The Damned May Enter

By Jedidiah Paschall

The Doomsday Clock has struck midnight and humanity stands at the edge of the end of the world. In the ashes of a global war, Malachi and Jacob Brandt are pulled into a harrowing journey to bring an end to the conflict while they grapple with the cosmic implications of their unique prophetic calling to herald the end of the present age and the emergence of a coming age of universal restoration. The Damned May Enter follows the Brandts through their personal struggles, family tragedies, and explores how broken and imperfect individuals can take up their calling and take part in an inclusive Christian community that seeks to be a life-giving force for the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SJT Press
• Release date: Oct 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781662903816

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Book I

Chapter 1

Escondido, California

A winter storm swept into Southern California bringing precious rain to the parched ground of Escondido’s hills and valleys. The sound of rainfall on the roof joined with the crackling and hissing of a fire burning in the fireplace. Outside of the DeVaux’s living room window, the dark, wet asphalt of their street mirrored the yellow streetlights like a glowing invitation from the earth for the heavens to descend upon it. Sycamore and Ash trees that lined the street swayed in the cold, wet wind, extending their branches upward in a solemn posture of praise into the sacred night. In a land punctuated by long, devastating droughts, even the fiercest storm is an occasion for thanksgiving.

The Brandts joined the DeVauxs for dinner that evening as they often did on Friday nights. Tina and Serafina were in the den enjoying cocktails, discussing the trials of motherhood and the latest books they were reading. Daniel and David were finishing the dishes and entertaining the children. Their near-weekly gatherings were the sort of dance conducted by countless young families trying to navigate the uncharted waters of marriage and parenthood. Naturally, the DeVaux and Brandt children were completely oblivious to the all too fragile foundation that seemed so firm beneath their feet.

Daniel suggested story time to occupy the kids. This wasn’t entirely altruistic; Daniel’s day job as a theology professor allowed him to pursue his intellectual and spiritual interests, but his passion was the artistic expression of telling stories. His professorial eccentricities were on par for a man who had spent his adult life in academia, but in his tales, he took on a persona that was both strange and wonderful. He was touched with the madness that all lore-masters possess, which makes them all inseparable from the myths they weave. Bethel Presbyterian’s resident raconteur was something of a legend among the younger members. His fantastical stories in their Sunday school classes inculcated delight, wonder, and a haunting sense of the mysteries of life under the sun. The adults also made it a point to attend Sunday School on the days when Daniel was spinning his most recent tale. Even David, known to his congregation as the kind, reserved, if not enigmatic Reverend Brandt, would make his way out of his office where he was preparing to deliver his sermons just to hear Daniel’s newest story.

The Brandt boys, Malachi and Jacob, were happy to dispense with their favorite pastime of annoying the DeVaux daughters, Julian and Makrina, for an evening story. The girls, having been raised on a steady stream of their father’s tales, were more reluctant to join. They preferred to watch a movie, but it was in the den where Tina and Serafina were visiting, so the TV was off limits. The well-worn Cinderella VHS cassette would have to wait for morning. The girls’ disappointment was palpable as they took a seat on their living room floor near the fireplace as Daniel began.

Daniel was a Frenchman by extraction, but his years in California had turned him full native. Over the years he had developed an elaborate mythology about his new home along the shores of the Pacific. Julian and Makrina hadn’t yet developed their father’s enthusiasm for their home. Julian, even at the age of twelve, had acquired much of Daniel’s cultured elegance, but not his eccentricities. She was more inclined to read stories in her own books in dignified solitude than to enjoy her father’s latest yarn. Makrina, at the age of six, was the youngest of the kids when the Brandts and DeVauxs got together. Every bit the spitfire that her mother was, she secretly enjoyed the Brandt boys’ torments, if only for the opportunity to return them in kind.

Malachi and Jacob were true believers in Daniel’s California chronicles that ranged from tales of the first comers who made their way south from the land bridge now submerged beneath the Bering Straits to missionaries and conquistadors to the heart-wrenching sagas of God, greed, and guns in the days after the Gold Rush.

The Brandt boys grew up to the rhythm of a seasonal metronome. Winters were reserved for wrestling – the only competitive sport either of them had any inclination to pursue. When they weren’t wrestling, they were usually tramping around the Escondido hills pining for the days when grizzlies once blazed trails through the chaparral. When they weren’t in the hills, they were spending their summer days on the coast. They grew up ferreting clumps of surf wax, cigarette butts, and seashells from the sands of San Diego’s finest beaches. By the time Malachi had reached junior high, he had convinced Serafina that the best way to get him out of her hair for a while was to let him take his surfboard and ride the bus to the beach. Jacob saw Malachi’s departure on the 308 line to Solana Beach as a cruel injustice. Serafina would not allow him to venture with his older brother until the summer before his seventh-grade year. Nevertheless, Malachi made it a point to include Jacob in as many adventures as he could, and they both found Daniel’s stories as inspiration for new, more compelling boyhood exploits.

As the Brandt boys and the DeVaux girls sat on the living room floor, Malachi let out a howl.

Mak, I swear if you pinch my ear one more time, I will find your Barbies, cut off all their hair and bury them in the backyard where you’ll never find them.

Daniel shot a stern glance in Mak’s direction while she giggled wildly, I couldn’t help it, your ear is so squishy.

Malachi had recently developed cauliflower ear, and his left lobe was already tender and bruised before Mak had assaulted it.

You know, son, said David, you wouldn’t have this problem if you wore your headgear.

Yeah, Dad, I know, retorted Malachi, I do now. But, my ear won’t heal as long as that little gremlin takes so much delight in messing with it.

Daniel cleared his throat, Are we done yet?

Malachi sheepishly replied, Yes, Dr. DeVaux.

Yes, Daddy, said Mak, failing at her meager attempt to express remorse and glancing at Malachi with a look that indicated more mischief to come.

It is said, Daniel continued, "that Southern California has been stretched, pulled, and twisted to her current place along the Pacific. Tectonic forces and fires deep below the earth’s surface have fueled her journey through deep time and long geologic ages. Even now, she is in the process of being torn from the North American continent that gave birth to her to become a bride betrothed to the Pacific, soon to be an island moving north by northwest as time lurches on.

"Towering transverse ranges run from east to west like vertical towers from the Mojave Desert to the Channel Islands, demarcating her from the Central Valley. The Peninsular Range moves from north to south from Palm Springs to where the Baja peninsula plunges into the sea, serving as a backbone that separates the eastern deserts from the more populated inland valleys and coastline. Her western shores are cradled by the waters of the Pacific that gleam with sapphire and emerald and amethyst by day, giving way to gold in the last light of the setting sun, then indigo under the light of the moon. It is the land, the beautiful land that is as wild and diverse as the people that now call her home.

"During the long slow dance between the Pacific and North American plates, the Pacific fell in love with the beautiful lands of America’s sprawling west. Forests and mountains, chaparral, and golden beaches, rocky cliffs, sandy bluffs, and scorching deserts won his heart. But, it was a narrow strip of land that stretched from Mendocino to Cabo San Lucas, constrained by the San Andreas Fault and the western shores that the Pacific loved most. As the ages wore on, the Pacific convinced America to give her lovely daughter California as a bride adorned in resplendent sublimity to the Pacific. His longing for her only increases with time, while America hangs on to her daughter as long as the fires below and the grinding fault lines will allow; time and pressure and the relentless movement of earth’s slow waltz will one day make California the lonely bride of the Pacific.

"But, if you ask me, of all the great beauty that adorns this home of ours, it is her people that are most beautiful. Since the last Ice Age the multitudes have come to California, and have not stopped even now. Nearly every tribe, nation, and tongue in this wide world has come to the shores of the Pacific and called this place home. The grand tectonic drama that has shaped the history of California is eclipsed by the human drama that plays out every day, here and now.

You see, the slow, grand unfolding of the world God created is a wonder indeed. But, there is something far more precious to him: the people who call these lands home. From the sandstone, clay, and granite, humanity has sprung with stories of mysterious magnificence; treasures that will endure long after these lands have passed away. I do not know what significance California will play in human history in the final estimation, but I do believe that there is a destiny for this place and her people that will echo down through the ages.

Malachi and Jacob sat still, all the while being transported within the dimensions of Daniel’s story to a dynamic sense of home that transcended place and gave rise to the deep meaning of the land upon which they live. The land and sea of their home was ancient and mysterious and full of wonders. The call of home was an invitation to discover life’s limitless possibilities. Their adventures pulled them into their California home, and made them part of her unfolding drama. It was, for Malachi, the only home he could remember and for Jacob, the only home he had ever known.

Chapter 2

Tel Aviv, Israel – Hannover, New Hampshire – Beirut, Lebanon

Serafina Cohen was born to an American, Susana Feinberg, and Saul Cohen, a Dutch Jew. Saul, a Holocaust survivor, had seen his faith evaporate in the furnace of Europe’s great catastrophe that claimed the lives of his parents, brothers, and his precious sister. Any fire of belief in God’s purposes in this world were snuffed out with the ashes of Auschwitz and Saul retained his agnosticism throughout the rest of his life. He made his way to America beleaguered and longing for a new life. Shortly after arriving in Brooklyn, Saul met Susana – the daughter of a prominent rabbi. It was no small scandal in the Feinberg family when Susana married an irreligious Jew, having refused engagement to the young rabbi her parents preferred. Saul was an accountant and Susana was completing her PhD in literature from NYU when the couple met and married soon thereafter. The Feinberg’s actively encouraged Saul and Serafina to move to Israel, hoping this might inspire them to a deeper faith. They loved life in Israel, but religious impulse never returned to Saul and Susana. The Cohens emigrated to Tel Aviv, where Saul opened an accounting firm. Susana returned to New York for the birth of Serafina, remaining there with her family for Serafina’s first year, while Saul continued to work to build his firm into one of the most prominent in the region.

Serafina was raised in Tel Aviv’s White City in relative affluence. Susana brought her up to be fiercely independent and passed her love of literature on to her daughter. Serafina’s freedom grew as a young teenager when Susana became a tenured professor at Tel Aviv University, teaching modern literature. Afternoons after school until her parents returned home from work belonged to Serafina, and she took full advantage of city life with a cadre of friends that seemed to grow with Tel Aviv as it developed. Many of her afternoons were spent reading on the sun-drenched shores of the Mediterranean as her friends conjured up whatever trouble could be found along the sandy beaches.

However, Serafina was almost eighteen when the Six Day War had broken out, and the conflict had a profound effect on her as it underscored the tenuous relationship her people had with the land and their neighbors. Her father knew all too well just how fragile the Jews place in the world could be, and the summer of 1967 spelled the end of a world in which she felt secure. In the face of such insecurity, people have one of two choices – shrink away in fear and paralysis, or live with the fear and accept life’s grand adventure with all of its dangers. Serafina chose life and lived with a boldness that enabled her to navigate many dangers throughout her life.

After her military service, Serafina left Tel Aviv to pursue her education in America. She enrolled as an undergrad at Dartmouth, studying literature, much to the pleasure of her mother. Life in a sleepy New England college town like Hanover could not have been more far removed from the near-constant specter of conflict in the Middle East. The rhythmic flow of New Hampshire’s seasons and the relative seclusion of the college created a fertile ground for her mind to grow and expand into new vistas. She didn’t give much thought to the future during those years, preferring to drink in the possibilities of discovery that an education was meant to provide. However, in the fall of her junior year, something quite unexpected happened. She met a man that managed to capture her interests.

Elias El Rassi, a Lebanese national, was the son of a Presbyterian pastor in Beirut. His family were Maronite Christians who had lived in the region for centuries. However, his grandfather had converted as a teen through the efforts of Western missionaries, and had become the first Lebanese pastor of his congregation. In his final year of medical school at Dartmouth he crossed paths with Serafina one night at a frat party. She normally would have avoided these kinds of parties, preferring the comfortable seclusion of her studies, but her girlfriends insisted that she needed to loosen up and enjoy herself for the evening. Elias wasn’t exactly unknown by Dartmouth’s female population. His dark complexion, pale brown eyes, and bright smile made him something more exotic than the typical Anglo-American fare at the college. This afforded him liberties with Dartmouth coeds that he took full advantage of in the way only pastors’ sons do. Naturally, Serafina despised him, holding Elias in the kind of suspicion that only belied attraction.

Elias was taken with her immediately. Her olive skin seemed to glow. The light brown hair that fell to Serafina’s shoulders accentuated an ease of movement that spoke of a deeper grace. Beneath the suspicion that lit her hazel eyes something shone, an invitation he was determined to accept. Midway through the evening, he made his way over to her after several moments of eye contact had already been shared. He approached her with an extra beer in hand and offered it to her as he introduced himself. She hid behind a stern façade when she told him her name, informed him that she already knew who he was, and refused the drink. Elias grinned, undaunted by her apparent lack of interest and proceeded to pour the beer down his throat in one fluid motion, crush the cup, drop it at her feet as he nodded and winked and left without a word. She wouldn’t have told him her name if she wasn’t interested. He knew he had her, and it was only a matter of time. Serafina knew it, too. The game of cat and mouse persisted through the fall, blossoming into romance during the spring semester.

Elias took on his residency in Boston, planning on becoming a trauma surgeon. He and Serafina married after she graduated and he completed his residency. They had plans to establish a life in America, however Elias’ father took ill, so they moved to Beirut. He took a job in the ER of a local hospital, and she worked at the school that was founded by his father’s church. Serafina’s parents were thrilled to have her so close to Tel Aviv, and returning to the region, even though it wasn’t Israel, felt like a homecoming. Living in the salt-filled air of the Mediterranean coast served as a reminder that some piece of her would always belong in the Levant. The fact that she was a Jew and Elias was a Christian didn’t ever occur to her to be much of an issue, since religion was never a crucial part of her upbringing. She enjoyed teaching English at the Presbyterian school, and slowly assimilated into the life of the church. The process of her conversion and baptism seemed to her to be unobtrusive and natural; if Elias’ family were Presbyterians, she would be one as well. She also felt like faith would be a heritage worth passing along to her children since she was raised with none. Neither she, nor Elias were particularly devout Christians, but even then, the seeds of faith were being sown into her.

Life in Beirut erupted into chaos a little over a year after the El Rassis’ arrived to care for Elias’ father. An ugly incident between Palestinian Muslims and Lebanese Christians in the Ain el Rammenah district had descended into violence that sparked decades of conflict. Elias and Serafina moved out of the city limits to Rabieh, one of Beirut’s eastern suburbs, where Christian communities were safer from the sectarian conflict that raged in the heart of the city. Elias took on the role of trauma surgeon and battlefield medic as the conflict unfolded. As danger mounted in the first few months of the war, Elias insisted that Serafina go to her parents in Tel Aviv. She spent most of the second year of their marriage and part of the third away from Elias, with only sporadic contact with him. She would have stayed with him and constantly insisted upon returning. The war zone did not frighten her and it had created incredible needs in their community that she felt a responsibility to. But Elias would have nothing of it; he would not compromise her safety if it was within his power to ensure it.

Serafina was able to return in the months following the establishment of an uneasy peace to find Beirut had been torn apart by the fighting. War had ripped out this jewel of the Mediterranean and crushed it underfoot. The citizens of Beirut carried the hollow stare of war with them wherever they went. Serafina’s responsibilities increased upon her return. Not only was she back teaching, now out of the home of a wealthy patron, but she was also a caretaker to almost a dozen children who had lost parents in the war. As much as she valued the sense that she had useful work to focus upon, it was the intensity of the love and affections she shared with her husband that lit her world. Their love had grown in proportion to the uncertainty brought on by the war. The threat of death loomed over their young marriage as it did over the whole region, but they made their way forward with courage, determined to forge a life together in the face of a world gone mad.

Within a year of her return, the war took another ugly turn. What would become known as the Hundred Days War began in earnest in February. Elias was called in to serve as a medic in Beirut near the Green Line that ran north to south along Damascus Street, which demarcated eastern Beirut, held by Christian forces, and the west, held by Islamic ADF forces. He was desperate to get Serafina out to her parents in Tel Aviv, but it took him to the end of March to secure passage on a boat out of Beirut’s harbor south to Tel Aviv. There was a finality that loomed over the parting on the night before she left.

I do not want to leave you again Elias, said Serafina, Besides, what about my students and the children I am taking care of?

It is far too dangerous for you to stay, he answered, I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. You must take the ship tomorrow to Tel Aviv, and stay until it is safe.

Why don’t you come with me?

Elias answered, I cannot leave my people. Besides, there have been many wounded, and there will be more. I am one of the few Christian doctors left in the region and they need me.

They are my people, too, she protested, I am tied to them just like I am to you.

I know, said Elias as he held his hand up to her cheek to catch the tears streaming down her eyes, But for me, for our love, I am asking you to go. I cannot lose you.

What if I loose you? Have you thought about that?

Of course I have. But, should that day come, I know you will be able to carry on and forge a new life. I fell in love with you because you are strong and free.

Not because you thought I was pretty? she said, smiling through her tears.

Well, he said lifting her chin and kissing her lips softly, then pulling back and giving her the same wink that won her years ago, That too, I suppose.

Serafina held Elias in an embrace that lasted through the night. They filled themselves with each other’s love as they held on to the hope of a future together that was dimmed by the fog of war. In the morning before dawn, he drove her through the streets of Beirut, past military checkpoints, to the harbor where she would sail to Tel Aviv. Before parting, he held her close and kissed the top of her head as she wept on his chest. There was a tender fury in his arms that stoked the fire that already burned inside of her, and the warmth of that embrace never left her.

Dr. El Rassi, gruffed the general of the militia, What is a Muslim doing in a Christian med station?

Bleeding, sir.

I can see that, said the general with a mixture of exasperation and fury, But, why is he here?

Because he is dying, and I am a doctor.

But, he is Muslim and this is a Christian med station.

Elias answered with a sharp question, What color is his blood?

That is beside the point, answered the general, as he pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at the Muslim man bleeding on the cot, We will not give aid to our enemies, not while I am in command.

Elias responded by reaching behind his back for his pistol and aimed it directly between the general’s eyes, You have a choice General. Either no one dies here, or you both do. Make your choice quickly. As you can see, I am very busy.

The general lowered his weapon, and turned to walk away.

He made only a few strides toward the door when Elias said, And never again will you tell me who I can and cannot treat in my med station. You are a soldier and your job is to take life, this I understand. But understand, I am a doctor and my job is to save life. It matters little to me whether it is a Muslim life or a Christian life; if they are under my care, I will do all I can to save them.

The general stormed out of the med station. Elias tended to the Muslim’s wounds, as he did for the dozens of wounded that poured into his station over the next several days. There was a silent understanding that he would not be crossed, and that whoever came to his station would receive treatment.

A week later, Elias was out on the Green Line pulling a wounded combatant to safety when he caught a bullet in the neck that severed his spinal cord. He was killed instantly. The bullet was shot from the east, not the west, and the pattern of his blood sprayed on Damascus Street bore silent witness to the stern warning to any Christian who would cooperate with the enemy. No words were ever spoken surrounding the circumstances of his death, but the fighters along the Green Line heard the message loud and clear.

The weeks following Elias’ death were filled with a vacuous, ever-present ache while Serafina waited for the chance to go back to Beirut to visit her husband’s grave. She could not return before his funeral, and could not pay her last respects before his body was returned to the earth. The conflict continued to rage as April waned into May, and safe passage into Lebanon was still weeks away. Grief washed over her in successive waves, penetrating the empty spaces inside her, sounding and resounding in painful echoes. Elias’s love was her home, a refuge in the uncertain world, a light now swallowed by darkness. All that remained now were the haunting shadows of memory that crept slowly over that vacant space. Days before Elias died she discovered she was pregnant with his child. She decided not to call him with the news right away so that she could share the joy of the pregnancy with him in person. Sorrow pierced her pregnancy; even the happy anticipation of a firstborn child was mingled with bitterness.

She returned to Beirut in June, after the Hundred Days’ War concluded in yet another tenuous peace, and paid her respects to her fallen husband. She stayed five months with Elias’ family mourning the loss with them and tending again to the children that had become refugees of war. Having some work to direct her efforts toward kept the insane moments of rage and grief at bay. The news that Serafina bore his child in her belly, a son, while she remained in Beirut, was the singular consolation in the whole tragedy. The brilliant and all too brief life of Elias would live on in his son, a child of great destiny, Elias’ family was convinced.

During her days in Beirut, Serafina planned on sharing the name of her son with Elias’ loved ones. Her plan was to name the boy after his father. She shared her intentions with Elias’ aging parents. However, her father-in-law suggested a different name; one that he felt would honor his son and speak to the destiny that he sensed upon the boy.

Malachi, the aging pastor said, Malachi should be his name.

Why not Elias, like his father? asked Serafina.

Malachi spoke of Elias’ return before the coming of the Lord. In this son, Elias will return. Every time you look in his eyes, you will see his father, and remember the man, his goodness, long after the pain of his death has passed. He is your messenger of memory and a future hope. I do not know what purposes God holds for my grandson, but even now, I sense a greatness in him; not only his father’s greatness, but a greatness wholly other, something that is his alone.

Malachi Elias is his name, said Serafina as her father-in-law’s words struck a previously unknown chord within her, What destiny lies before him is for God to reveal.

Serafina returned to her parents’ home in Tel Aviv. On a stormy night in January, Malachi was born. For Serafina, Malachi’s birth stood as the nexus of the past year’s sorrows and the future promise as she forged a new life with her son. She remained in Tel Aviv for eighteen months after Malachi’s birth, much to the delight of Saul and Susana. As Malachi grew past infancy, his personality began to emerge. Even as he became a toddler, he displayed an expansiveness, living with a carefree tenacity, full of his mother’s fire and his father’s fearlessness. Restlessness grew in Serafina, as much as her parents wished her to stay and raise Malachi, she felt a pull back to America. Serafina began a master’s program at the Tel Aviv University in humanities, but she felt uncomfortably confined in her parents’ home. She looked for schools in America that would accept transfer credits that she already completed. With Saul and Susana’s reluctant blessing and financial support, she decided to return to school to complete a master’s in English. Longing for somewhere far beyond the griefs that lingered in the Levant, she decided on a program at UCLA and in the fall, before Malachi turned two, she left for Westwood with a year left to complete her degree.

Chapter 3

Escondido – Los Angeles, California

The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Dawn clasped his hand in hers as life drained from her body as if to blunt the inevitable blow. The automobile accident caused too much trauma to her internal organs; all the doctors could do now was keep her comfortable before she slipped away into the night. David, normally stoic, trembled as tears that had not stained his cheeks since boyhood poured from limitless fountains of anguish. They flowed unabated off of his face and onto her hand as he raised it to his lips. There was a tranquil resignation in her eyes that terrified him as she reached out with her gaze to comfort him. A gentle smile curled at the edges of her mouth as she struggled for the strength to ease the pain she knew awaited David.

You have to let me go David. I’m going home.

He knew he could not and might not ever. His childhood friend, high school sweetheart, his wife, was slipping away and taking his world with her.

David…

As she drew her final breath, David rose to kiss her forehead and brush back her blonde curls and said, I love you, one last time.

Darkness descended on him as the light in her eyes ran out. He would carry the shadow of Dawn’s passing his whole life. Regardless of how much he threw himself into the work of the ministry and the congregational life of Bethel Presbyterian, Rev. David Brandt was alone.

It had been two years since Dawn died, and David’s friends seemed eager, if not nervous, to see him married again. David had no such anxieties; loneliness was a garment he wore well. But, nothing makes a group of Protestants more nervous than a single pastor. He had a measure of success in rebuffing their sincere efforts to set him up with friends, friends of friends, and relatives, even the occasional visitor who wandered in. This all