Alas, a stir in the world has attracted attention to certain prophecies of the nearly obscure Pilgrims Temple of the Third Heaven, their principal shrine newly ensconced in the Museum of American Art in Washington, DC (the Throne of the Third Heaven, a real world artifact on display in DC). The Pilgrims, an African-American sect, approach the fraught millenium, and their annual December Camp Meeting on Savannah River in deep Georgia. Pilgrims Temple Sisters Albert and Gwendolyn, the latter in bridal array, set-out by train for Savannah as their stories, and those of the Temple, unfold from the 1860's to the age of Rap. Forces in the air herald a coming conflict, including murders of young street dealers in drugs. DC Detective Weems tracks his suspect from the nation's capital, to Pilgrims Temple, Memphis, and ultimately to the Temple ceremonies of the Chosen on the banks of Savannah River. His principal suspect is an Elder of the Temple of the Third Heaven, retired New Orleans police official Gabriel Watson, who might be engaged in a vendetta against street toughs because of their involvement in the death of his Temple mentor. Watson and former Memphis Detective Dub Jenkins both knew this Memphis victim and share information. Sister Albert has delivered her new friend Gwendolyn from the clutches of despair. Gwendolyn is chosen to represent their DC Temple at the annual ceremonies in which select women of the church become Brides of the church similar to Catholic nuns. Sister Albert is slowly growing into "mystic" powers that occasionally uncover themselves as they grow stronger for the coming fight between the forces of worldly humanity and the restraining demons of perdition. Sister Bert becomes intrumental in this confrontation. The narrative follows all these characters and others whom fate draws into the tasks focused on the Savannah Camp Meeting, and prophecies of Revelations along with the Temple's wholly original Book of the New Millenium. All come to see slowly materializing demons representative of the forces which must be fought. That combat grows out of the ceremonies of the Camp Meeting. Our Lieutenant Detective Weems is unknowingly drawn into the confrontation of forces, but ultimately identifies the killer in the scrum of ceremonial preparations on the banks of Savannah River.
About the Author: R. T. Streide Fabulist, preacher, raconteur, or just a neighbor on the stoop with something to say, this is R. T. "Artie" Streide. But there is something more which can't be defined; or, perhaps, you will be able to. On a warm evening in the mid-1970's, a vacationing journalist was taking a late stroll on the tiny Caribbean island from which Artie's parents migrated, just before the first World War. He wished to listen contentedly as the surf pounded nearby rocks. He passed the last of the small neat homes bordering the ocean near that spot, and he came upon an old man slowly advancing down the path toward the same patch of beach with the help of a long walking stick. The jounalist slowed and spoke. Artie spoke back. Before either of them knew what happened they were talking politely of the weather. Artie said his walking stick could tell him if it was going to rain. The journalist was taken with this variation on older folk speaking of aching bones if change was coming in the weather. The journalist talked of his grandmother, and his home town in the American south. Artie looked curiously into the sky and spoke of time he spent in the south - of a black sharecropper accused of using voodoo to dry-up a neighbor's farm. The journalist was transfixed by the atmosphere of the old south palpable in Artie's tale. The journalist returned to the Caribbean year after year. On his third visit he asked if Artie's stories were written down anywhere. Artie raised himself slowly on his stick and went through the screen door of his modest home. There was some rustling around. When the rustling ceased, Artie emerged carrying a thick folder of papers - legal-sized yellow sheets printed in a meticulous hand. Some of the papers were records of real life over the years. Other papers clearly were stories Artie wrote, whether out of the storyteller's need, or out of the frustration of life gone wrong. But here were Artie's stories offering the reader unbound laughter; depthless grief; tales of life and dreams and some nightmares cast in transparent darkness. The freedom of Artie's stories is not the only freedom Artie imparts. Artie makes you care about how life is lived, how we think about vulnerable people, what work can come from using even the smallest skill in the greatest faith. Listen to the tone of his strong, gentle voice. You'll be able to tell that he cares. For this we can only thank him, for his stories are the human difference.