{"id":6948,"date":"2022-08-10T10:15:04","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T14:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/?p=6948"},"modified":"2023-07-27T09:48:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T13:48:17","slug":"shooting-at-heavens-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/shooting-at-heavens-gate\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting at Heaven&#8217;s Gate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" src=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/07141332\/Shooting-at-Heavens-Gate.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6775 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/07141332\/Shooting-at-Heavens-Gate.png 500w, https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/07141332\/Shooting-at-Heavens-Gate-480x320.png 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 500px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/chrismpress.com\/authors\/kaye-park-hinckley\/\">By Kaye Park Hinckley<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When Malcolm J. Hawkins, the Head of&nbsp;Psychology at Bethel University in Alabama, feels his position and his credibility&nbsp;threatened by up-and-coming English professor Ginnie Gillan, he decides to use&nbsp;her husband Edmund\u2019s gullibility against&nbsp;her. Feeding Edmund a steady diet of&nbsp;drugs and manipulation, Mal lights the fuse of the greatest tragedy Bethel has ever&nbsp;known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eighteen-year-old&nbsp;Alma Broussard, her quirky mother Moline, and her feisty Aunt Pauline run a chicken&nbsp;farm in Bethel.&nbsp;Their lives seem wholly separate from the feuds of academia\u2014but&nbsp;dark secrets lurk in Moline\u2019s past that will bring the&nbsp;people she loves&nbsp;straight into the path of a murderous madman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;the wake of death and destruction, the town that used to be called Heaven\u2019s&nbsp;Gate will find no easy answers, but there&nbsp;may still be hope for <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/?s=redemption\" title=\"redemption\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">redemption<\/a>.&nbsp;<em>Shooting at Heaven\u2019s Gate<\/em>&nbsp;is a Theology&nbsp;of the Cross novel in which genuine&nbsp;goodness, bona fide evil, and suffering&nbsp;truly live side by side.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class='et-learn-more clearfix'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class='heading-more'>Chapter 1<span class='et_learnmore_arrow'><span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='learn-more-content'><p>Mal<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space, feels itself excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014William Hazlitt<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Malcom J. Hawkins III, Professor of Psychology at Bethel University, sits at home in his favorite chair with a pompous grin on his face. His hands move ritually up and down the chair\u2019s arms, endlessly soiling the upholstered pattern of apples and bananas. Day by day, as he rubs the arms of the chair, the smell of rot increases. Day by day, he eyes the table beside the chair and the drawer where he keeps the gun he plans to show the fool. Day by day, he patiently assesses the progress of the despicable Ginnie Gillan, wife of the fool. <em>Why is she so admired by everyone at Bethel? How is she even a tenured professor?<\/em> He read her many publications\u2014too many, in his opinion. Nothing but drivel about spiritual warfare going on beneath the surface of all the earthly things one does. She contends that great literature portrays a battle between personified love and hate, good and evil in the flesh. In one of her silly articles, she even challenges the reader to choose a side. \u201cWhom do you follow?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ha! Mal follows <em>Me,<\/em> not <em>Thee.<\/em> He is interested in a more powerful deity, one who will not allow himself to be crucified but will live and destroy all loftiness, all goodness and love, leaving only the reality of down-to-earth hatred behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ginnie Gillan and all her kind must be destroyed. Not by him, though. Mal will keep his own hands clean. Instead, he has chosen the perfect pawn.<\/p>\n\n\n<div data-block-name=\"woocommerce\/handpicked-products\" data-products=\"[6783]\" class=\"wc-block-grid wp-block-handpicked-products wp-block-woocommerce-handpicked-products wc-block-handpicked-products has-3-columns has-multiple-rows\"><ul class=\"wc-block-grid__products\"><li class=\"wc-block-grid__product\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/shooting-at-heavens-gate\/\" class=\"wc-block-grid__product-link\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/07141332\/Shooting-at-Heavens-Gate-300x300.png\" class=\"attachment-woocommerce_thumbnail size-woocommerce_thumbnail\" alt=\"Shooting at Heaven&#039;s Gate\" \/><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-title\">Shooting at Heaven&#8217;s Gate<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-price price\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>9.99<\/span> <span aria-hidden=\"true\">&ndash;<\/span> <span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>15.99<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Price range: &#036;9.99 through &#036;15.99<\/span><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-button wc-block-grid__product-add-to-cart\"><a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/shooting-at-heavens-gate\/\" aria-label=\"Select options for &ldquo;Shooting at Heaven&#039;s Gate&rdquo;\" data-quantity=\"1\" data-product_id=\"6783\" data-product_sku=\"\" data-price=\"9.99\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"wp-block-button__link  add_to_cart_button\">Select options<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class='et-learn-more clearfix'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class='heading-more'>Chapter 2<span class='et_learnmore_arrow'><span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='learn-more-content'><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edmund<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014Thomas Merton<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some people in this world go unnoticed\u2014quiet people who never win first place in any contest because they never ask to play the game. They make no argument when they are pushed to the back of the line and raise no protest when something is taken from them. They are the backdrop against which more self-assured people act, the timid shadows that give definition to the bold. And yet, on occasion, one of them will satisfy the hauntings of a confused nature, darting back and forth between good and evil because he cannot determine which to pursue. Edmund K. Gillan is one of these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edmund\u2014born in the middle of the month of August on the hottest day on record in 200 years for Montgomery, Alabama\u2014arrived prematurely, not quite five pounds, and nearly died at birth. He came feet first, without crying, the last of six children, the only boy, and the only blue-eyed child of brown-eyed parents. Because the house he was born into was very large and busy, with ruling voices louder than his, by the time he was five years old he had learned to burrow himself into a corner of his mind that blocked all sound, a hiding place from those voices who blamed and condemned him for being himself. In that hiding place, he needed only to <em>be, <\/em>not to <em>do.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his daily life, he did not want to be noticed. Yet there was a silent, agitated voice that continuously pricked his thoughts: <em>Affirm yourself, <\/em>it said<em>.<\/em> But he did not. He did not make waves, did not create a problem for any one of his tall, beautiful sisters, yet each of them seemed to relish creating problems for him. Because of his smallness, they thought him inconsequential and denounced him as the runt. Soon his handsome, successful father called him the same. Not his pretty mother, though; she called him Eddie, and sometimes, \u201cmy big boy.\u201d He loved the nickname\u2014but of course, he wasn\u2019t a big boy, so he sometimes wondered if his mother was making a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He created walls for his hiding place made of thick, impenetrable stones, through which only he could see. He believed himself to be invisible to anyone who crossed the path beyond his walls, yet those who crossed were not invisible to Edmund; he noticed each one, imagining what it would be like to walk beside them, to be like them\u2014the bigger-than-life people, the handsome, the beautiful, the brave. But he made no effort to join them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When he was six, Edmund saw death for the first time and was, of course, blamed for it. Not a human death; only the death of a kitten belonging to his curly-haired sister, the one closest to him in age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cPrincess has gotten out!\u201d his sister screamed from the kitchen. \u201cPrincess is gone!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWho left this open?\u201d his pretty mother asked, coming in to shut the kitchen door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t me! Edmund did it,\u201d shrieked the eight-year-old. \u201cEdmund left the door open, and now Princess is gone!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEdmund!\u201d His mother stood with her hands on her hips. \u201cGo find that kitten right now!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edmund had not left the door open, but he didn\u2019t say so. He could see that his mother knew the truth, too, yet she gave him a look of disappointment and let him take the blame. Was she hoping he would learn to stand up and fight for himself? Well, he did not. He went to look for the kitten, first on their property and then beyond it, where he found a bully instead. The boy pushed him down in the dirt alongside his sister\u2019s dead kitten, now mangled by the bully\u2019s dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat you get!\u201d the bully shouted, stomping Edmund\u2019s hand with his shoe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>What I get for what?<\/em> he wanted to ask. But he did not. He hid behind his walls, hid his face in the dirt until the bully left. Then he picked up the dead kitten and ran home, carrying the bully\u2019s sin. It was not his sin, not this time, but he was the one who paid for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His sister kicked him. \u201cEdmund left the door open,\u201d she continued to whine to his mother. \u201cIt would not have happened if he hadn\u2019t left the door open!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Outwardly, Edmund simply took it and walked away from her. Only behind the fortification he\u2019d built in his mind did he stand up for himself. \u201cI did not leave it open! I would never leave it open!\u201d But in his head, a voice shouted back, \u201cYou might as well have done it. Always, you\u2019ll be accused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apart from the singular conversations Edmund had with himself\u2014and he had many over the years\u2014he rarely conversed with anyone. When his father, a tall, handsome man with black hair, stood towering over him and asked what he wanted from his life, Edmund shrugged his shoulders. His father scowled then, the way he often scowled at the one thousand and one employees who worked under him in Montgomery\u2019s only soft drink bottling plant. \u201cI might have known you had no ambition.\u201d Then his father walked away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In truth, Edmund had an ambition. He wanted to be a teacher like his mother, ever since he left his own second-grade classroom on the first day\u2014no one noticed he\u2019d left\u2014and sneaked into hers. At first, he watched her from the hall until he saw her turn to the chalkboard, then he crept into a shadowed back corner. When his mother faced her class again, she did not see Edmund, but he saw her, smiling at her class. He could see how much she loved her students, and he wanted to be one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He ought to have told his father he wanted to be a teacher, but he worried that the dream would disappoint him. His father expected his only son to be courageous and possess other virtues Edmund did not have and didn\u2019t imagine he ever would have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because he was afraid of being himself, Edmund lacked authenticity, leaving him as some sort of counterfeit brand, like a pair of cheap shoes tied together by their laces and tossed into a box of bargains in the back of a Dollar Mart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, he had affection for his pretty mother. At times, he simply stood in front of her until she noticed him. Sometimes she held him close while her sweet perfume attached itself to his clothes. He saved those clothes and did not put them in the laundry basket to be washed as his bossy oldest sister instructed. He put them under his bed. During the night, when the house was silent, he tucked them beneath his sheets to breathe in the sweet smell of his mother, as if she were holding him again\u2014only him, not the others. His pretty mother, his only flesh and blood harbor in the march of his young life, was the only person he loved. But he never imagined telling her so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His mother spoke to him in gentle ways, even when she corrected him, and she was a wonderful baker of all kinds of pies. He would watch as she made the fillings, waiting for her to finish and then hand him the spoon to lick. She always did that for him\u2014no one else. \u201cHere\u2019s the spoon, Edmund. It\u2019s all yours.\u201d Those times, he thought of shouting so she could hear, \u201cI love you, Mama!\u201d Yet he could not release the words. He could not take the risk of making himself even more vulnerable. Oh, how he wished he had!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They were\u2014all eight of them\u2014in the station wagon when the accident happened; the accident that took the life of every <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/?s=family\" title=\"family\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">family<\/a> member except Edmund. He emerged outwardly unscathed except for a head injury he caused himself by beating his forehead against a piece of twisted steel\u2014all that was left of the station wagon\u2019s front seat where the distorted, dead bodies of his mother and father were entrapped, then pried out and taken away before his eyes, along with the battered bodies of his sisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;Just before her death, his pretty mother moved her brown eyes toward him as if there was something she urgently wanted to say to him, and right then, he tried with all his might to tell her he loved her. But he was unpracticed and could not make his voice heard. The moment was forever missed, and he still hates himself for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One day after the tragedy, he turned ten years old, but his distraught grandparents on his father\u2019s side, who took him two hours south to Bethel, Alabama to raise as their own, didn\u2019t even remember his birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soon after the accident, he began having violent headaches, as if the walls he had built in his mind were crumbling in a war against a much stronger entity than he. As he wept, his grandmother wrung her hands in front of her heart. \u201cOh, look how he suffers!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His grandfather, Bethel\u2019s shrillest preacher, raised his arms upward. \u201cThe world is full of suffering, boy. Overcome it or live under Satan\u2019s foot!\u201dThe first of many warnings he would fasten in Edmund\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edmund is in his late thirties now and an adjunct professor of sociology at Bethel University, where he began as a freshman years ago. When he met his wife, Ginnie, he\u2019d just begun working on his master\u2019s, and Ginnie, a few years older, was already a tenure-track professor. Edmund likes the freedom of being an adjunct and does not mind the lesser salary. Ginnie makes enough for both of them. His agonizing headaches persist, but he supposes he\u2019s overcome suffering. He\u2019s told no one about the pain except Ginnie, who dismisses it; and Dr. Mal Hawkins, Professor of Psychology, who provides Edmund with a special type of relief.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n<div data-block-name=\"woocommerce\/handpicked-products\" data-products=\"[6783]\" class=\"wc-block-grid wp-block-handpicked-products wp-block-woocommerce-handpicked-products wc-block-handpicked-products has-3-columns has-multiple-rows\"><ul class=\"wc-block-grid__products\"><li class=\"wc-block-grid__product\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/shooting-at-heavens-gate\/\" class=\"wc-block-grid__product-link\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/07141332\/Shooting-at-Heavens-Gate-300x300.png\" class=\"attachment-woocommerce_thumbnail size-woocommerce_thumbnail\" alt=\"Shooting at Heaven&#039;s Gate\" \/><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-title\">Shooting at Heaven&#8217;s Gate<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-price price\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>9.99<\/span> <span aria-hidden=\"true\">&ndash;<\/span> <span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>15.99<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Price range: &#036;9.99 through &#036;15.99<\/span><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-button wc-block-grid__product-add-to-cart\"><a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/shooting-at-heavens-gate\/\" aria-label=\"Select options for &ldquo;Shooting at Heaven&#039;s Gate&rdquo;\" data-quantity=\"1\" data-product_id=\"6783\" data-product_sku=\"\" data-price=\"9.99\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"wp-block-button__link  add_to_cart_button\">Select options<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kaye Park Hinckley When Malcolm J. Hawkins, the Head of&nbsp;Psychology at Bethel University in Alabama, feels his position and his credibility&nbsp;threatened by up-and-coming English professor Ginnie Gillan, he decides to use&nbsp;her husband Edmund\u2019s gullibility against&nbsp;her. Feeding Edmund a steady diet of&nbsp;drugs and manipulation, Mal lights the fuse of the greatest tragedy Bethel has ever&nbsp;known. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2574,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chrism-press","category-contemporary-fiction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6948"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7997,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948\/revisions\/7997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}