What Machines Cannot Do

Abstract

“California,” Tilda said, groaning, “not again to the US!” However, there had been no way out. B1 management had told them that it would seriously damage company relationships if they would not integrate their Californian contacts, both from Los Angeles and from San Francisco, into the new project. Now they were sitting again side by side on board a Lufthansa plane to the US, this time to LA.

California Greening

“California,” Tilda said, groaning, “not again to the US!” However, there had been no way out. B1 management had told them that it would seriously damage company relationships if they would not integrate their Californian contacts, both from Los Angeles and from San Francisco, into the new project. Now they were sitting again side by side on board a Lufthansa plane to the US, this time to LA.

Next to Gabriel sat an American-Czech guy who introduced himself as Jacob Green, who’d been living in LA for years. When he learnt that they were Germans, he said, “Actually my name is Jakob Grün. We have a German family background.” “Do you have any recommendations for vegetarian—or, better, vegan—restaurants in Santa Monica?” Gabriel made polite conversation. However, he really wanted to know and thought he might best ask a native LA resident. And, indeed, Jakob Grün had some good suggestions: “You must promise me that you will visit two places I now recommend.” Jakob Grün got quite loud and excited, such that it was nearly embarrassing to see him so intense—after all, it was just about restaurants, right? Jakob let Gabriel repeat the names and locations of two places in particular, which he told them to visit by all means. “The first is called Kreation, with a k,” he said. “You must promise to go there first. I highly recommend it.” He let Gabriel repeat the coordinates until he was blue in the face. The other place he called Café Gratitude, and Jakob was not satisfied before they could tell him the address without spelling mistakes.

Arriving at LA in the early evening was a nightmare. The airport was a chaotic mess of people, cars, buses and suitcases. It took ages before they finally got their rental car. After a long bureaucratic confirmation process, they were left alone in a huge dark outdoor car park and had to choose a car from among many. The keys of these cars were left inside them; they could simply pick one and drive away with it. They picked a black Chevy. It was the first time that they shared an apartment—of course, with two separate bedrooms. Gabriel noticed Tilda’s heavy limp in the flat when she unpacked her suitcase. The long hours sitting motionless inside the plane must have made her foot hurt. He could barely hide his compassion for her bad foot. It was swollen and bulky.

Once he was in his bed cosily hoisted up against enormous US pillows, he wanted to start reading the first pages of the new book he brought to the US, Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance, but he could not even concentrate on the very first paragraph. His door was ajar, and he could look into the dark kitchen. The main room was L-shaped, where the kitchen was in the short bottom piece, the sitting room and dining room areas separated in the long piece and the sitting room windows at the top, providing a view of the courtyard swimming pool. He could not see Tilda’s door; it was round the corner. His body was still vibrating from the flight, and he felt cold, awkward and uncomfortable.

Angels’ Play

Location:

Heaven above Santa Monica. Shared-Office Cloud.

Time:

Real-time GMT, Friday, 6 September 2019, 17:48

Players:

The two angels.

Setting:

TA draws some green fluid from their shopping bags into a syringe and flicks it expertly a couple of times.

GA

(looking aghast at the injection needle in the hands of its colleague):

Are you mad? What are you doing? You look like a junkie.

TA

(smugly shaking the green syringe):

It is called Super Green Shot, and it is full of chlorophyll. Read your homework in the Script. No way around. Gabriel has to drink it. Stuff is provided directly by the upper level of TRINI-T top management.

GA

(disapprovingly):

Can he not have an Aperol Spritzz? Or if there must be something green in it, a martini, shaken not stirred, with a big green olive?

Both are scanning the Script and start to yawn simultaneously after seeing how many instructions appear on the next page.

TA

(following the long list, ticking boxes with its dripping injection needle):

Bloody long list about what machines cannot do.

You know what? Let’s call it a day. We made it to “Jakob Grün” and the “green syringe.” How about a nice Super Green Shot for yourself at Angels’ Night Club?

elegantly avoiding the Script without any effort, GA tosses at its colleague’s head across the cloud despite the short distance because Gabrielites are bad at sports and the toss would have missed its target anyway

Green Shots

The next morning, Gabriel and Tilda answered their emails and discussed the agenda for the whole US visit. After talking to the Los Angeles partners for the next three days about issues in social service provision, they would go to San Francisco to meet the second partner, who specialised in AI. The flight home to Germany would leave from the San Fransisco airport.

On their way to the meeting venue in LA, they admired the sunny and cheery atmosphere of Santa Monica. “Look at the palms in the streets and the bright blue skies, Mr David,” Tilda said, enchanted. It felt nice and relaxed. Gabriel was more in love with the vegetables in the supermarket that they would visit later. “Look at these gorgeous Brussels sprouts,” he said, admiring the perfect little green shapes on display. “Should we have them with walnuts and soya sauce tomorrow evening? We can prepare them in the oven in our flat. Today, I am too exhausted to cook. Let’s go to this Kreation restaurant that Jakob Grün recommended so highly!” It was already dinnertime.

They found Kreation without any difficulties by following Jakob’s detailed directions. “To be honest, it does not look special at all,” Tilda said. It was just a very small restaurant in a street with many suchlike businesses, most of them owned by very young people. Kreation looked a little dark and womb-like compared to the others: Maybe it was just day one of creation, shortly before the appearance of the light. “It’s vegan,” Gabriel said after checking the outdoor information. “That’s what counts for us.” However, he was a little disappointed too. He had looked forward to a really romantic evening with Tilda in an exceptional place, and utmost on his mind, he had looked forward to an afterwork beer. Kreation, however, the bastion of health that it was, did not offer any alcoholic beverages.

Tilda saw his sullen face when he scanned the drinks menu in the gloom of their small table lamp and gleefully laughed. She only rarely drank alcohol. Gabriel was quite an addict, in her opinion. “What the heck is a shot?” he asked, complaining. “Have you seen the names of the drinks they offer?” He read a few out to her: “Glammunity Shot, Super Green Shot, Sexy Shot, Antidote Shot.” Tilda shrugged her shoulders before replying: “No idea. Ask the server.” This is what Gabriel did when the young man arrived: “These are tonic shots, you know,” the server explained. Seeing Gabriel’s uncomprehending face, he patiently went on: “You will get some organic water and a syringe.” “A syringe?” Gabriel asked incredulously. The server laughed. “You shoot the content of the syringe into the water. This is why it is called a shot. Try it. It’s really healthy.”

Because there was no alternative that sounded any better anyway, Gabriel ordered the drink that sounded the least dangerous: a Super Green Shot, in memoriam of Jakob Green, who was responsible for his not being able to have a nice evening beer. Because it cost nearly six dollars, Gabriel thought there should be at least some tasty ingredients in these expensive syringes. Tilda just took some tap water, the cautious woman that she was.

What came then was spectacular. There was a glass of water and a big plastic syringe. The server put both in with a flourish in front of Gabriel and lit their table candle. Gabriel’s eyes were glued to the syringe. In the light of the flickering candle flame, the lurid liquid inside fluoresced and glimmered in bright phosphoric green with little golden spots inside.

It was so green, greener than green, the greenest green he had ever seen. He could not believe his eyes. Maybe the golden spots emphasised the impression of green. No idea. He looked helplessly at Tilda. “You have to drink it,” she grinned. “It looks poisonous,” Gabriel said, completely awestruck by the greenish glow emanating from the syringe. “Maybe, it gets better if you put it into the water. It will dilute,” Tilda suggested helpfully. “I won’t drink this alone, Mrs Toelz,” he informed her. “Either we both drink this, or neither of us will. You have a glass of water too. You can help me.” He could see that she was curious as well. Therefore, he cut the tip of the syringe with his knife and cautiously shared the contents of the syringe between their two glasses of water. In both glasses, the green fluid immediately mingled with the water in clouds and streaks like in a wizard’s crystal ball. “It does not lose its brightness,” Gabriel opined in admiration. “It just shares it.” They both stirred the drink with their spoons and looked at the green fluid and at each other hesitantly. “Cheers!” Gabriel said encouragingly and clinked glasses with Tilda. They sipped carefully, both expecting a taste explosion matching the glamorous volcanic eruption in their bright green drinks. It had no taste. Nil. Just water.

“Blimey,” Gabriel said to Tilda. “What is this? Indian ink?” She laughed and took the syringe, reading aloud the list of ingredients. “Chlorophyll, oxygen, spirulina and peppermint. Dairy free. Gluten free. Nut free. Raw. Vegan.” “That explains the green colour,” Gabriel said dryly. “It’s chlorophyll.” “What is chlorophyll good for?” Tilda asked.

“Chlorophyll is responsible for the green colour of many plants and algae,” Gabriel explained. “The name comes from the Greek word for green, khloros. It is essential for photosynthesis, allowing plants to absorb energy from light. But not only plants—there is even a green sea snail that produces chlorophyll for photosynthesis, to make food from light. Plants are perceived as green because chlorophyll absorbs mainly the blue and red wavelength and reflects the green. The absorbed light energy powers the part of photosynthesis that in the end produces sugars and other stuff.”

“It doesn’t taste like anything,” Tilda observed. “Yes, but it is still one of the fundamental drivers of life. It’s one of the basic supports of creation. And it can obviously form deep-green solutions in organic solvents.” They both continued to carefully sip the tasteless but powerful green water of creation until their two glasses were completely empty. This had been fun enough for six dollars.

Tilda smiled into her glass. Then she scowled and looked at Gabriel strangely. She started to feel as if she had two lives—one with Ken and the other with Gabriel. She felt like a deep fracture was running through her personality. She not only switched between two world views and realities like zapping between streaming channels but was even somebody else in both worlds. It was difficult to describe this weird, schizophrenic experience.

Green Food

For breakfast the next morning, they sat at a glass table while they ate toast and grilled vegetables. Gabriel even lit a candle. “Isn’t this romantic and enjoyable?” he asked enthusiastically.

“I do not ‘enjoy’ anything, Mr David,” Tilda said disparagingly. “Isn’t it amazing, your obsession with taste and ambience? As if a nice breakfast is all that can happen in a day. I do not care what I eat as long as it is ethical and nutritious. What I do know exactly is how many calories I need a day. If I am in training, I need 1750 calories; if I am doing nothing, I can cope with 1200. Furthermore, I have to pay attention to my vitamin B12 level and to iron deficiency in my blood because of my vegan diet. I am a bit anaemic. That is it. Breakfast is for me a necessary intake of food that should happen on a regular basis. Not a bloody ritual with meaning, sophistication and romance.” Gabriel sighed.

They talked much about eating habits because Tilda was quite a missionary when making her case for vegan instead of vegetarian. “It is just the next logical step,” she insisted. “You should not eat animals, you should not make them suffer, and you should not use them for your own purposes. They are not inferior to you, and you have no right to deal with them as if they were just a resource for your convenience.”

“Why are you happy to eat plants but set against eating animals, Mrs Toelz?” Gabriel asked cautiously. “They do not suffer,” Tilda maintained. “There is research saying otherwise,” he objected before continuing: “I am against animal suffering from industrial livestock farming, and I want to protect the environment against climate change from mass meat production. This is why I turned into a vegetarian.” He winked at her smilingly, but she coldly returned his glance. He sighed. “Maybe you are right that veganism is then only logically consequential because milk and egg production is related to these issues. However, I buy my milk and eggs from ecologically sensitive and animal-protecting farmers. For me, this is OK. For me, it would be even OK to eat meat every now and again from organic farmers who take special care of the welfare of their animals.” Tilda looked at him disgusted. “This is abusing your power as a human,” she replied, scolding him. “No living being should be allowed to bring suffering to any other creature; that is my opinion.”

“I am sceptical that you can avoid entirely suffering on principle, and I am not even sure that it would be desirable if there were such a choice,” he said. She looked at him like she thought him mad. “What do you mean, Mr David?” she asked insistently. “Think of your own birth,” he said. “Do not you think that your mother was in pain during labour? Wasn’t the actual birth a painful process? Would you rather not live than having been the source of that pain?” She looked at him doubtfully.

Gabriel looked pensively out the window. “How about yourself? Do you want to have any kids?” Tilda shook her head. “I do not know. Why?” “Because I can tell you one thing: You cannot shelter your kids from pain and suffering. Giving birth to them means exposing them to pain and suffering. Of course, you expose them to joy and happiness as well. But pain and suffering will always be part of the game. It is our conditio humana. It is life. If you want to prevent fellow creatures from suffering, they should not be here in the first instance. It cannot be a general maxim.”

“Once they are here, you can take care that you do not contribute to their suffering,” Tilda retorted triumphantly. He said, “Think of Ken. He will be upset that you are again on a long journey with me.” “It is business travel, and I am forced to do it,” she said lamely. “No, you are not,” he replied reasonably. “It is your choice, Mrs Toelz. We are choosing every second of our life, and there will always be other creatures suffering from our decisions, one way or another. Even if you are not doing anything, there will be somebody suffering from the absence of your action. It is impossible to escape the wheel of one creature imposing suffering on another. This is called original sin, in Christian theology. Every human being needs to be conscious of this fact. It is fundamental to moral judgement. Only if you can see the essential landscape can you try to find your way within it. You cannot avoid or prevent suffering, per se, but you can try to prevent injustice, disproportionality and cruelty.”

“You have no right to end the life of other creatures and eat them. They are creatures like you. It is unjust, disproportionate and cruel,” Tilda said heatedly. “Men make themselves God. They decide on life and death. They have no right to end the lives of other creatures. That is arrogant. Humans are not special in creation just because they think they are images of God and the only ones with conscious self-reflection. They are not the crown of creation with a plethora of species underneath that they can abuse for their so-called higher ends.” Gabriel was again surprised. Did she really believe that?

“Do not you feel that you are created in God’s own likeness?” he asked her. “Not really,” she answered. He waited, but she did not follow up on this remark. “It does not matter anyway,” he said. “There is no connection between these two. God does not want the death of any creatures; he wants their lives. He is their creator. There is no way to derive from the likeness to God the legitimacy to kill other creatures out of superiority.”

Tilda did not look convinced. “I like the position of Albert Schweitzer,” Gabriel told her. “Schweitzer says, ‘I am life that wants life. Any will to life in my environment is equal to mine.’” “And what follows from that, Mr David?” Tilda asked, demanding to know. “Doesn’t that mean that you have to be a vegan to have a good conscience?” Gabriel laughed before continuing: “Schweitzer says, ‘A good conscience is an invention of the devil.’” Seeing her uncomprehending face, he explained: “Because humankind destroys life just by existing, we have no status of innocence. You as a vegan are no better than me as a vegetarian. To claim this would be hubris. There is just life; there is no hierarchy of life. There is no bureaucratical legitimisation of who is allowed to eat whom. We are one.”

Tilda looked exhausted even though it was very early in the morning. Maybe still jetlagged. He went on, now himself quite heatedly. “This picture of experiencing nature is about the opening and self-giving of one person to the other that makes new life possible, because we are all one. Community grows out of the gift of the self. We are ourselves like bread. Bread for many people, we live for one another, and only love counts, as a nice song says. In my view, this means that it is perfectly natural that we are nourishment for each other. We are all one and giving away our lives for each other because we cannot preserve it otherwise.”

“Stop preaching, Mr David,” Tilda said. “It does not work. You sound like a cannibal.” “Every creature contributes with its life to the community of all living beings—it will be ‘eaten,’ one way or another. There are no exceptions. Language is pretty obvious here. We are consumed like wax from a candle; we lie down like a bridge over troubled water, et cetera, et cetera.”

“You sound just weird,” Tilda said. Gabriel objected: “This, of course, does not allow for violence, cruelty and sadism. And it does not mean that animals have no rights. On the contrary, animals share our holy service. Therefore, they have a right to be respected as dignified fellow creatures and have every right to live and die with that dignity. They have a right to be sheltered by us because we are all one. From here, there is a strong point to be made against industrial livestock farming, which exploits and tortures animals.”

For him, Tilda’s reasoning was so at fault that it destroyed the fundament of what it wanted to promote. Strange girl.

When they were later having lunch, and Gabriel chose a sushi box that he had brought while shopping. Tilda told him off: “OK, I am relatively happy you do not eat beef, pork and chicken anymore, Mr David. One less weirdo among the billions on this planet. However, fish is bad as well. Don’t you know about industry overfishing the oceans? Or dying dolphins as side catch? About whales slaughtered or whole species extinguished that used to be so plentiful and so cheap on the market that they were called the food of the poor? Even crabs and algae are no appropriate food for humans, because they steal these creatures away from bigger fish in the maritime ecosystem, who start to starve from their scarcity.” Gabriel looked at her helplessly. She continued: “I bet you know all of this, and you have your excuses ready to escape your conscience. If you have any!” “Don’t you think you are overdoing it a little, Mrs Toelz? At least, I am not eating meat,” he asked her pleadingly. She shook her head. “You need to be more mindful of consequences nowadays. If you want to stand strong against climate change, food and water scarcity and animal cruelty, you have to do better. You’re always half-hearted.”

“I do not think so,” he responded, eating his sushi without further hesitation. “You are right, but other people might have their points as well.” “No, they might not,” Tilda said heatedly. “We have to put an end to that if we want to leave this world a better place—no, even if we want to keep the worst for it at bay.”

For Gabriel, the conversation was over. After having eaten his fish, he went to the sofa and was soon fast asleep. Tilda watched him sternly. Disgusting Gabriel. She had never before heard such a lengthy excuse to eat meat. And she even had proof that he secretly ate meat while maintaining that he was a vegetarian. She had access to his personal Amazon account so that she could order the workshop supplies they needed for B1 projects for emergencies, where the usual procurement supply would not be quick enough. She knew that Gabriel used the name of one of his kids as a password. Such naiveté. When she was scanning his product list of favourites and former Amazon searches out of mere curiosity as she browsed through his account, she found a meat thermometer for cooking. He had not bought it yet, but he looked it up during a time when he claimed to be a vegetarian. That told her something about his credibility, didn’t it?

For Tilda, he was a typical example of the Baby Boomer generation. ‘Compromise’ and ‘harmony’ were their middle names. “For them, people like me are ‘ideologues’” she thought angrily. “And they have learnt to fight us with arguments. They are absolute masters at it. It is the basis for their success. Do not argue with Gabriel. He will apply his ‘ideology critique’ thing to me and do me in. He is toxic. His generation has trained itself by arguing with their Nazi parents to show them how guilty they were in their fascism and the sixty-eight revolutionaries, showing them how stupid they were in their extremism. I bet Gabriel silently envied the latter for their radical views about an alternative socialist society. However, Gabriel’s generation came across as sober moderators, balanced discussion chairs, moderate talk masters and sensible reasoners. Perfect democrats, of course. Champions of a liberal democracy, of electoral representation and political legitimacy. They became our politicians, teachers, lawyers, journalists and medical doctors. And our parents, by the way. You can convince them, and they even consider this as a strength and as superior to holding an irrevocable position. They think that it is a good thing that another person can turn you around and make you think differently. They endorse drifting and going with the flow. They let themselves be changed and even think they are my intellectual superiors.”

Then Tilda smiled bitterly but triumphantly. “Now they are at their wits’ end,” she thought, “because my so-called ideology is right. Only hard consequences and drastic changes in behaviour can save the world. Look at the ‘last generation’ people. Not Gabriel’s lukewarm ‘on the one hand, on the other’ position. People like Gabriel are the sources of the current crisis. The Gabriels of this world did not recognise crisis when it knocked at their door. This generation is a collective failure. And they are still in power and will be for the next at least ten years to come. That makes them and their monstrous ecological footprints dangerous. Dangerous for our planet. You can see where all this talk about participation, reconciliation and compromise ends: in missing climate goals. We no longer have time to listen to them.” Tilda yawned and fell asleep.

Angels’ Play

Location:

Heaven above Santa Monica. Shared-Office Cloud.

Time:

Real-time GMT, Saturday, 7 September 2019, 06:35

Players:

The two angels as before and Bede Griffiths.

Setting:

The cloud looks untidy.

TA is in the middle of a painting session, throwing gold, blue and green oil paints against a big canvas while dancing.

For this, it has covered its hair with a strange wig and its eyes with large glasses to look a bit like Andy Warhol.

GA is supportive in that it provides the dance music for TA , namely the Irish version of ‘Lord of the Dance,’ while directing an imaginary angel band.

Despite the noise and the turmoil, BG is completely absorbed in meditation, sitting cross-legged on the conference table.

GA

(secretly admiring TA’s picture):

You are dancing cool. By the way, you can stop now. Clean up your mess, and help me with the Script. We have work to do.

TA

(looking at its colleague arrogantly and sniffing):

This was work. It is necessary for tomorrow, like everything else we are doing. And it indeed is a masterpiece. I am a famous artist! I won’t clean up. That’s for the underlings. I am an artistic dancer. I am a sportive artist. You understand? A ‘sportist’.

GA

(drily pointing to the next few pages of the Script):

Excuse me, ‘sportist’; we have to peel three kilograms of green Brussels sprouts. Better we start now, before they begin to rot.

TA

(upset):

I am totally not cooking! I am not cooking! This is not in my job description. Where is the union angel when I need them? I am not a kitchen helper. I am a dancer. And with this, I am in perfect line with TRINI-T. You know the Holy One is dance itself.

GA

(cautioning its colleague to more silence):

Hush! Don’t you think you are a little heretic? Or at least flippant?

TA

(eagerly fetching a book from the floor):

Not at all. Listen. “Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between three—a circle dance of love. And God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself.” See?

GA

(not convinced):

Says who? Isn’t that just some new, trendy theology from the US?

TA

(pointing to the book cover):

This is said by Richard Rohr in The Divine Dance. And not just by him. Here it is in the words of Brother Elias Marechal, a monk at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. Just listen to this:

“The ancient Greek Fathers depict the Trinity as a Round Dance: an event that has continued for six thousand years, and six times six thousand, and beyond the time when humans first knew time. An infinite current of love streams without ceasing, to and fro, to and fro, to and fro: gliding from the Father to the Son, and back to the Father, in one timeless happening. This circular current of trinitarian love continues night and day. … The orderly and rhythmic process of subatomic particles spinning round and round at immense speed echoes its dynamism. Here it is: the “circle dance” of the Trinity is very traditional language. And yet if I showed the same courage to use such a risky theatrical word today, I would probably be called New Age, an esoteric—or a heretic. Yet God is the dance itself, they said!”

You see. TRINI-T is dance. This is why I dance. And you should too.

BG

(opening one eye from meditation):

Yes. And meditation. Do not forget meditation. You should always do both—if not together. As I am always saying, “In the doctrine of the Trinity, the ultimate Reality is seen as Being in relationship, or Being in love. The ultimate Reality is not a solitary person or an impersonal Absolute. It is a communion of persons in love. Every being seeks to express and communicate itself.

In the human being, the body is one means by which we express ourselves and communicate with others. But the highest expression of our being is the mind. It is to the experience of this eternal wisdom, communicated in the love of the Holy Spirit, that our meditation should lead us.” Dance and meditate! (closing his eye again, going back into deep trance)

GA

(winking conspiratorially at its colleague):

OK, that is indeed beautiful. But now back to work. What if I promise you one of the coolest office outfits during the next session if you help me out right now?

TA

(cautiously approaching):

What is it?

GA

(in its most promotional voice):

Venice Beach. Ultra-fashionable running outfits. Colours like a canary bird. Indestructible materials that cost a fortune. Beautiful bodies. Beautiful people.

TA

(looking aghast at its colleague, then seeing that this was meant to be funny):

Idiot. Do you know the old Venice Beach joke about the crown of evolution: What will archaeologists find when they dig up bodies of dead female joggers in later times except the usual bones?

GA:

Nope.

TA

(giggling):

Two silicone implants, a puddle of hyaluronan, a Volvic plastic bottle, and a multicolour Elastane pantsuit with a 1000-dollar price tag. The crown of evolution, hahaha.

GA:

Hilarious. Jokes by Michaelites might be put on the list of cannot-dos.

TA

(insulted):

Same applies to Gabrielite humour, actually. When may I wear my Venice Beach outfit?

GA:

After you have included a Green Flash in your picture, have organised two dolphins, have peeled your Brussels sprouts and have phoned St. Peter about the weather.

TA rummages in the animal gearbox for the dolphins and sends them on their way to Venice Beach.

TA:

Here you go. Finally some fish. Makes for a nice change from these endless bird requests of yours.

GA

(patiently):

Dolphins are not fish; they are mammals. Get your taxonomy right.

Both angels unhappily wobble over to the table to peel vegetables. They carefully avoid disturbing BG, who is still meditating.

GA starts to whistle ‘Lord of the Dance’ after a while.

For TA, the only consolation is that it can use a sharp triangular dagger from its weapon collection: It cuts the green sprouts with furious blows, trying to match the rhythm of ‘Lord of the Dance.’

The Green Flash

After work, Gabriel and Tilda took a walk along the beach. Gabriel kicked off his shoes and walked barefoot in the water even though the late afternoon was pretty cold. Tilda did not join him but instead walked further up the shore so as not to soil her trainers. Gabriel pointed to the misty sea. “No chance for the Green Flash at sunset today, Mrs Toelz.” “What is a Green Flash?” asked Tilda.

“It is also called the Green Ray. You can see it during sunset over the ocean when the sun sinks behind the sea. In very clear air and cloudless skies, you can see for a couple of seconds a distinct green spot above the upper rim of the sun’s disk, sometimes shooting up like a ray.” Tilda was impressed. “Cool, I want to see it! Why is it green?” “It is the earth’s atmosphere. It causes the light from the sun to separate into different colours, ending up in green as the last to be seen.”

“I have never heard of it,” Tilda said. “It is not very well known, is it, Mr David?” Gabriel shrugged his shoulders. “In fact, it is quite well known. We as Germans might not be very aware of it, because we do not have the landscapes for us to observe this phenomenon. However, I have admired it on the Atlantic Ocean, more precisely at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, close to Biarritz, in a film by Éric Rohmer from the ’80s called The Green Ray. Of course, I watched this film in the original French, where it is called Le rayon vert.” “Of course you watched it in French, Mr David,” Tilda said mockingly and kicked some sand in his direction. She sometimes really objects to his educated middle-class attitude, probably due to her working-class upbringing. “And then there is a novel of the same name by Jules Verne,” Gabriel unwaveringly added. “According to Verne, when you see the Green Flash at sunset together with another person, your own thoughts and those of the other will be revealed as if by magic.” Tilda laughed. Then it began to rain, and they felt very hungry. Back at the apartment, they started to prepare the Brussels sprouts.

While peeling, Tilda watched Gabriel. She was puzzled. When she was with him, she was totally with him. When she and Gabriel were on their travels, they were in their own world. He considered her as his equal and considered everything she had to say as meaningful and serious. It felt good. It was important. She fully realised this. Gabriel needed her. It was exciting.

However, this double life led to conflict. It was not only Gabriel’s attempting to totally coax her into his mode of being; it was also her trying to convince him to join the straight ways of her Ken-type lifestyle. The worst thing was that, very often, elements of both worlds proved to be mutually exclusive. Therefore, Gabriel and Tilda continually ended up in heated discussions. In them, it was hard to stay composed and hide as much as possible from Gabriel’s scrutiny. For example, he would not appreciate her political opinions or the stance on societal issues that she promoted from Ken’s world. They were in constant border negotiations. How much could she let him see of her in her other world? How much could she contribute to Gabriel’s world without totally losing her foothold in Ken’s? She could not say that she felt very happy with the overall situation. Sometimes she was even afraid to lose herself in all of this bipolarity. Gabriel seemed to think his life made her stronger, but that was not the case.

“These Brussels sprouts are surprisingly clean,” she said when she realised that he looked questioningly at her, probably wanting to know why she was so quiet. There was nothing much to peel, and although they had an enormous number of vegetables, they were ready to eat in no time. During their cosy and delicious candlelit dinner, Tilda looked at Gabriel strangely and asked, “Mr David, how do you find the right way when there are so many options?” First, he inwardly groaned, because he did not want to go back to breakfast philosophy but instead keep to emotions this time. But then he realised that she wanted to talk about emotions. Obviously, she was facing an inner dilemma of being torn between two or more worlds. “There is something like inner guidance,” said Gabriel softly. And he meant it because this was what he had often experienced himself. “Is it reliable? Can you trust this guidance?” Tilda asked, looking at him nearly anxiously. “The voice of inner guidance is perfectly reliable. Your trust is well placed, Mrs Toelz,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Is the trust mutual?” she asked. Gabriel looked at her, astonished. That was a question he had neither expected nor ever thought of himself. Does the trustworthy voice of inner guidance—that is, God—trust you in kind? Good question. He smiled before replying: “Yes, the trust is mutual: Loving, enthusiastic, resolute, total, eager and overwhelming trust.” Tilda watched him closely to see whether he was lying. Then she slowly said, “This sounds like the best kind of trust.” Though they ate much of the Brussels sprouts dish with walnuts, soya sauce and sweet potatoes, there was more than half of what was prepared left when they finished. “We can take the leftovers with us on our way north,” Gabriel suggested. Tilda looked at him doubtfully but did not say anything. “Tomorrow morning, we will go for a run at Venice Beach before breakfast, OK?” she asked instead. Now it was his turn to look doubtful. He had seen her limping again in the kitchen, probably from walking in the deep sands on the beach.

They decided to go to sleep early because tomorrow they would be back to travelling. When Gabriel opened the Richard Rohr book again on his tablet, he at first felt too tired to concentrate and was about to put it back on the bedside table. Then he read for about twenty-five pages, more and more fascinated by the minute. It was about a concept that he had never fully understood: Trinity, the Holy One contained in three personae. There was even a picture.

It featured an icon created by Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev in the fifteenth century; as the text indicated, the original was on display in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. “The Holy One in the form of Three—eating and drinking, in infinite hospitality and utter enjoyment between themselves. If we take the depiction of God in the Trinity seriously, we have to say, ‘In the beginning was the relationship,’” Gabriel read.

The text went on about the colours of the picture: gold as the colour of ‘the Father’—perfection, fullness, wholeness, the ultimate source; blue as the colour of Christ, taking on humanity as sky and sea mirror each other; and then there was… Gabriel read the next paragraph and went to wake Tilda. She was not amused. Sitting on the sofa of the sitting room with her legs up and tousled hair, she looked like a twelve-year-old. Gabriel put a bowl with the remaining walnuts in front of her on the couch table and read aloud to her:

“And then there’s green, easily representative of ‘the Spirit.’ Hildegard of Bingen, the German Benedictine abbess, musical composer, writer, philosopher, mystic, and overall visionary, living three centuries before Rublev, called the Spirit’s endless fertility and fecundity Viriditas—a quality of divine aliveness that makes everything blossom and bloom in endless shades of green. Hildegard was likely inspired by the lushness of her surroundings at her Rhineland monastery, which I was recently able to visit. Rublev, in similar reverence for the natural world, chose green to represent, as it were, the divine photosynthesis that grows everything from within by transforming light into itself—precisely the work of the Holy Spirit.”

“Is that good or what?” he asked. “No,” said Tilda. “See, I already slept. This is weird, Mr David.” Gabriel agreed, eating some walnuts. “Yes, a three-year-old nutter can put together the big picture within a painting session of his kindergarten.” Tilda bravely faced the obvious and spelt it out for him: “This is why we had to drink the Green Super Shot with all that chlorophyll! It is for divine photosynthesis. This is why Jakob Green advised us to go to Kreation. This is why we are supposed to see the Green Flash together. It is all about relationships, like in the concept of Trinity.” It was like putting one and one together.

After these revelations, they felt drained. It felt as if they had worked hard to reach this point. And both of them did not really seem to like the conclusions in front of them. They looked at each other with distrust, if not a little disgust. “And what now, Mr David?” Tilda asked with a toneless voice that was hoarse from eating too many walnuts. “At least we share from a common bowl like these Trinity guys in the icon,” Gabriel said, laughing—to try to lighten the mood. Tilda quickly withdrew her hand from the bowl. Gabriel continued: “And the hand of the Spirit points towards the open and fourth place at the table. It seems it is inviting, offering and clearing space. Maybe for you, Mrs Toelz?”

Tilda abruptly got up. “I am going back to bed,” she announced, “alone if you do not mind.” With that, she disappeared into her room with her head held high. Gabriel shook his own in puzzlement and went to bed as well. Both were asleep mere minutes after their heads touched their pillows.

Venice Beach

“We’ll go for a run,” Gabriel suggested in the early morning when he met Tilda in the kitchen fetching water. He definitely sounded more cheery than he felt when he continued: “We deserve some holidays and fun, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs Toelz? That revelation last night was a bit much!” They dressed up for their morning run. One did not always get the chance to join the glamorous crowd of Venice Beach. Tilda raised her eyebrows when looking at Gabriel as he joined her in the car park. He did not often choose his canary-type sportswear, because it was so unmanly. They went by car through the gloriously sunny morning. Everything still smelt fresh and dewy from the rain yesterday and looked brilliant. The sun was already high in the sky for early November by the time they reached the famous beach. They found a space for the car in one of the little streets nearby without any parking meters, which made them happy. At first, they took the Ocean Front Walk like everybody else, but it was already quite populated by early shopkeepers opening their stalls and leftover hippies from last night. This made them decide to go to the beach.

They walked along the sandy shore for about two kilometres before turning to walk back at a much slower pace, enjoying the sun and the blue sea. There were many kite and body surfers on the waves. It was such a golden and relaxed atmosphere that they felt all the hardships of the past weeks drop from their shoulders. “Look, a dolphin!” Tilda exclaimed, pointing out to the rippling sea. Gabriel could see it diving in the distance. Tilda was delighted. “It will soon be gone, to avoid the surfers,” Gabriel said, anticipating his disappointment. However, he was proved to be wrong. On the contrary, the dolphin came closer and closer until it looked really big diving up and down right in front of them, as if greeting them. They stood still for about ten minutes, but it did not move on. Finally, Gabriel touched Tilda’s arm as she stood mesmerised. They continued their walk, and the dolphin accompanied them, swimming in parallel with the coastline and adapting its speed to their progress. It did not avoid any kiters or surfers; it passed right between them, resolutely keeping on course. They watched it like a friend. “How sad that it is on its own, while the two of us are together,” Gabriel remarked. As soon as he said this, the dolphin was joined by a second one. The pair of them stayed with the pair on the beach—with them onshore, the dolphins offshore—until Gabriel and Tilda reached their starting point again, where the car waited higher up in the hinterland. It was hard to say goodbye to these two dolphins. Standing with Tilda on the golden sands of Venice Beach in bright sunshine surrounded by playing dolphins in blue waters and happy people on their surfboards, Gabriel felt like he was on vacation in the land of milk and honey. This was emphasised by their attire—Tilda with her hair in a ponytail poking out from the open back of a sun-shielded running cap, Gabriel with his canary-coloured tracksuit and orange sunglasses, which Tilda thought looked gay.

They used the bike trail, running in parallel with the boardwalk for the last metres back to their origin. When they passed Muscle Beach, Tilda said, “Wait a second, Mr David.” Dreamily, she stared at the sweating boys who were exercising. “This is one of the most famous weight-training spots in the world,” she said in admiration. Gabriel had to pull her away by force from these brainless muscle hulks. Unbelievable. They bought some pastries from a bakery on the promenade and went home for breakfast. The morning was already far along, and they had to leave the flat by 12 am. They had hardly enough time to shower and pack everything. When they emptied the fridge, Tilda shook the big bowl with the Brussels sprouts dish. “And now?” she asked. “What to do with them? They will be spoiled in no time in the warm car. No way to keep them edible until San Francisco.” “Oh yes, there is, Mrs Toelz,” Gabriel said. He fetched a big plastic bag from their shopping spree and filled it with ice cubes from the fridge. Then he used another, smaller bag to empty the food into it. The smaller bag was then embedded within the ice bag until it was completely surrounded by ice. The whole package was then enwrapped in a big towel. “Our car fridge,” he proclaimed, proudly presenting the bag. “It will melt in no time and make a mess with the water,” objected Tilda. “No, it won’t,” he said confidently. Obviously, Tilda had never done such a thing before and had no experience with how long such an arrangement could stay cold.

“Wait, there is one thing left to do here in Santa Monica,” Tilda said suddenly. “We need to go to Café Gratitude, as recommended by Jakob Green. Maybe we can have lunch there. And they will have wi-fi for us to check our navigation to San Francisco.” Gabriel agreed. When they left the garage and opened the car windows for fresh air, the heat outside shocked them. What had happened over the few hours that they had spent packing? It was as if the whole city had turned into a fiery oven. The sun that had been so nice to them earlier now burned mercilessly. It was baking hot. Tilda closed the windows and turned on the car’s air conditioning full blast. “Your makeshift fridge will be melted in no time, Mr David,” she said, laughing. Gabriel shook his head but looked a little doubtful too.

The Third Google Maps Miracle

When they finally sat in Café Gratitude and used the Internet to plan their route, they were met with disappointment. “San Francisco is too far to go to get there by the end of the day,” Tilda said, studying the map. “It is already three o’clock. We will not even manage to get halfway before dark.” Gabriel agreed. “Let’s see what is there on our way up,” he said, bending over his mobile and following the coastline of Big Sur with his finger and then zooming in where he thought would be right. “Lucia,” he read out and zoomed in even more. Then his eyes widened. “What is it?” Tilda asked, alarmed. “New Camaldoli Hermitage,” he read out to her, pointing at a place close to the village called Lucia. “Do you know what this is?” he asked. Tilda shook her head. “It is the US branch of the order that Bede Griffiths belonged to. I bet they have a guest house.” Tilda groaned.

“It is again halfway between our two partners—this time, between LA and San Francisco. Exactly as it turned out for India. Isn’t this amazing?” Tilda was not amused. Another of these weird coincidences around this Bede Griffiths guy.

“It is not halfway,” she answered grumpily. “It is much closer to San Francisco.” “Halfway enough for me,” Gabriel said decidedly. “This wants to tell us something. We’ll go there and have a look.” Tilda groaned again. “Can we not go somewhere nice, Mr David?” she asked. But Gabriel was already on the online booking site of New Camaldoli Hermitage, which indeed had guest facilities. However, there would not be room for them until tomorrow, not tonight. Nevertheless, out of mere curiosity, he booked the last two accommodations that were free for tomorrow and the following night. He had to provide their names for each room before getting to see the room’s details. Because of this, Tilda’s room turned out to be twice the size of his. Hers seemed to be a whole apartment.

“And where are we staying tonight?” Tilda asked petulantly. “You choose, Mrs Toelz.” Gabriel could not care less. He continued: “Just stay on the road to New Camaldoli.” For him, the day had already provided enough highlights. He looked pensively at the big outside sign of Café Gratitude, saying, “What are you grateful for?” Tilda shook her head, sighed and bent over the GPS again. Then she found something to her liking. “We’ll go to King City,” she told Gabriel. “There is a nice song about King City. I always wanted to go there when I heard it. It seems to be just the right distance away for us to reach it before nightfall.” Thus, they were relieved to depart while feeling the air conditioning in the car doing its job. They were grateful for Jakob Green and his Café Gratitude.

Tilda was very quiet in the car. This had indeed been a remarkable day. The Green Motif had been very strong. As Gabriel had put it, a three-year-old toddler would have been able to figure out how all of this came together. It made such perfect sense and aligned so nicely that Tilda got suspicious. The thing with the chlorophyll and the Richard Rohr book. Could Gabriel have made that up? Was everything just a trick to win her over? But no, she had been present the whole time and had taken an active part in all their decision-making. There had been no preparation and no premeditation. The only thing left along those lines would have been a kind of heavenly conspiracy—some cosmic powers cooperating to make everything work for Gabriel. Ha! If they did it, they did it without her consent.

She decided then and there to stop this nonsense. She might not be able to prevent herself from putting one and one together, but of course, she could avoid following the calculations. Green as the source of life was acceptable, but the rest of the Trinity and dance stuff would not fly with her. It was pretty clear that Gabriel wanted to do this relationship thing and see the Green Flash together. And then her own thoughts and those of Gabriel would be revealed as if by magic, or that was what Jules Verne had said. Upon her life, no! She decided not to let that happen. Gabriel should never know what she really thought—about him, about politics, about religion, about the world. For her, it was dangerous enough that Ken knew about these things. The whole story tore her apart. This was definitely not her creation. She was only allowed to help with already-clear interpretations, to nod along to certainties, to comply with the obvious, to agree to decisions without any real alternative and to follow Gabriel. She felt like a bloody appendix. She felt rejected as initiator and agenda setter. She was a born creator! What would Ken have said seeing her unusually passive like this? He would not have appreciated her being a puppet on Gabriel’s strings. He would have wanted to see her doing and initiating as usual.

Therefore, her first action on their way to King City was to take back a bit of control. “I want to see Hollywood and Beverley Hills before leaving the LA area, Mr David,” she told Gabriel. He groaned and looked at her in disbelief. “This will delay us considerably.” But she insisted: “You will come back more often than me, and you have probably been there many times before.” Tilda wanted to make the most of her US visit. Of course, they encountered a traffic jam when trying to take the detour via Hollywood. Gabriel was all accusations, but Tilda did not care. “Here comes Santa Monica Boulevard, and what the heck…” The first thing they saw was… Kreation! To their right was another restaurant of that chain, this time an enormous juice bar. Gabriel and Tilda discovered it at the same time with its huge sign outside that read “Kreation—Coming Together!” Ridiculous. But they did not go inside this time.

Then they went to King City. On their way, they passed many oilfields with winches, head towers and wells. The fields looked deserted and ugly, disfiguring the countryside.

To Tilda’s surprise, Gabriel managed to find the King City song on the Internet and played it when they approached their destination close to sunset. “Dressed up, red Corvette,” Gabriel sang, “in the middle of the night, word is out, lay low. It’s just a matter of time, more room for the woman. Gotta hold on tight. Bright lights, King City.” Tilda shuddered. “Don’t you see, Mrs Toelz? Red Corvette! It is the same car we had during the sunset in Sussex.” Tilda shuddered again. The outside temperature had dropped by an incredible twenty degrees Celsius.

Angels’ Play

Location:

Heaven above King City. Shared-Office Cloud.

Time:

Real-time GMT, Saturday, 7 September 2019, 22:55

Players:

The two angels as before.

Setting:

Loud pop music plays. GA is in its best DJ mood, slamming one song after another on its mixing console, wildly dancing with its arms in the air and shaking its head, which had ash-blond curls.

TA watches GA in amazement and a little resentment while also observing Tilda and Gabriel below driving in the last arrays of the red-golden sunset towards King City, listening to their music in the car.

TA

(sternly):

Hello! You were only supposed to hang on to the “King City” song. Tilda could not recall the exact colour of the Corvette. That was all. You can stop now.

GA

(enthusiastically singing):

Dressed up, red Corvette… More room for the woman… You’re driving me wild, King City!

TA

(embarrassed):

Stop it. We have work to do. They want to eat the food they brought from LA in the doggy bag. Where is a barbecue grill to heat it up?

GA

(smugly):

I have prepared a little surprise. Father Bede himself helped out with gear from the Saints Section.

Both angels watch Gabriel inspect the ring-fenced swimming pool area of the little motel they just reached. He discovers in the dark an ancient iron barbecue of respectable size standing hidden on the side of it.

TA

(irritated):

You must be joking! A self-serve barbecue grill in the tiny swimming pool area of a Quality Inn Hotel. Who would believe that? Objective One, my dear, Objective One.

Gabriel tears apart the shopping bag from the makeshift fridge and with some torn branches of surrounding bushes builds a fireplace in the grill. He asks Tilda to light it with his lighter and to maintain it with the rest of his materials. Then he builds a frying pan out of the aluminium wrapper that contained the Brussels sprouts and fetches some paper plates and plastic spoons from the self-serve breakfast area in the hotel lobby.

He expertly cuts the sprouts with his Swiss pocketknife and starts to fry them on the barbecue while setting the table in the swimming pool area with the cutlery. In no time, he sits with his paper cup of white wine while attending to the barbecue, contently watching the simmering food, which quickly starts to smell delicious. He even clinks the ice cubes in his wine as usual because there are still some left from the makeshift fridge that he built in LA.

Soon, both are eating, and even Tilda has a glass—or, better, a paper cup—of white wine with her meal. Gabriel looks into the starlit night sky and prays aloud: “Hello, angels! Many thanks for providing the barbecue. This cannot have been easy. We are not taking it for granted. We highly appreciate your consideration.” Tilda makes little sounds of agreement.

Both angels immediately get up from their seats, elegantly bowing to them below and applauding back politely.

Safe Spaces

Finally arriving at the sunny coast with the many tourists of a Californian Sunday morning, Gabriel and Tilda nearly ran out of petrol but could refill shortly before arriving at the little village named Lucia, which was close to their destination. There, they decided to have another outdoor picnic because it was a little early for them to turn up at the monastery of New Camaldoli Hermitage.

However, it seemed to be impossible to go down to the beach, though they tried at various spots. Thus, they sat down with Gabriel’s sleeping bag on some wild grassland close to the tourist facility, called Lucia Lodge, which overlooked the wide blue ocean—it was already quite hot in the midday sun. While drinking water with juice and eating fruit, vegetables and bread, they felt very relaxed. Gabriel searched the Internet for some entries about what the monks at New Camaldoli were doing. This took some effort because he was heavily blinking against the brightness of the sun on his screen despite his wearing dark sunglasses. “Mrs Toelz, look here,” he said, delighted. “They organise regular interreligious gatherings of all religious and spiritual groups around them to discuss what’s important for the region. Recent topics were climate change, new roads, tourism, poverty and so on. Everybody participates. There are Zen Buddhists, native communities, new age people, atheists and your usual crowd of Protestants and Catholics. They discuss values to see whether they can come up with solutions to concrete issues of concern. It seems to be a good place for everybody to speak up because all these groups have very different ideas about ‘Weltanschauung.’”

“In our new project, people in need who speak their minds also have different ideas on ‘Weltanschauung,’” Tilda remarked, lazily gazing at the blue horizon. “They will have really conflict-informed ideas on values about who deserves what from the state because of how people look at those at the edge of society. But they are the people who need support and shelter most. For them, ethical and moral issues in current distribution practices are the most pressing. They probably face tall barriers against speaking their minds: low education level, low financial resources, low discourse experience, low trust in institutions, low self-confidence, low motivation. Speaking up is a hard thing to do. Sometimes it might even be dangerous, making thing worse than they are.” She looked expectantly at Gabriel.

“Yes, think about your field work in China, Mrs Toelz,” Gabriel responded. “For people such as Jin Xiaowei, it will be very difficult to speak their minds. They will be threatened with imprisonment when trying to do so.” “They need safe spaces,” Tilda agreed, “not every country suppresses critics of the system like China does, but speaking up is difficult everywhere, even in Germany.”

“Germany?” Gabriel laughed. “Germany is not China. It is a democratic country. It is full of human rights, of constitution, of rights for minorities, etc., etc. It has representation for minorities everywhere. What are you talking about, Mrs Toelz?” Tilda looked at him in disbelief. “How stupid could he get?” she asked herself in thought. It was strange to talk about their home country while looking at the bright Pacific Ocean of Lucia Lodge.

The German Case

“Do you really believe that a democratic society has no problems with minority groups’ speaking up, Mr David? What about, for example, refugees from Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq in our country? They cannot vote in Germany, right? Their voice is not represented in the democratic system. However, they live in Germany sometimes for a long time, and from a participatory point of view, it would be important to listen to their perceptions of and experiences with our system for us to work on its flaws, discrimination and bias. For example, the processes around getting asylum. It is the first social service that Germany as a country can provide to refugees, right? And then everything after this: finding work, finding housing, finding childcare. Do you really think these processes are always fair?”

Gabriel looked doubtful. “It is in the law,” he answered lamely. “The law decides who gets asylum and who does not.” “Don’t make me laugh, Mr David,” Tilda said hotly. “I will tell you the story of my friend Amir, who is a little younger than me, has studied engineering, and exercises with me in my kickboxing club in Berlin.” “Your kickboxing club?” Gabriel got interested. “Amir!” Tilda said sternly. “OK, what about Amir?” Gabriel asked, taking another tomato from the picnic bag. “He fled from Afghanistan,” Tilda related, “or, better, from the increasing power of the Taliban. And from his family.” “Why also from his family?” Gabriel asked curiously. “They live according to very strict conventions and are religiously even friendly with the Taliban,” Tilda said. “They have financially supported his studies and are now expecting gratitude. And compliance.” “Is he gay?” Gabriel asked. “No idea!” Tilda replied sharply. “Anyway, without much money, he fled for several months, crossing the Mediterranean Sea towards Germany. He hoped to be able to lead a better life. His goal was to get asylum and find a job as a mechanical engineer as soon as possible.” “Oh, a highly skilled professional, then. Not such a problem to get accepted in Germany,” Gabriel observed. “The exact details and degree of his education were difficult to verify because he lost all his documents during his flight,” Tilda said, “but that was only a small part of his problems.”

“What about asylum for Afghans in Germany, anyway?” Gabriel asked. “Isn’t there this agreement between governments in place that allows deportation because Afghanistan is considered ‘safe’?” “It has been suspended since 2021, since the Taliban got into power again. But that does not mean that Amir automatically got asylum,” Tilda answered. “The first thing he experienced was that the public servants of the BAMF, the German Ministry for Migration, who did not trust his origins, because of the missing documents, and used an AI natural language–processing system to identify his dialect.”

“They use AI for that, Mrs Toelz?” Gabriel asked incredulously. “AI for social assessment. Again,” Tilda nodded. “I really wonder what other kinds of machines are in the background assessing refugees on whether to grant them asylum.” “Do you think so?” Gabriel was doubtful. “Definitely!” Tilda exclaimed. “Amir went through an odyssey of bureaucratic stations and steps, which took a long time and which was so complex that he could not explain it to me. During that, he felt a lot of mistrust from being assessed according to many of the criteria. In my mind, I can see a scoring algorithm running through them!” “Such as?” Gabriel asked. “Such as being a single young man, Mr David. That definitely spoke against him. Decision makers think that this is the group with the highest aggression, if not criminal potential. And when Amir explained his reason for fleeing Afghanistan and tried to explain the religious background of his own family, he felt that he had just ticked the box labelled ‘this applicant is from a religious background close to terrorism.’ Great!”

Gabriel nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, there is a high margin of discretion in the process. The opinion, experience and attitude of the specific public servant you encounter really matters.” Tilda agreed. “Mentioning his family to the servant he had his appointment with was not a good idea at all. When Amir described how large his family actually was, with many siblings, cousins and nephews, he immediately felt that the agent did not like this information.” “Understandable, Mrs Toelz,” Gabriel laughed. “Imagine how many Afghan relatives this agent saw in his mind coming to Germany for family reunions if he gave asylum to Amir!” “You should not laugh about this, Mr David,” Tilda scolded him. “Family reunion is a human right, and not subject to the arbitrariness of people liking or disliking it.”

“Was there nobody helping Amir?” Gabriel asked. “Usually, there is a ‘Gudrun,’ a compassionate elderly lady with a helper syndrome who gets things done for refugees.” Tilda shook her head, disgusted. “Stop being so mean to people helping others. You have a helper syndrome yourself, Baby Boomer that you are!” Gabriel laughed. Tilda continued her story. “Amir has some relatives who live in Germany, but not close to Berlin. Arriving in Germany, he had been able to make some good contacts. However, he had no ‘Gudrun,’ what you call a nice person, and he had a hard time adjusting to the new structures and culture. He had seen a lot of violence in his home country and struggled with panic attacks. He had a very hard first time in Germany because finding trauma therapy proved to be very complicated, and as a refugee, he did not know how to follow the path to get it.”

“Too bad,” Gabriel said. “What happened then?” “He came to my kickboxing club as part of his self-therapy,” Tilda said, “and met another Afghan refugee who had already successfully received asylum. This guy helped him. He already spoke perfect German.” “A Gudrun!” Gabriel said highly satisfied, successfully evading Tilda’s little fist. “Amir’s mental condition proved to be beneficial in supporting his asylum procedure,” Tilda said. “He was moved forward on the emergency list somehow.”

“And you really think AI could be used in such a multifaceted, complicated process?” Gabriel asked. “Especially in such a multifaceted process!” Tilda said. “It might make the various assessments more objective, rational and effective.” Gabriel looked sceptical. “Go and ask Amir what he would have preferred, man or machine,” Tilda challenged him, “if he would talk to you.” “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t he talk to me?” “He is afraid of officials,” Tilda said simply. “He is afraid of nearly everybody these days. Bad experiences. The process taught him to keep his mouth shut. Whenever he said something, it somehow counted against him. Best to be quiet and not stand out. There is no safe space where he can openly speak up. At least, this is how he feels. If there were one, I am sure he could give a great account of where the flaws are in social assessments for granting asylum in Germany.”

The Birth of a Concept

“What do you mean by a ‘safe space,’ Mrs Toelz?” Gabriel asked, interested. Tilda fetched her mobile and searched the Internet. “Look, this is how the Oxford Dictionary defines safe spaces: ‘A safe space is a place or environment in which a person or category of people can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm.’”

Gabriel shook his head. “A safe space would need to be much more than just a location,” he said. “Let us discuss basic characteristics and requirements. I will take notes.” He started to write on his laptop, shading the screen from the sun with his body while they continued their conversation. After a while, they reviewed their work. “That is an impressively long list to answer the question what a safe space is.” Tilda read out the summary: “It is a place

• where people can freely contemplate and critically think about ethical questions such as social justice issues in welfare systems

• that is taken somehow “out of the world,” a remote place without noise or distraction

• that is not a university where people think they need to be clever or academic

• that does not belong to industry where people think they need to be rich to be taken serious

• that is not a public agency or NGO where people might not have receive the support they are now seeking

• that is dedicated to reconciliation, supporting cooperation and solutions

• that simultaneously supports individuality and community

• that maybe even has experience as the “backup” system where the state fails in providing social services to the needy who fall through the public social nets

• that welcomes everybody regardless of who people are or where they come from

• that speaks to people on different levels (intellectual, emotional, spiritual)

• that prioritises nonviolent communication

• that puts theory into practice.”

“A monastery such as New Camaldoli Hermitage would be the perfect fit for that list,” Gabriel remarked. Tilda scowled. “A monastery! You must be joking, Mr David. They are much too religious. Monks in black gowns. People like me who hate the church would not feel welcome.” “Remember their interreligious gatherings,” Gabriel said, “which seem to work for everybody over here.” “I doubt it,” Tilda murmured. There, at Lucia Lodge, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, they developed the foundations of the safe-space concept for their upcoming new project. Gabriel found it was great preparation for talking to the monks at New Camaldoli Hermitage. He was deeply curious about seeing the Camaldolense monastery even though he was, of course, well aware that Pater Bede had never been here. The monastery was almost directly uphill from Lucia.

From the winding coastal road with its rocky cliffs on the seaside and its roaming green hills with white ferns on the other side, the start was on a tiny byroad uphill, guided by a sign pointing to the bookshop of the monastery where people could buy all sorts of goods and souvenirs. “Monkly merchandise,” Tilda mocked, “obviously to provide some additional income to probably slow business.”

They hiked about five kilometres before they could see the huts of the hermitage spread out at the top of the hill overlooking the ocean below. A wooden welcome sign directed them to the bookshop, which served as the reception and communication centre of the place. They were warmly received by Danny, a young, slim, soft-spoken man with dark hair and a friendly face. “Please respect that we want to keep general silence throughout this place at all times. You will notice how soothing this is and how it helps you to calm down. Please relax and enjoy your stay. We have such a brilliant landscape around for running and hiking,” he said, praising his place of work.

Sophia and San Albertino

“When we arrived, we wanted to go down to the beach at Lucia Lodge,” Gabriel told him, “but we could not find a way from the road. Can you recommend a place where we can reach the ocean waters?” “There is a place called Sand Dollar Beach farther down the coastal road. It is perfect for a swim in the early morning,” Danny said, smiling. Tilda nodded at Gabriel. “Tomorrow,” she mouthed.

Then Danny showed them the accommodation facilities on a property map. “This is where Tilda is staying, and this place is for you, Dr David.” Gabriel had to discover that he had booked a whole detached hut called Sophia for Tilda and a tiny room in the general guest retreat area for himself. This had been nothing but an accidental slip in booking: These two facilities had been the only ones left at the time of booking, and they had not shown what types they were; Gabriel had simply entered Tilda’s name first despite not knowing the type of accommodation.

And now Danny had set it in stone at his reception desk, with Tilda’s accommodation exactly twice as expensive per night as Gabriel’s. Sophia had its own big terrace overlooking the rest of the hermitage and the ocean in the distance, a kitchen with numerous cooking facilities, a fully equipped bathroom and a bedroom separate from the general sitting room area containing a sofa bed. It even featured its own parking space for the car and was, in fact, a hut for two people rather than lodging for a single person.

“Harrumph,” Gabriel politely cleared his throat. “Actually, that was just a slip while booking accommodation for my team member and me. Maybe Tilda wants to swap rooms with me.” Tilda grinned mischievously before replying: “No, I don’t. I’m happy where I am.” Gabriel glared at her, but she just stared back brazenly. Danny started to appear a little unhappy as he looked from one to the other, obviously expecting them to quarrel about rooms any minute. “It’s fine. No bother,” Gabriel hastily agreed to this fait accompli. Danny was greatly relieved and handed over the keys to their rooms.

Tilda moved into the luxurious Sophia (luxurious for a hermitage, of course). Gabriel was too coy to intervene in earnest, even when they were alone in the car again driving down to Sophia from the bookshop. However, he could not fight back voicing a few sarcastic remarks: “Obviously, Sophia is their preferred accommodation for would-be hermits that need a bit of luxury for survival,” he grumbled, looking at the gracious furniture of Sophia while helping Tilda with her luggage. “Real and experienced hermits live in modesty and simplicity.”

But Tilda only laughed and looked around, satisfied: “Yes, I am just a beginner hermit, you’re right, Mr David. Sophia will make my start much easier.” Gabriel had no other option left than to graciously retire on foot, dragging his suitcase behind him towards Room 3 of the general retreat house further down the hilly road. What a shame. He felt Tilda’s mocking eyes on his back as he walked away. Hopefully, she admired his personal modesty and humility!

However, there was no reason to complain—much less to envy Tilda when he saw Room 3, which was called St. Albertino, who, in the 13th century, was the prior of Fonte Avellana, another Camaldolense monastery in Central Italy. According to his biography, he was “a man of peace who served with wisdom and holiness.” The view through the terrace window overlooking the ocean was gorgeous. The little room was stunning in its wooden simplicity, atmospheric, inviting, cosy and bright. A large window with a terrace door led to a small private garden with exotic trees and bushes in the middle of nature.

Sitting quietly on the single deckchair of his personal garden terrace, Gabriel could see all kinds of half-tame animals coming close—among them, many colourful hummingbirds and tiny rabbits. The Pacific Ocean view was much clearer here than that at Sophia because the guesthouse rooms were directly on top of the rocky hillslope.

The retreat house featured eight such private rooms like St. Albertino side by side, each with a half bath and secluded personal garden overlooking the ocean. In the middle of the retreat area was a room with two private showers and a common kitchen where meals could be picked up. There was a large fridge, which was replenished at various times per day and which contained breakfast, lunch and dinner for all the guests staying at the silent retreat.

Later on, Gabriel went to Sunday Vespers in the church in the middle of the grounds, close to the huts of the monks. The monks wore white habits, Gabriel discovered, and he smiled as he remembered Tilda’s prejudiced outburst at Lucia Lodge about ‘monks in black gowns.’ Of course, Tilda was not at Vespers herself, probably enjoying Sophia’s terrace. He had not expected anything else.

Then he had a solitary dinner from the common fridge while sitting in his garden chair listening to the hummingbirds and looking at a brilliant sunset over the ocean. The sinking sun looked like a burning car that was glowing orange and getting flatter and flatter in a scrap baling press. Although he watched closely, there was no Green Ray when it finally disappeared below the horizon beyond the ocean.

He heard a knock at the door. It was Tilda, who came to check on him. “Please come in, Mrs Toelz,” he said as he invited her in. “You can sit with me in the garden if you take the deskchair from my room. But conversation is out of question due to the commandment of silence in the retreat house.” Thus, they sat silently in the dark until it got really cold—to be honest, they did not manage complete silence, giggling every now and again about a funny thought they shared via telepathy.

On the Beach and in the Library

The next morning, they met to go to Sand Dollar Beach for a swim. The sun was not yet up above the mountains, and the fresh air was still quite brisk. They drove down the coastal road and turned left, following Danny’s directions. The place was part of another national park and easy to find with a big yet empty car park, empty because of the early hour. From there, it was a ten-minute climb down to the shadowy beach where they found wild nature with golden sands and huge Pacific waves. Only a few people were down there. A blond surfer tried his luck with the gusty waves, and a young couple with a little boy was freezing in the chilly morning wind. The boy was about eight years old and charmed by the sea; he was far more courageous than his parents, in that he got undressed and approached the water. This was what Gabriel did as well. The Pacific was ice-cold. However, after a while, he adapted and could go deeper into the blue waters to reach the area where the sun was already blinking over the coastal hills. Here, the blue waves featured golden rims on the white foams of the breaking waves.

Tilda watched Gabriel bathing in the ocean and felt awkward. She had a secret to hide: She could not swim. Instead, she sat down and used some flotsam to carve a heart with ‘Tilda + Ken’ into the sands. In a way, it was a kind of duty to bathe in the ocean. You’re not that close to the Pacific Ocean every day, after all. So, carefully watching Gabriel, who, however, was far away and totally absorbed in his world, she slowly undressed. Not even once did he look into her direction. Then she tried to join him in the water, but she had not anticipated how cold it would be. She didn’t want the icy water on her stomach. The waves were high, and she could not reach the sunny spots where Gabriel stood. He laughed when the icy waves mercilessly hit her stomach and threw her back against the shore. She stomped out of the water and had tears in her eyes. “Let Gabriel celebrate his unity with nature,” she thought. She didn’t care. When he finally ended his swim, he glowed from the icy waters and sang a loud song about life on the beach.

Angels’ Play

Location:

Heaven above New Camaldoli Hermitage, Big Sur. Shared-Office Cloud.

Time:

Real-time GMT, Monday, 9 September 2019, 09:40

Players:

The two angels as before and Bede Griffiths.

Setting:

GA and BG are sitting completely relaxed in the conference area, talking about the new book of the prior of New Camaldoli Hermitage that was lying in front of them as a manuscript.

In the cockpit area, TA tries to navigate a complex combination of blinking buttons on the communication console by using just its right hand. The angel sweats heavily.

With its left hand, it tries to mix green oil paint and varnish. The angel has already smeared its robe in various places—but it is green anyway.

TA

(totally stressed out and trying to get the attention of the other two):

Could you please come over and help with everything for tomorrow? I only have two hands and two wings.

BG and GA guiltily look up, check the Script and start to get engaged with the many tasks outlined there.

Down at the hermitage, the prior, who has begun his usual guest tour with Tilda and Gabriel by showing them around, arrives at the monk cell of Bruno Barnhart, which has served as a library since the demise of this famous monk. He opens the door.

BG

(proudly noticing Gabriel’s awe and admiration):

Yes, my good boy! This is a perfect little library, if not a museum. But museum makes me feel old. Let’s stick to library. Full of bookshelves containing numerous copies of each of my publications in every edition that has ever been published. Original texts and my personal notes. My handwritten manuscripts. Secondary literature of people writing about me. Objects that have belonged to me. Materials illustrating my life. And also documents by and about my pupils and followers. This is awesome!

On the walls between the books are many pictures and photographs of Bede Griffiths, which show him with other famous people such as the Dalai Lama or just display an ordinary scene from his daily life. The whole setup is a carefully composed and well-maintained collection. The heavenly group watches Gabriel admire the picture with the Dalai Lama before the little group on earth comfortably sits down around the huge library table to talk over a cup of tea. Gabriel presents the safe-space concept that he and Tilda developed the day before.

TA

(takings its eyes away from the scene below and addressing BG):

Yes, the Dalai Lama is certainly cool. But how good is this safe-space stuff they are constantly talking about? Participation of the many? Bringing everybody, including vulnerable groups, to one table to discuss how things should proceed? Can’t knowledgeable people such as you or the Dalai Lama simply tell people how the world works and what everybody is supposed to do? You are know-it-alls (realising that this does not sound particularly positive, it hastily adds); I mean, you have universal insight.

BG

(shaking his head and searching the shelves for a book to lecture at TA):

Haven’t you read what I wrote on universality and particularity? (seeing TA’s anxious face that he will find the book and start an endless monologue) Or, if not, Bruno Barnhart’s The Future of Wisdom, about participatory conscience? No?

Or Raimon Pannikar? That guy rightly says, “We ‘touch’ the infinite at a single point, a tangent, where we participate in the infinite” (BG contently watches the prior of New Camaldoli Hermitage, who is writing down this sentence at the same time on a little piece of paper, which he passes over to Gabriel). Everybody looks at unity from their specific viewpoint, contributing to the whole. Everybody is necessary.

Only together—in unity realised by participation—can we approximate the unity in the infinite. Nobody sees the whole.

TA

(impishly):

Oh, come on, Father! Certainly, you can see the story from beginning to end. You’re a genius.

BG

(not tempted into being flattered):

Nope! The whole cannot be overseen. There is no beginning, and there is no end. The whole is in permanent creation. Creation is not a single event; creation is constantly happening. And the way it is doing that is changing. It is not only an evolution of species, ending with a species that has consciousness. It is an enterprise of Western mindsets joining up with Eastern approaches, especially from India. A marriage of East and West. The process is evolving towards New Creation. Consciousness itself is evolving.

TA

(scared):

Not mine. My consciousness is good as it is without any interference from India. I am a Western angel with a start-to-finish consciousness.

GA

(for the first time joining the conversation):

Going from here to the door. Mini-path consciousness. One-way cul-de-sac. Typical for a Michaelite.

TA

(aggressively):

Do you want to get a bloody nose, you posh Madonna lily hippie?

BG

(soothingly):

Tut tut, my dears. You are recommended to go meditate. By that, you can reduce your aggression level and maybe reach unity—that is, a higher consciousness. (seeing that now both angels look at him aggressively in perfect unison, he hastily adds) Let’s follow up on the Green Motif. Two actions on that are next in the Script. Green as green can.

TA

(obediently wobbles over to take up its green paintbrush again to give it to GA as the acting artist. Then, suddenly, the alarm button on its psychometer for Tilda starts blinking red): Wait a second. Tilda is denying the Green Ray experience.

GA

(still annoyed, with a dribbling green brush, now turning its anger towards Tilda):

Why is that? Defiant, vicious girl. It would do her a world of good. And I have organised everything for the Green Ray tonight. We had only this one left in the gearbox for the whole week to come. They leave tomorrow, you know.

BG

(flexibly and politely):

We do the Green Ray tonight and the Green Focus on the Trini-T icon tomorrow morning, according to the plan. If Tilda is still unwell, we will just work with Gabriel. My Script is not exactly clear about whether they need to be together for this.

At 6:40 pm, the three of them see the sun quickly sinking to the ocean horizon. They watch Gabriel running to the hillslope in front of his garden to sit down in the grass for the sunset. He is peeping over at Sophia, but no Tilda is in sight.

TA

(closely watching the sun, measuring light with its spectrometer):

Attention! On three: One, two, hush!

GA artistically whooshes the paintbrush through the evening air, gracing the sun with a phosphor-green flash, which glows in amazing brightness for a long while.

TA

(appreciatively nodding to its colleague):

Nice one!

The Green Ray

For Tilda, the most interesting part of the conversation in the library had been the one about consciousness. Such interesting ideas! Consciousness not evolving gradually, but in leaps. And saying that the engine of the evolution of consciousness and social progress was spirituality. OK, then a machine could not be the next step in evolution. Unless it got spiritual. Tilda giggled, remembering Gabriel’s icy remarks about posthumanism. It was due to his remarks that she decided to later try out these prayers that they did in the church’s rotunda. She wanted to give spirituality a chance, to evolve her consciousness. The service itself was rather a shock and disappointment to her. So Catholic! She felt fury rising in herself for Gabriel, for making her come.

Gabriel, for his part, was overjoyed at seeing Tilda attend mass. Maybe, he was not in such a goose chase as he had sometimes resignedly assumed over the past few months. Afterwards, he stopped her on their way out. “Tonight, there will be perfect weather conditions to see the Green Ray, Mrs Toelz,” he informed her, pointing to the clear blue sky and the late-afternoon sun. She looked at him strangely but nodded. “We can watch it best from behind my garden sitting at the rim of the hillslope,” suggested Gabriel eagerly. “If you come by 6:40 pm, you will arrive right on time.” She nodded again then turned her back and began walking down towards Sophia. For Gabriel, she looked a little forlorn and misplaced, but maybe she was just tired.

Gabriel had some tea and spent the time until sunset in his garden. Life was perfect. Then he realised that the sun was sinking quickly—much more quickly than he had expected. It was weird: He had looked up the precise hour of sunset on the weak Internet at the hermitage. And now the sun hurried down as if somebody were after it. Fetching his white wine in a paper cup and his sleeping bag to sit on, he walked to the hillside rim to sit down opposite the sinking sun. At first, he felt fine, cheering on the brilliant sunset that had started. However, from minute to minute, his anxiousness increased. He had expected Tilda to join him shortly, and he looked over his shoulder more and more nervously, worried that she would miss the moment. The sun again looked like a burning car that was glowing orange and getting flatter and flatter in a scrap baling press.

Gabriel ran to the courtyard of the retreat house where he could look down at Sophia, and he saw its empty terrace and closed curtains behind the windows. No Tilda to be seen, or anybody else. He tried to phone her on her mobile, but she didn’t respond. It was pure stress. At his back, the sun was quickly sinking. In front of him, Sophia showed no signs of life.

He started to run down the path to fetch Tilda but decided after a few steps that it was too late. The decision was between fetching Tilda and seeing the sunset on his own. He decided to do the latter. It was her fault for falling asleep at such an important moment. After shooting a last farewell glance at Sophia, he returned to his solitary but glorious perch.

It was again this orchestral setting as in the sunset of Sussex. Nature was quietly expecting. Only the birds were singing high up in the air in a symphony. Then there was a hush everywhere, for concentration and attention. Everything had meaning. The colours increased in intensity. Gabriel was filled with wonder and spiritual awe. The Green Ray nonetheless took him by surprise. He had never seen anything as green as that. The greenest green he had ever seen. Greener than green.

Then the sun sank into the sea. After a long while, he stood up in the early twilight and felt as if he were standing at a grave. The feeling of taking leave was overwhelming. For the first time, he felt that he would probably have to do the Bede Griffiths project alone—or at least not with Tilda. Alone like he had just watched the Green Ray. He and Tilda would never share the experience, for whatever reason. This was simply a fact.

Poor Gabriel. Tilda had seen him running up and down the path in front of his room looking out for her while she was standing behind her closed curtains peeping out without being seen by him or anybody else. She had decided against seeing the Green Ray. She could not stand to watch this thing together with him, so laden with meaning. Too private. Too invasive. No, thank you. It would have felt like watching porn together. She wanted to keep to herself and stay cool and in control.

Afterwards, she felt remorse. So as soon as she saw light in Room 3 after the sun had finally settled down, she went up there to fetch Gabriel for dinner. She had been prepared for disappointment, but not for the resignation she met. Gabriel looked very old when he fetched his plate and cup before joining her at Sophia’s terrace. He did not speak very much, contrary to his usual habits. He sat there totally diminished, poking at his food and not even drinking his wine. “I’m sorry that I missed the Green Ray, Mr David. I slept like a log,” Tilda lied. He nodded sadly.

“Listen, I dreamt that a mate from home lived in Room 3,” she said while pointing in the direction of the general retreat house, moved by his desperation. “Up there where you live.” Gabriel looked up to the dark row of buildings. “What about your friend?” he asked tiredly. “In my dream, I knew that something very bad would happen up there. When my friend was with me down here, I warned him against going up there again and suggested that he instead stay with me at my place.” Gabriel looked at her absently. “What would happen to your friend up there?” he asked.

“I don’t know. In my dream, I simply warned him against going up there again, to prevent catastrophe.” “Are you suggesting that I should stay with you tonight, Mrs Toelz?” Gabriel asked, looking directly at her. Of course, he had a right to ask. All that Tilda had said provoked the question. She was well aware of that. However, she did not dare to go further. She looked away. And Gabriel? He was a stricken man that evening. He had watched the Green Ray all on his own. There was no energy left in him to fight for or against anything. He was out of energy. They sat for a few moments in the dark, in total silence. Then he sighed deeply, took his dirty plate and cup, stood up and walked through the pitch-black night in the direction of Room 3.

Angels’ Play

Location:

Heaven above New Camaldoli Hermitage, Big Sur. Shared-Office Cloud.

Time:

Real-time GMT, Tuesday, 10 September 2019, 05:42

Players:

The two angels as before.

Setting:

Through soft fog rising mysteriously from earth below, TA is dancing slowly to angelic dancefloor music while GA is on the parquet of the inner cloud. Everywhere are used buckets with green oil paint and wet paintbrushes full of green paint. Both angels are peeping down at earth every now and again, watching Gabriel going to morning prayers. The fog is also down there at the hermitage. Gabriel looks very lonely while he makes his solitary way from Room 3 up to the still-dark church.

TA

(musingly):

How can he see the Trinity icon at the church entrance? He’s passed it many times now. It was in front of his nose each time he entered the church. No way will he see it this time.

GA

(freeing itself from the arms of TA, the angel lavishly applies another thick layer of green colour to the Trinity icon at the church door by using a brush from the nearest paint bucket):

Says the angel in the green robe. Viriditas. Trust the green force of eternity.

At the very last second before leaving the church, Gabriel turns his head, and his eyes fall on the huge picture opposite the open church door where the early-morning light plays on the brilliant colours of the Russian Trinity icon, especially the deep green in the eucharistic bowl and in the tree, above the three figures, that points to heaven. Gabriel is clearly stunned and thoroughly shaken.

GA

(enthusiastically waving the wet brush in the direction of TA, who is immediately sprayed with a green tan):

Gotcha!

The Divine Dance

Gabriel had been up and about at 4:00 am after fretfully sleeping because of the weird events from the evening before. Sitting in his silent moonlit garden, it had seemed as if a veil were billowing where the brilliant sun had set over the ocean and the beach landscape the evening before. It was a strange sensation: It looked as if the waves of the ocean had come up close to him, looking like a wavy grey veil on a grave. It was long time before he realised that these were foggy clouds and not water. Thick white mist raised up from the ocean while the moon reflected blue light on what looked like corrugated bed linen. At about 5:30 am, the church bells chimed for vigils. He joined the monks in prayer, first vigils and then, after a time of meditation, lauds. The monks burned a lot of incense as they chanted. Through the windows, the upcoming morning light slowly prepared everything for the new day. Gabriel felt the sadness that had been on his shoulders since last evening slip away. By the time he finally got up to leave the church, he felt happy and strong again.

The sun sent its first rays over the mountain tops opposite the church, which found their way through the big church door when he opened it. He looked behind his shoulder to follow their way into the dark church. There was a decorated wall that was open at its right and left to let people pass; it was just behind the door separating the inner room from the antechamber, placed there to prevent drafts. Gabriel had passed this wall numerous times by now for prayers, probably absentmindedly given that he had never paid attention to the huge painting that covered the wall from top to bottom right in its centre, facing the door. Now the full sunlight illuminated the bright colours, and he staggered back in surprise. He was definitely not prepared to see Richard Rohr’s icon with a brilliantly flashing green in the full light of the early-morning sun. And this on their last morning, after the Green Ray the evening before and everything that had happened in LA. It was spooky. The first thing he did after his solitary breakfast was go down to Tilda, who had The Divine Dance with the marked pages for further reading. “Good morning. Can I have the Richard Rohr book?” he asked her. She was surprised but fetched it from her bedside table. Then in a loud voice, he read out to her the marked passage featuring the icon and the Green Motif. “I read this passage last night again,” she impatiently stopped him and continued: “I nearly know it by heart by now. What’s the matter?” “Please go to church with me,” Gabriel replied. She rolled her eyes and grumbled. “Please. Just do me this favour. I have to show you something, Mrs Toelz.” Of course, she suspected that he’d try to lure her into praying again. Not very graciously, she followed him to church. However, when he pushed her in front of the icon, dramatically pointing to it like he was introducing a superstar, her mouth fell open and she was quiet. Gotcha!

After showering and packing his things for departure, Gabriel went to the bookshop to settle their bills. He bought a few books from the prior’s recommended reading list, such as The Marriage of East and West, by Bede Griffiths, and Evolutionaries, by Carter Phipps. Scanning the walls of the bookshop for further items of interest, he made a lovely discovery: The monks had reproduced the Trinity icon as it was displayed in their church in a small ceramic format for visitors to take away as a souvenir. It was really beautiful. Although it cost nearly 50 dollars, he bought it.

Aiming to fetch Tilda and her luggage from Sophia, Gabriel drove to Sophia’s parking spot but crashed the back of their car into the wooden, white-painted parking sign there. The sign fell to the ground with a big bang, and there was a big white smear of paint on the back of the car. Tilda gloated.

They started in bright sunshine at the hermitage bookshop. Going downhill, however, was scary. “Like diving into the unknown dark of the Pacific,” Tilda commented as they reached the foggy coastal road. They turned towards San Francisco. The mist was so dense that they couldn’t even see the ocean. The weather did not change for the better throughout the drive. They arrived in dark fog. The booking was for Marina Inn at San Leandro, which was close to San Lorenzo on San Francisco Bay.

Angels’ Play

Location:

Heaven above San Francisco, downtown. Shared-Office Cloud.

Time:

Real-time GMT, Tuesday, 10 September 2019, 21:02

Players:

The two angels as before and Bede Griffiths.

Setting:

The fog is no longer the soft mist that it was in the previous scene. The cloud is now wrapped in ice-cold blue-shimmering plumes of dense and dirty-looking smog. The cockpit board hectically blinks a red alert. TA and GA are shivering. They are sitting huddled in their cockpit seats. Both wear fighting gear. They look like forlorn soldiers in a muddy war trench cautiously peeping down at earth. Around them, empty green-paint buckets and dried-out paintbrushes lie sprayed and wasted. They have completely run out of green colour.

They watch Gabriel and Tilda enter an Italian restaurant in downtown San Francisco. GA is helplessly pressing its fingers in its tiny angelic ears and humming psalms to avoid hearing what Gabriel and Tilda are talking about.

TA is bitterly listening, but with watchful martial sobriety, trying to diffuse the offensive blue fumes. BG is pleasantly sleeping in a cushioned chair in the conference area.

GA

(crying out in anguish):

Father, don’t you care if we have serious problems? We’re terrified!

BG

(standing up, rebuking the blue fog and then saying to them): Why are you so afraid? Don’t you still have faith? Work together. Cooperate. Share your thoughts. Combine your energies. Participation is the magic word!

TA

(shaking its head in dismay though it is now a little clearer):

But this is exactly what Gabriel and Tilda down there quarrel about! Participation is not working. It is a fake.

BG

(complacently fetching a book):

Why is that? Look here. Book of Rupert Sheldrake and Matthew Fox on the physics of angels like you. Participation works perfectly.

TA

(uncertain):

I do not have much physics to participate with. I have an astral body, you know.

BG

(getting again in lecturing mode):

As Rupert says, “All inanimate things participate in It through their being; for the ‘to be’ of all things is the divinity above Being itself, the true life. Living things participate in Its life-giving power above all life; rational things participate in Its self-perfect and preeminent perfect wisdom above all reason and intellect. It is manifest, therefore, that those natures which are around the Godhead have participated of It in manifold ways.”

TA

(trying to make one thing clear):

I participate intelligently! I am intelligent.

GA:

So and so.

BG

(hastily continuing):

For angels, special conditions apply anyway. Listen to Rupert:

“On this account the holy ranks of the celestial beings are present with and participate in the divine principle in a degree far surpassing all those things which merely exist, and irrational living creatures, and rational human beings.

For moulding themselves intelligibly to the imitation of God, and looking in a supermundane way to the likeness of the supreme deity, and longing to form the intellectual appearance of It, they naturally have more abundant communion with him, and with unremitting activity they tend eternally up the steep, as far as is permitted, through the ardour of their unwearying divine love, and they receive the primal radiance in a pure and immaterial manner, adapting themselves to this in a life wholly intellectual.”

TA

(cheering):

Hear! Hear! That’s me.

BG

(smiling):

It gets even better (he finishes his reading): “Such, therefore, are they who participate first, and in an all-various manner, in Deity, and reveal first, and in many ways, the divine mysteries. Wherefore they, above all, are pre-eminently worthy of the name angel because they first receive the divine light, and through them are transmitted to us the revelations which are above us.”

GA

(curiously):

What does Matthew Fox say about Rupert’s insights?

BG

(satisfied):

He says as I do. Participation is the magic word. Listen: “Participation is … certainly part of the new paradigm thinking, going from subject–object relationships to participatory relationships.” There you have it (after that, he closes the book).

Both angels are calmed by this short interchange and now in better mood. However, the fog already starts to form maliciously outside the billowing cloud again. The danger is definitely not over.

Participation is a Sham

Tilda and Gabriel had gone downtown for dinner via Bay Bridge, which was gloriously illuminated at night. They had decided to talk over dinner about the template for the safe-space case studies for the US. “Let’s eat in China Town,” Gabriel suggested, remembering how nice this was during his previous visit to San Francisco. However, the only place open that they found was an Italian restaurant close to the Chinese part of town. Oh, how much Gabriel wished later on that they had never gone there!

“This is a hipster location, Mr David,” Tilda whispered when they entered, and she was right. Expensive food for cool urban professionals hosted by arrogant servers. They were totally out of place, having fallen from the sunny hermitage in the skies. Their server looked totally disgusted when, after ordering, Gabriel was pushing their plates aside to place his laptop on the table so that he could work on the safe-space concept while waiting for their meals. Obviously, that went against the etiquette of this posh restaurant. But Tilda was the one who pushed the laptop away. “I don’t want to work,” she stated. First, Gabriel was delighted because he thought she wanted some private conversation, but then he looked into her eyes. “Mr David, participatory decision-making is a joke,” Tilda said, unexpectedly starting their dinner conversation. Gabriel looked at her. Maybe she was simply hungry after their long car journey. But she was serious. “Why are you saying that? We want to involve all societal groups, especially minorities and vulnerable populations that don’t usually have a voice in decision-making. This is what the safe spaces are for,” he protested. The server brought a salad with a small glass of overpriced white wine for Gabriel and a vegan lasagne for Tilda, who looked at it scornfully because of its small size and at its missing side dishes. She ordered tap water to go with it, which made the server scowl at her.

“Participation is the wrong way,” Tilda said, poking at her tiny lasagne. “What elites fear most is a mass of people who no longer participate in what is called politics nowadays. Politics is a sham. Political problems are shams. They are constructed by the elites to keep their game going. Politics has been corrupted to be just a mechanism that serves the ideas and material interests of the elites. They have everybody in a big laboratory. What is called society nowadays is a herd of mindless mice in a lab. Nonparticipation and active resistance are the game changers.”

Gabriel looked aghast at her. She stared back. “You do not notice anything of the destructive core of the whole world, Mr David. You are in a thought prison, in a psychological trap. The way out of this trap is not some better policy. The way out is to just not get involved anymore. Just don’t play their game. Because that’s the trap. What they fear, you should do. Refuse participation. Do not get even more people involved. Leave them alone.” “Who are ‘they,’ Mrs Toelz?” Gabriel asked complacently. But that was only outwards. He was deeply disturbed. “They have done everything possible to take possession of our brains, especially yours, Mr David. You preach conformity to a specific ideal of society, which is supposed to be just and good, an alternative,” she continued, “but it is trapped in a foul framework and a picture painted by the ones in power. You have been totally misled. Do you remember the article that I sent to you from China?”

And she took out her mobile and opened that dreadful link. Gabriel heard the voice reciting the stuff he had found so objectionable. Tilda listened with radiant eyes. The luring, agreeable voice just said, “Opponents are not to be found in politics. Because politicians, no matter how humane their idea, only want one thing—to do politics. They want to dominate all of us and tell us how we have to live, how we have to educate ourselves, what we should eat, how much money or wages we have to earn, which diseases can be healed, how our children develop, what we have to spend our free time on, what and for what purpose the sciences have to research and on which enemy we should drop our bombs. All this is not thought up, wanted and maintained by politicians but rather is determined by powers behind the throne. Politicians are the whips with which they guide us into their troughs. They do this so well today that the masses think it is the golden age. They still elect the perpetrators, for the hundredth time, and compete with each other just to become better slaves.”

“Please switch this off, Mrs Toelz,” Gabriel pleaded desperately. It was so poisonous and destructive that it robbed him of all his energy. Tilda just stared at him. “Do you understand, Mr David? It does not matter whether there are only one or two politicians or whether we ‘participate’ (she really spat on this word) and let so-called minorities decide. It stays the same: foul play. To stop participating is our only chance. This is the new consciousness you are always talking about.”

“And how do you see yourself in all of this, Mrs Toelz?” Gabriel asked, sipping the rest of his much-too-expensive white wine. He felt he would definitely need another, maybe two. “I, for my part, will not join up with any enterprise that does not support my personal goals and private objectives, Mr David. I am emancipated, mature and self-determining and will no longer make myself available for their purposes.”

“What about the others, Mrs Toelz?” Gabriel asked cautiously. “Will you leave them behind? What about the poor people? The people suffering? Even if you are right—no, especially if you are right—wouldn’t it be your duty to help them?” “I help them free themselves. I can only tear the mask from the face of the power elites, stop participating myself and warn others to do so. One day, the masses will see sense and discard the elites.” “Can’t your masses start and try to get involved in decision-making in participatory approaches? What about our safe-space concept? Don’t you remember all our project literature, such as the Druckman and Nelson paper in the American Journal of Political Science on how citizens’ conversations limit elite influence?” “I do not believe in participation,” she answered simply.

Gabriel tried another angle. “Do you remember that I told you about this book about angels written by your favourite Rupert Sheldrake, together with Matthew Fox? I have been reading it in the meantime. Sheldrake very much believes in participation!” He tried to win her over with a reference to her beloved author and build a bridge where they could come to terms with each other again. But Tilda shook her head. “He is wrong in this, Mr David. He is a natural scientist and should know from biology that domination wins over participation,” she said. “But cooperation and participation have been driving forces in the universe from the beginning, Mrs Toelz,” Gabriel objected. “Do you know these fantastic slime moulds called Amoebozoa? They are usually single-cell organisms, not plants and not animals, but show cooperative behaviour, forming a higher-order organism by coming together from everywhere to participate in this endeavour.” Now he fetched his mobile and showed her a video from German TV where she could watch ancient sociality herself: unicellular life of amoebae that united to become a slug that could move around as a separate body. Tilda hardly looked at the short Discovery Channel movie.

Gabriel was desperate. Tilda mercilessly continued: “The safe-space concept is a charade. It is bad faith to give people the impression that there is something else but a power play by the elites.” Tilda looked directly into Gabriel’s eyes as she ate the last bite of her lasagne. “And worst of all, Mr David: The safe-space concept itself is the worst of all power plays.” That was a direct attack; he felt it. “Why are you saying that? What is wrong with involving all societal groups, especially minorities and vulnerable populations, Mrs Toelz?” he asked in protest. “And who is the boss of the safe space, Mr David?” Tilda asked viciously. “You are the boss. As always. You will graciously decide who is in and who is out. How fair, do you think, is that?” Gabriel was gobsmacked. “You even expect gratitude and praise for your offer of participation,” she continued, “and then they come—grateful and trusting and open. And what will you do, Mr David? You will secretly manipulate everybody by making them believe in friendship, participation and cooperative arrangements, but you are in fact expertly guiding them within this framework in the direction that you want them to go, the one that’s good for you. In all this talk about participation and equality, you are the most manipulative, power-obsessed and hierarchical person imaginable because you are initiating and chairing the whole thing with your superhuman consciousness.”

Gabriel could not believe his ears. Tilda painted a disgusting picture of him. When had he ever given her reason to think so badly of him? What had he done to her that she had to strike out so hard? Did she not know him any better?

Did she know him at all? This woman was crucifying him for something he had not done. Usually, when somebody accused him of something, his first reaction was a little pang in his heart searching for whether the accusation could possibly be right. However, what Tilda accused him of had never even entered his mind before. And it certainly did not resonate with anything that was in his heart. It was simply disgusting—nothing else.

He was deeply hurt but tried to keep the conversation going. “I think, power is an evasive and illusive concept, Mrs Toelz,” he said quietly. “It is like money or beauty. It is not lasting; it is meaningless. Why do you think I would go for it?” She then turned very ambivalent in her reasoning, if not confused and illogical: “In this whole participative and seemingly democratic approach, somebody must call the shots and provide direction and objectives for reasonable action and successful results.” So, what was she doing? Accusing him to be obsessed with power or applauding him for being effective? He did not get it. In any case, it did not apply.

“Situations like this make me go crazy over whether the risk of cooperation will ever pay off, Mrs Toelz,” he said sadly. “You are scared of being labelled according to a fixed external definition, a dominant, determinate definition. I can understand that. However, the only external definition I see in our project is the one that allows everything to happen, that engages in other ways of seeing the world and that permits communication without excluding any position at the outset. Why preach anything other than that what one is willing to do oneself? We are moving! You seem to be keen to pursue your own objectives as your first priority. This means you cannot be interested in the bigger picture. I am very sorry to hear that. How can the ‘New Creation’ and ‘New Consciousness’ ever happen when everybody thinks like you?” She did not respond anymore but instead waved for the server. They silently paid their bills in the restaurant and went back to their hotel without further conversation. It seemed as if the whole hermitage experience had been futile.

Repairs and Amendments

The next morning, Gabriel and Tilda had to meet with their San Francisco business contacts for a scheduled meeting. They silently sat in the car driving through a splendid sunny San Francisco morning. After the meeting, which was fruitful, they decided to leave the car in their partners’ multistorey car park and go to the embankment for sightseeing. It was still quite early, but many tourists were already there. They mingled with the crowd and walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Gabriel admired the place with the Alcatraz view, with the happy seagulls, the many anchoring ships and the colourful piers. Of course, he had been there before, but it was still impressive. In a shop, he found nice sunglasses for just ten dollars. Then Tilda revealed what she wanted to buy: “I am looking for a cap.” Gabriel, the Baby Boomer with chinos, sweater and college shoes, silently added ‘a stupid cap’ as his eyes followed her finger, which pointed to a baseball cap shop with a most dreadful display of ugly items. They went into the stupid-cap shop—the first and hopefully the last time that Gabriel would shamefacedly enter it in his life. For him, it was just painful to see tons of this offensive headwear lined up on shelves on the wall, each one uglier than the next.

In front of the shelves, total idiots (for his taste) in their teens—and sometimes some embarrassingly older—were trying on different models in front of mirrors. They looked like dimwits, sometimes with the visor pointing ahead, sometimes pointing backwards. Gabriel was mortified. However unlikely, he bravely had to face the fact that he was in such a shop as a customer. Together with a woman who was interested in buying a stupid cap and wearing it. “It’s culture. This is about the solidarity you always speak of. Solidarity with the poor. I want to look like a bro,” Tilda explained trying on various exemplars. “Like a what?” Gabriel asked uncomprehendingly. Had to have to do something with hip-hop. “Like a brother,” Tilda said impatiently. “But you are a woman, Mrs Toelz. You look dreadful,” Gabriel griped; he was desolate. He thanked his creator when the model she was keen on was not available in her size.

Back outside in the sun, they were totally amazed that there were dealers selling marijuana on the pier. Of course, they had heard that THC had been legalised in California, as it had been in Colorado and elsewhere, but it was a totally different thing to see this actually happening. A big guy offered hashish cigarettes like chocolate sticks. He crossed their path four times during their walk. “We have to buy something from him when we meet him one more time. Maybe it is consciousness expanding,” Tilda suggested. While Gabriel waited for her as she bought some water in a supermarket, he saw the dealer across the street coming close again to where they were. Tilda was still at the cashiers. “Hush,” he said to Tilda, using their telepathic connection. She looked up behind the shop windows. Their eyes locked, and he showed her with his eyes where he would be heading. Then he ran after the dealer. “How much?” he asked out of breath. “Five dollars each,” the dealer said, pointing at his hashish cigarettes. In the middle of the deal, Tilda joined Gabriel, breathlessly laughing. He hastily pushed the two cigarettes into the pockets of his sweater and smelt like a junkie the rest of the day.

“We can go back via Golden Gate Bridge,” Gabriel suggested. They were exhausted and enjoyed sitting in silence in the car while listening to ‘San Lorenzo,’ played by Pat Metheny, as they passed through this part of the city. Life was perfect again. They were in serene harmony. They crossed the bridge and made a big detour back to Marina Inn. At an outlet centre close to the hotel, they bought some turpentine in a DIY shop to clean off the white smear that the car sustained from the sign at Sophia that morning. When checking on the car, they discovered another, much-more-severe scratch on the front wheel of the car. This looked really serious. They also bought some gloss of the same shade of grey on their car to make repairs the next morning. Last but not least, they bought sushi, candles, vegetables, white wine, water and ice for another outdoor dinner, during which they planned to smoke the hashish cigarettes in celebration of their last evening in the US. Back in the hotel, it was quickly getting dark. “I have an idea where to go for dinner, Mr David,” Tilda said. “I’ve checked Google maps. Close to the marina is an island of about one square kilometre without any habitation but with a vast area of green and low vegetation. We can go there.” This was probably where people walked their dogs and went running. They chose a bench opposite the Golden Gate Bridge, which could be seen glimmering across the waters in the far distance. They lit the candles, drank chilled white wine, ate sushi and vegetables and smoked their joints.

During dinner, they talked amiably about India while enjoying the glorious sight of the famous illuminated bridge. The joints, by the way, proved to be quite disgusting and anything but consciousness expanding: They were half wet and ragged from spending the day in Gabriel’s pockets, and they tasted foul and too sweet. “I can put the rest of your white wine into the water to keep it cool,” Tilda offered. However, in trying to do so, her bad foot slipped while she tried to keep her balance on the stony shore. Gabriel could see that she was in pain again and could imagine how swollen her ankle probably was after the long walk they had taken. And this happened just hours before she would need to sit for hours and hours on another long intercontinental flight. “Mrs Toelz, I have some oil at the hotel and can try a drainage massage on your foot,” Gabriel offered. “This would suit you well,” Tilda laughed. What was written on her face was unmistakable. “I do not mean it that way,” he protested and was again deeply offended. He definitely had enough of that woman. More than enough.

Tilda had a bad rest of her evening too, spending the night on the phone with her boyfriend. She had carelessly mentioned that they had smoked hashish. “WHAT have you done?” Kennie shouted through the line. “Do you want to land in jail?” “It’s legal in California,” Tilda said lamely. “This is your boss,” Ken continued. “He is not your boyfriend unless I’ve missed something. These are things you maybe do with your close friends, but not with your employer. Or have you changed your mind?” “Of course not! Why would you say that?” Ken was very upset. “You do not take drugs. You do not smoke. It’s unhealthy. Normally, you would not even dream of doing such a thing. You are a healthy athlete who takes care of her body. You would not even smoke with me. You have never done this with me!” Was he now complaining that they weren’t junkies? But Tilda certainly got his point. A different job would be the solution. That was what came to her mind during this phone call. “I will leave B1,” she offered to Ken. “Maybe then you’ll believe that I don’t care for Gabriel.” Ken was immediately soothed. He even said he would look with her through job postings. She felt good about that decision because it would give her back her old life. This new one had proved to be too stressful and taxing. With a new job away from Gabriel, she would again be able to concentrate on her sports and her other activities. And she could look into Ken’s eyes and into her own.

However, when she scanned her emails before going to sleep, there was one sitting there from Gabriel written just minutes ago. It read: “I suggest that I step down from project leadership and project involvement, only taking care of the concept of safe spaces in future. You are the project leader from now on. I am done with it. However, I will continue taking care of everything related to the upcoming India trip. Of course, I will go there on my own.” Fine with her.

Angels’ Play

Location:

Heaven above Marina Inn, San Francisco. Shared-Office Cloud.

Time:

Real-time GMT, Thursday, 12 September 2019, 07:17

Players:

The two angels as before and Bede Griffiths.

Setting:

Both angels have dark circles under their eyes from their long night shift of discussing with BG, who arrived in the early hours to check resources and options.

BG is wearing a strange outfit consisting of jeans, hippie sandals and a green hoodie with white lettering on front and back. It seems to be the merchandise of a special brand, and TA and GA look at it with suspicion, trying to read the words.

They themselves are in fresh fighting gear, scanning through their gearboxes for better armour. TA is luxuriously sniffing at a turpentine bottle, while GA is leafing through the Book of Books for helpful munition. The cloud’s red alert is set back to yellow.

GA

(scanning pages):

Father, what is your recommendation of a Bible verse that could help Gabriel to emotionally survive the blow?

BG

(showing the white letters written on the front of his sweater. They read: Mt. 11:29):

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (in the teaching voice of the guru). As you know, yoke in the original Hebrew means “law,” and that is the Old Testament law. The yoke of Christ, as said here, is easy and his burden light because the yoke of Christ is Love. This is the New Testament. Love is the recommendation for Gabriel. And being gentle and humble.

GA

(sternly):

Not really! ‘Gentle and humble.’ That is not very helpful. Gabriel needs support to get rid of this cruel and barbarous woman—Tilda. If Matthew it shall be, we take Mt. 10:9–15: (citing out loud) “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts—no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet (applauding). Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town” (cheering). That’s one for Tilda!

BG shakes his head in dismay, but GA is well satisfied with this passage and checks it into its communication console.

GA

(rummaging in the gearbox):

What else have we got? (turning to TA)

Hey, you! Are you already sedated from turpentine sniffing, or what? Can you become a little more helpful and get engaged here, you junkie?

If you would not have wasted all our green colour, we would have had enough left to fight the Blue off yesterday evening.

TA

(defensively):

It is not my fault that we ran out of Green. TRINI-T Supply cannot meet the demands of our obligations. I ordered enough Green, but they did not deliver it on time. They are pretty slow in production now. They say this will only change with the New Creation. Old Creation is worn out. New Creation will result in plenty of Green, they say. Until then, we need to cope with what they can provide.

GA

(anxiously):

You know that our charges are supposed to bring forward the New Creation with their project, according to the Script. It is weird: They need Green to produce Green. What if they are not successful? What if we run out of stock before they can move forward? We have a chicken-and-egg problem. The dog is chasing its own tail.

Down on earth, Gabriel and Tilda are just reaching the wrong terminal of San Francisco airport while dragging their huge suitcases behind them. They check with the information screen and cannot find their flight. While Gabriel is waiting with the suitcases in the middle of the crowded terminal, Tilda wanders to the information desk to find out where to go.

Putting some sunglasses on his famous water-blue eyes, BG is in the process of evaporating and saying goodbye to the two angels.

BG

(energetically):

My dears, I will go down now to help Gabriel.

GA

(disapprovingly looking at BG’s jeans and hoodie):

Father, can’t you change your clothes before leaving? You are usually such a well-dressed man, but this hoodie…

BG

(determined):

The hoodie is part of the gear. It is from my personal provision. Trust me. (With this, he evaporates, leaving two sceptical-looking angels behind)

Mt. 11:29

Gabriel was quite stressed out when they ended up at the wrong terminal of SFO airport. It was, of course, all Tilda’s fault. She had not properly looked up their departure information on the boarding passes. While Tilda asked for directions at the airport service desk, Gabriel idly watched people coming and going. It was a huge terminal with thousands of guests moving around. And suddenly, he saw his hoodie. Of course, not really his hoodie. His was safely packed away in his suitcase by his side. But it was the very same sweater he had bought in Germany with ‘Mt. 11:29’ on front and back.

The sweater was worn by a dark-haired, slender girl about eighteen years old with radiant blue eyes. She slowly walked by with her parents a few metres away from where Gabriel stood. “Wait!” he shouted. Very surprised, the little family stopped. “Of course we know Berlin! The hoodie is from this charity shop with the lovely lime tree garden in front.” The girl laughed when Gabriel asked whether they knew Berlin and where she got the hoodie from. “It is such a cosy little safe space in the big city,” she said. “What are you doing here?” Gabriel asked, switching to German. The girl explained: “We are on our way to Canada—my parents are accompanying me to where I will spend my voluntary social year after school. I have just finished my exams.” Returning from the airport information desk, Tilda made eyes as big as plates when she heard Gabriel talk to a German family and recognised the Matthew hoodie she knew from his own wardrobe. It was such a peaceful and friendly encounter. And Gabriel took much consolation from it. What else was it but a comforting and supportive greeting from a safe space? A message of love? He felt greatly confirmed and strengthened by it. The world was alright again. It did not even matter that he saw Tilda rolling her eyes at his stupid smile. Let her persist in her doubting-Thomas style as much as she likes.

And Mt. 10:9-15

They made their way to the correct terminal and checked their luggage. They now had a long wait for their flight. This was Gabriel’s opportunity to speak his mind: “I feel very bad about the past two evenings, Mrs Toelz. You are set against the core idea of our project. And you think of me as a power-obsessed, half-mad project leader who wants to get into the panties of his chaste female colleague.” “Hush,” Tilda said, looking around embarrassed. He had been getting a little loud but now got even louder. “Hush yourself. You should listen to me closely for once before you revert to your usual default setting! This is not about power. It is just about the opposite. We are deep into something here that is bigger than ourselves.” Gabriel wanted to set this right. At least, he wanted to explain that he was stepping down from heading the new project and not accepting her interpretation of their relationship and their work. “Who could believe that my feeble attempt to connect Pater Bede’s unification project with the participatory safe-space concept is merely an abuse of power where I’m trying to impose my will on others? And whoever interprets my probing into our relationship as an indication of sexual assault has understood nothing and does not know anything!” he agitatedly said. She looked away.

But he was not finished yet. “I cannot live with your foul interpretations. The project we are supposed to run together relies on our relationship. I will not suffer your throwing dirt on it!” She looked at him wonderingly but did not say anything. “This is why I have decided to step down from coordinating the project rather than go along with your views. This seems to be the only way to make you see my point, Mrs Toelz. I am refraining from all power, leadership and decision-making. I will be just participating. The rest is all on you from now on!” She looked a little forlorn. He nevertheless finished his tongue-lashing. “I am letting go. My hands are open. Same applies to our personal relationship, which I similarly step down from and am done with.” Tilda was silent in all of that. That was probably the safest thing to do given his blazing fury.

When he entered the aircraft, followed by Tilda, the flight attendant, who was advising them on how to find their seats, mistook them for a married couple when she humorously coached Tilda: “The wife follows the husband.” Then, she looked at Tilda’s boarding pass, which pointed to a seat far away from his. “Sorry. I put together what is obviously apart.”

She did not know how right she was. They were sitting in completely different compartments of the plane, and that was good.

Still sitting on the plane and using the Lufthansa Internet connection, Gabriel wrote an email to his team at B1: “Dear team, for your planning and task distribution, I have resigned from leading the new project because of heavy workloads and have assigned Tilda Toelz as project coordinator from now on. She will be responsible for all strategic issues concerning this proposal and will shape the further direction of this project. Of course, I will participate in the project, stay available for the case study visits already scheduled and sign everything as the head of the department. Thanks for your consideration. Gabriel David.” He leaned back with a sigh of relief and slept for the rest of the flight.

Tilda, in her seat, however, reviewed her copy of Essential Writings to check it against Gabriel’s fury. With a sigh, she put the book back into her rucksack after a while and looked out the window into the billowing clouds. Reading Bede Griffiths again indeed led to the conclusions that Gabriel had deduced. Period. There was no hidden meaning. Gabriel had just put two and two together, especially with the passages on final unity, the stuff with the snake and the marriage between male and female. They had already seen this snake motif during their first US visit; this second visit, now, had just foregrounded the unity motif.

And she had thrown shit at Gabriel. Maybe this Griffiths guy did not mean everything literally, to be taken at face value? These spiritual authors were deep into symbolic meanings and more-abstract levels of existence. Maybe it was not meant to be taken as plainly as Gabriel had taken it? Maybe it was not about him and her and their relationship at all? Maybe it was just in the spiritual abstract realm for the greater good or suchlike?

However, everything had been quite down-to-earth and substantial. They had seen the Sussex sunset; they had been in the cave of the sacred mystery after a strenuous approach to Montserrat; and they had met the snake in the desert of Arizona. She sighed against the window: “If you do not mean to be real, then don’t be real, Bede Griffiths.” She felt deeply puzzled. She could not really blame Gabriel for his interpretation of events and his attempts to unite with her.

At the same time, Kennie was after her to put an end to all this. “Your contract will run out this year, anyway,” Ken had said last night. “You can work somewhere else. There is an advert from an Estonian company providing IT for the public sector. You should apply. Estonia is the digitalisation leader in Europe. It will be quite interesting to work for them.” Maybe Ken was right. Of course, he was right, and she was just an ambivalent idiot.

Back in Berlin, Tilda told Gabriel that she would apply for the job at the Estonian IT company. “Why do you want to leave B1, Mrs Toelz?” he asked. “Is it because of me?” “My contract is running out,” she lied, “and the new project will only start in half a year at the earliest given B1’s project cycles. How do you think should I support myself in the meantime, Mr David?” She was right, of course, and he had thought about this pay gap as well. “I will take care of that; trust me,” he promised.

What he did first was ask a friend at B1 who worked in the IT department.

The Estonian Case

“Are they indeed so good in Estonia?” Gabriel asked curiously, “so well advanced in digitalisation?” “They are much better than we are,” the friend nodded. “That’s easy,” Gabriel laughed. How far behind Germany was in digital adoption was a standing joke between them. “And how about IT in the public sector? Are they using AI?” “Of course they do.” The friend looked probingly at Gabriel’s computer. “Maybe I can even show you the system.” He hit a few keys but then shook his head. “It seems to disallow access from the outside. What I wanted to show you is a system that is in use at Estonian job agencies. It scores people into three categories in case they end up unemployed: ‘close to the job market,’ ‘placeable with support’ and ‘unemployable.’ Depending on which category you are in, you will get money and training. Or not. If you are ‘unemployable,’ they do not invest in professional development courses, because you are deemed a lost case. No training also if you are ‘close to the job market’ because you will be off their radar again in no time without any support from their side.” “Who are ‘they’?” Gabriel asked, appalled. He felt himself reminded of Tilda and her talk about weird decision makers operating in secret.

“Public servants,” his friend said, laughing. “Clerks in job agencies. Who else? According to European law, a human being must have the last say in social service provision. A machine may not decide. No automated decision-making.” “Nobody can tell me that these clerks do not make their life easy by just taking and executing what the algorithm suggests,” Gabriel objected. His friend did not disagree. “Is there any further advantage policy-wise with this abundant use of artificial intelligence?” Gabriel asked.

“I suppose the predictive capacities of these tools are highly appreciated,” the friend answered. Seeing Gabriel’s raised eyebrows, he explained. “The categories and profiles are not only used for actual cases of unemployment. Estonian politics wants to fight unemployment as an undesirable social phenomenon. Every Estonian gets a score—that is, a likelihood for becoming unemployed according to profile and for falling into a certain category if it happens. Public agencies contact people before they become ‘cases’ and suggest measures in advance, to prevent the bad thing happening.” “But that’s Minority Report!” Gabriel exclaimed indignantly. “That is what?” the friend asked. “Don’t you know the movie with Tom Cruise?” Seeing his friend shaking his head, Gabriel told him about the storyline where clairvoyant beings forecast the occurrence of criminal events before they take place and police are sent to potential criminal sites to prevent the crime from happening—often by just arresting the alleged future perpetrator or executing them without further ado.

“The film is called Minority Report because the clairvoyants arrive at prognostic disagreements in a minority of cases, which are recorded in secret reports. The proponents of the technique want to suppress these minority reports, to keep the system alive,” Gabriel explained. “This is like AI-based decision-making. You cannot send a social worker to somebody’s house door and prescribe certain measures just because this person might become unemployed according to a statistical profile and the state would have to pay for them. It’s preposterous.”

“The Estonians like it,” the friend replied, laughing again. “They are very proud of their high level of digitalisation.” “Mrs Toelz won’t like it,” Gabriel said, very convinced. He had told his friend about Tilda’s plans to change jobs. “Yes, especially not because there is a lot of bias and discrimination going on even within the official and functioning parts of the system. I have heard that Russian migrant workers in Estonia have been suffering the consequences of wrong decisions due to system failures. This Berlin company that Mrs Toelz wants to apply to is part of the team providing such software.” Gabriel looked at his friend. “Heard? Can I tell this to Mrs Toelz? She will not want to work for a company providing software for such applications. In her gym are a few Russians that she is good friends with.” “Better be cautious with IT gossip,” his friend said. “I know because it is my domain. But as always, if you really want to look into systemic problems and ethical issues, the most technologically advanced states, the ones showcasing their democratic values, are often the most secretive about how their systems work. They think they cannot afford to stain their white vests.” “They’re the ones who should give a good example to be transparent, aware of problems, and willing to improve,” Gabriel sighed and stood up. He had heard enough. On his lunch break, he told Tilda, who immediately afterwards withdrew her application for the position at the Estonian company.