongest, most loving, selfless and courageous man any of us had ever known and his wife was a wonderful woman. The commander loved her desperately. She was his life, but she had come from a very dark past and had been hurt so much that she was never able to fully trust him.
One day the captain left to go on a mission. His wife was so sure he was meeting another woman that she followed him. He settled into his hiding spot and after a moment of silence, she appeared before him with tears streaming down her face. 'I know you are meeting another woman!' she screamed, 'Where is she?! I hate you! You lie to me all the time! I hope you die out here! I know you have had an affair, so guess what? I have had an affair too! I never want to see you again!' He was horrified and tried to quiet her, but it was too late. She began to flee and was nearly out of the captain's sight when a Dread Army soldier appeared and seized her. The soldier threw her to the ground and as she lay there with a gun pointed at her, she realized that her husband wasn't.
