Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Gods Among Us
    Gods Among Us
    Gods Among Us
    Ebook220 pages3 hours

    Gods Among Us

    By Cameron Glenn

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Young Adults Chris, Heather and TIm encounter a New Age guru who speaks of a young girl, Cassandra, who hold the fate of human civilization.

    They talk of philosophy, religion, and politics as they eat pizza and drive Cassandra to the desert.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCameron Glenn
    Release dateApr 3, 2018
    ISBN9781370632541
    Gods Among Us
    Author

    Cameron Glenn

    Cameron Glenn grew up the third of seven children in Oregon. As a child he dedicated hours to the pursuits of basketball and cartooning, as well as waking up way too early for his paper route in order to earn money to buy toys, candy and comic books. He also loved to read and write, which he continues to do voraciously. He currently lives in Salt Lake City after having earned a BA in literature from Boise State.

    Read more from Cameron Glenn

    Related to Gods Among Us

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      HOW TO Change Your Life

      Aug 11, 2022

      HOW TO Change Your Life
      4 min read

    • Article

      (Don’t) Play Again

      Feb 10, 2024

      Call me God, if you so wish, though I doubt such a thing exists. From your point of view, I might as well be one, as I have had to watch you time and time again behave exactly like you said you wouldn’t. But let’s go back, shall we? From your first l

      12 min read

    • Article

      This is The End

      Feb 21, 2020

      This is The End
      6 min read

    • Article

      Acid or Shrooms?

      Sep 20, 2022

      Acid or Shrooms?
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Mother’s Nature

      Oct 17, 2023

      A Mother’s Nature
      11 min read

    • Article

      Lindsay Hunter Is Redrawing the Boundaries of Crime Fiction

      Jan 18, 2024

      "I believe in breaks, in fallow periods, in getting one’s bearings. But reading is my constant. I feel bereft in those brief moments between books." The post Lindsay Hunter Is Redrawing the Boundaries of Crime Fiction appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Counter Culture

      Sep 16, 2021

      Counter Culture
      3 min read

    • Article

      Adam Kay

      Dec 4, 2023

      Adam Kay
      5 min read

    • Article

      Make Life More Meaningful

      Mar 17, 2023

      Make Life More Meaningful
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Final Truth

      Jan 21, 2020

      The Final Truth
      5 min read

    • Article

      Screw Wisdom

      May 16, 2017

      Screw Wisdom
      8 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Mar 25, 2024

      Books
      5 min read

    • Article

      Kat Taylor Is A Rebel Banker

      May 2, 2019

      Kat Taylor Is A Rebel Banker
      23 min read

    • Article

      In Witchcraft There Are No Spectators: The Millions Interviews Amanda Yates Garcia

      Nov 15, 2019

      I don’t believe we should be grateful for adversity. But we can be grateful to ourselves for the strength we find to make it out of the underworld alive. The post In Witchcraft There Are No Spectators: The Millions Interviews Amanda Yates Garcia appe

      7 min read

    • Article

      Counter Culture

      Jan 15, 2023

      Counter Culture
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Incurable Optimist

      Sep 11, 2019

      The Incurable Optimist
      8 min read

    • Article

      Beyond The Binary

      May 24, 2023

      Beyond The Binary
      5 min read

    • Article

      Finding The Words

      Jun 3, 2023

      Finding The Words
      5 min read

    • Article

      Always Different, Always the Same

      Feb 22, 2022

      The superb science journalist Sharon Begley, who wrote a regular column for Mindful until her untimely death in early 2021, was fond of studies of personality: the different types, how much they’re influenced by our environment and our relationships,

      9 min read

    • Article

      GOING TO THE edge

      Sep 3, 2020

      GOING TO THE edge
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Gods Among Us

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Gods Among Us - Cameron Glenn

      198

      Gods Among Us

      By Cameron Glenn

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2018 Cameron Glenn

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      God’s Among Us

      Chapter One

      Chris

      At twenty two my girlfriend Heather dyed her hair pink. She saw on Instagram that some model-actress had done so and she liked the look and wanted to try it. I teased her that she was going through a mid-mid life crisis and reminded her that the model-actress probably really hadn’t dyed her hair pink but was wearing a wig to play a part for a photo shoot.

      Well you wanted a manic pixie dream girl, right, she had responded. Rather than argue I laughed and told her it looked cute and sexy. Of course I love it.

      She gave me that that’s awfully close to saying you love me playful look.

      She ran her fingers through her newly fuchsia hair cropped just below her petite shoulders. What’s real anyways? Like, nothing is real. That’s the point. I’m making a statement. I mean, everything’s a statement, right; even not making a statement is making a statement, in fashion, in, just, life.

      I told her that I had heard big hair changes portend big life changes or disruptions; new starts or wanting of new starts; something refreshing, movement out of boring, old, and stale. She had responded by playfully punching my shoulder.

      I wondered if twenty two was too old for pink hair or just the right age. I loved her habit of pushing down on her lower lip with her thumb.

      It was around this time she took me to meet James Light. She described him as this cool hipster type guru dude with interesting insights. No way would I have gone except I loved her.

      Next step from pink hair is joining some quirky cult. Maybe next step after that is carving potato dolls you then throw in a deep fryer and film and post on YouTube for art’s sake. It gets ten views and five disparaging comments.

      She’ll look back on those videos wistfully; how fun it had been to be allowed such meaningless frivolity. How funny how meaningless frivolity had felt so impactful, meaningful and important.

      We first met James Light at a Wendy’s corner round table. I and my friend Tim who I suspected had a crush on Heather were the newbie’s. Heather had met James twice before. She refused to tell me how or why she met James which didn’t bother me; I also enjoyed my personal space and secrets.

      James looked like a bohemian movie Jesus. Lean, robust tan, handsome, blue eyes, long hair, trimmed beard. He wore thick glasses. He had a bird tattoo over his wrist. The thoughts and questions swirled: Does he purposefully make himself look like Jesus or did him looking Hollywood Jesus-y compel himself to try and be Jesus-like (however he interprets it)? I thought of people choosing professions that match their names, such as a grocery store meat manager with the name Brad Slaughter or a fitness trainer being named Sally Moore Payne, in connection with this guy named James Light deciding to be a religious mystical sage (how well or effective of one yet to be determined). Just how much under his spell is Heather and should I be concerned about his persuasion over her and her sanity, concerned about losing her to him?

      He stood and greeted Heather with a peck on her cheek which she leaned into and welcomed. She introduced us. Three others were already with him; a mid-twenties looking fit but scrawny dude wearing a red baseball cap, a scribe constantly typing into his iPad and an older attractive lady with grey dreads. We brought over another smaller round table and stool chairs.

      The Wendy’s server brought over two treys of chocolate cookies, empty cups, Frosties, chicken nuggets, fries and various dipping sauces. Wendy’s doesn’t have servers; you pick up your order at the counter usually. The hit empty but catchy bubble gum pop song from five or six summers ago Call Me Maybe, played out the speakers. I’d become sick of the song yet mildly enjoyed it, having not heard it in a long time.

      James and his friends coated the tables in napkins and handed out cups, cookies, Frosties and dipping sauces. He then took the treys of chicken nuggets and dumped them on the table. Astonishingly, once they were all spread on the table, there looked to be twice as many as there had been on the trey; fifty or so rather than twenty five. Claps and laughs from Heather and James friends greeted this magic trick.

      I nodded. So you’re a magician.

      He winked and smiled at me.

      Chow down while I sermonize, he instructed.

      **

      "You are nothing and you are everything. There is distress and comfort in this fact; relief and depression; nothing and everything.

      You want the truth? Here it is. You are god. God is nothing and god is all. You are god and so is that tree you’re looking at out the window, that chicken nugget you’re eating, that child playing with the Barbie in the booth next to you. The people you read about online. They are all god. The people in India, the people in China, the people in England, the people in America, the people in Africa, the people in Brazil. The stars in the galaxies and the dust mites you breathe in.

      Just like you, like me, like all of us, god is all knowing and god is ignorant. Let me explain. All you know of the universe is within you. It is within each of us. How else could it be? Think of it as thus: God is the source of all light. Each living thing is a crystal which absorbs and bends the light. Each crystal is a universe unto itself yet also each crystal is one with all the crystals which share and absorb the same light.

      God is nature and nature cares not. Yet we are nature and we decide to care and so nature cares and god cares. Do you see? It is our consciousness which interprets nature and forms morals and codes. And what is the overriding moral code bestowed on all the religions and ethics man has created? Treat others as you would want to be treated. And why is that?

      Your neighbor is yourself. Their future is your future, literally. Let me explain further.

      First there is this: believe in science. Believe in evidence, facts, reason and discovery. Love truth and facts.

      The Big Bang is this: expansion and contraction. Breathe in and breathe out. That is the Big Bang in micro form. It is the cycle mirrored by the death and rebirth of seasons; the death and birth of life.

      We all come from the same one seed.

      Evolution is real. Do not deny the science. We are formed from that nature, intertwined with it, one with it. Created by and from god to be one with god as all nature is. For god is nature.

      So listen and behold for this is the truth: let those who hear, hear, those who understand, understand: In the beginning there was one. We were in that one. We still are. From this one spread all that is. Us. Everything you know and don’t know. Your neighbor, your television, your computer, your favorite park, your friends, your family, everything you love and hate; all of nature, all the stars, all the galaxies, all the dust and sand grains. The galaxies are further expanding out, even now, stretching further apart at increasing speeds, still thrust from the energy of that first explosion which begat all creation. The scientific evidence compels this truth.

      Everyone go like this: take your hand. Stretch your fingers out and then ball them back into a fist. Repeat. This reminds you of the pumping of a heart, does it not? It is also the cycle of the universe. It is the cycles of repetitions of expansions and contractions.

      The galaxies will spread; the stars will cool, and reach their limits. Then they will be pulled back until once more all is contained into a tiny point. Then it will explode again. Breathe in and out.

      This happens in eons of time beyond our grasp to comprehend. Yet time is just a human construction. To the universe this is as a single breath, in and out.

      And what of us, you ask? What of our eternal souls? Know this: truth does not seek to comfort or distress; truth has no agenda; it simply is. The answer to this is the same as what I said at the start, same as it always was and always will be: you are nothing and you are everything.

      Self identity is transient and temporary, yet it is constant for it is all we know in the moment, and it is only in the moment where our consciousness lies and how we truly exist and comprehend.

      It is not yet proven by science, and may never be, but this is a truth installed in us even in our first evolutionary acceptance of self identity: our souls live on after our bodies die. Just as winter is temporary so is death; yet just as each new summer differs in various slight ways each year, so does new life.

      Our souls are resurrected, or reincarnated, into new flesh. Understand this: the pleasures of flesh are a blessing. It is more desirable to be in flesh then out of flesh. The cycle continues. So do you see the reason why I said the future of our neighbor is our own future? Do you see why I say treating others as you would want to be treated comes from the literal truth that we are all one? We all came from the same source; we are all one. To quote Martin Luther King: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Many of you have felt this truth of oneness through meditation and can testify to it.

      Think on this: a single garment of destiny. Just as fish born into water do not know they are wet, the societies we are born into, the societies and cultures we create and bestow on future generations, of which we will be included in, are cloaked over us at birth, against our will and complete comprehension.

      As difficult as it is to accept, if our same souls had been born in white bodies during the slavery institution of the Antebellum South, we would most likely have been racist pro slavery and committed horrible acts and thought horrible immoral thoughts because of this. If you were born into a culture that worshiped corrupt and stupid greedy kings, you would have been taught to worship corrupt greedy kings, beaten, metaphorically and literally, until you also not only call them benevolent and wise, but fervently believe such falsehoods, as if the fate of torture or comfort of your eternal soul depended on this belief.

      You would have obeyed, both from fear of the consequences of disobeying, and to fit within the society and culture at large, in seeking a life of comforts. We would have taught our children to worship corrupt kings, from various fears stemming from the want of our children to have comfortable lives, pride keeping ourselves from admitting wrongs, and by being swept up in the current which compels us, to which it is difficult to swim against. And yet worshiping corrupt and stupid greedy kings and their lineage forever is wrong and evil; slavery is wrong and evil. The evil institutions remain until they are toppled and replaced with something fairer. This is true of systematic society’s abuses at large and also within us individually; the echoes of darkness and ignorance ring throughout generations until they are stopped and replaced with something fairer, truer, and nobler. The Revolutionary War brought about the end to the worship of the linage of corrupt greedy kings and brought forth this radical truth: ‘all men are created equal’; The Civil War ended American slavery and begun to put into motion the manifestation of that truth.

      Our past is our future.

      If heaven is to exist it must be built and maintained by us on earth while alive on earth; a world and system of fairness, justice, equality, kindness, love; one free of oppressions of mind and body. The advancement of medicine, curing the pains and aches and diseases of the flesh and mind, biologically, the evolution of technology and discovery in order to make a more comfortable, pleasant and enjoyable life for all; the ceasing of hostilities and abuses on others as to halt the ringing echo’s of evil and hate from spreading, geographically and through generations; to help in the coming of a heaven on earth; this is all of our collected great endeavor and purpose; our reason for being. Our children’s children are after all ourselves; the world we build for them is one we build for ourselves, as we are all one. We may succeed or we may not.

      Let those that understand, understand, those that hear, let them hear.

      **

      A scowling face red with anger belonging to an older man wearing a green sweater marched to the round table in the corner of the Wendy’s where James held court. A Selena Gomez song in rotation on the Wendy’s dining area playlist chimed: I try and I try and I try and I try. I can take it no longer! he yelled, spittle droplets leaping onto our nuggets and sauces. I’ve been overhearing this gobbly-gook nonsense the whole time and in all my seventy two years of life have never before been witness to such blasphemous evil! My god compels me to take no more and to condemn the lot of all of ya’all to the eternal pits of hell!

      He glanced over us, his wrinkled face tightened with a muscle twitch by his right eye. Have you insane collectivists ever heard of Ayn Rand? I’ve got a philosophy for your, ‘all is one’ bull-hooky; try this on for size; hard work and talent should be rewarded, laziness and sloth and stupidity should be punished; that’s the system our founders created which have built this great nation you hate and created all this wealth, and that’s one I intend to belong to! You don’t like it you can go out to communist Russia or Cuba! To hell with you!

      Heather rubbed the back of her neck. Uh, Ayn Rand was an atheist.

      And a smart one who knew about economics, unlike the lot of you all godless devils! the man shot back. Typical liberals, you just want everything for free without having to work for it! Listen here’s one hell of a truth I’ll bestow on you all; you sure as hell are not me and I sure as hell am not you, that I can tell you! No matter the Big Bang or what the so called false science of the devil and fake news tells you! He then mumbled we are all one, and then barked Nonsense! True nonsense! Are ya’all rehearsing for some play or something; that’s the only sense I can come to how anyone could spout such nonsense. I’ve had enough of these satanic lies being spewed here today! Why what did I hear you say; pleasures of the flesh are a blessing? Are you all in some orgy drug cult or whatnot? Are you all followers of Charles Manson? You need Jesus in your lives!

      He pointed at James. "And this one here! Does he fancy himself some kind of prophet or what? A bad and false one at

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1