Instead she found herself in the most marvelous sitting room she had ever seen. She had spent much of her life in little rooms waiting to see someone or to be seen by someone. She felt she was a good judge of sitting rooms. So, in her judgment, this was the best sitting room she had ever waited in.

And she waited and waited like she used to do when she was a little girl. Waiting and waiting to see someone who obviously wanted to see her. Just as she was wondering if maybe she was actually in Hell and it was her Hell to wait, the First Person of the Trinity entered the sitting room. Elizabeth had no doubt who it was–God the Father. He greeted Elizabeth warmly with a hug. Elizabeth had not received affection easily when she was alive, but this hug warmed her inside and out. God the Father sat in a chair beside her. He was regally dressed like her father, King Henry VIII, had dressed. She asked God the Father how her real father was. The First Person of the Trinity whirled a circle of light out of the air and bounced it to Elizabeth, and a vision came to her.

She saw her father–the old tyrant king–sleeping in a drunken stupor, lying in the sweat pouring from his fat body. Elizabeth asked God the Father, “Where is this place?” God the Father answered, “He has fallen under the load of carrying his soul up the old winding Purgatory Road.”

Pergatory Road 1 At this point, the multi-colored feathers on the collar of God the Father’s rich coat made a squawking noise. The feathers belonged to a parrot who said, “Actually he hasn’t done too badly. He’s halfway up the Fourth Path.” The parrot flew to her and whispered, “I am the Holy Spirit.” Then he whistled softly in her ear and without a word, Elizabeth knew what God the Father and the Holy Spirit wanted her to do.

Because of her experience with human beings, they wanted her to tour the living conditions in Purgatory. Because of the many variations of human behavior and numerous degrees of sin, the societal structure in Purgatory was getting complicated. They wanted Elizabeth to recommend what they should do to improve the out-of-date structure of Purgatory. The Father told her, “What is needed is Justice.”

When he said this, Elizabeth realized that these two Persons of the Trinity loved her deeply and wanted her to be their partner to find better ways to give everyone justice in Purgatory. She felt a pride and a happiness unlike any she had known. She was surprised by the respect these two persons of God felt for her. God the Father held a mirror up to her and for a brief second, she saw herself as God saw her, and she was very beautiful indeed.

“That’s all she can handle right now,” said the Parrot. God the Father and the mirror disappeared. The Holy Spirit continued, “You will make your journey with two other people whom we have chosen to be your partners. Do you agree to help us in this new creation?”

Elizabeth stood up and curtsied as if she were a little girl accepting a gift, as she replied, “I am honored by your request and I will do my best.” Feeling somewhat silly bowing to a parrot, she lost her confidence for a moment and asked, “How can this be? Why me?”

The Holy Parrot laughed, “Everything is possible with God. It’s an old line, but a good one. Anyway, we owe you so much. You paid for all those productions of new plays by Shakespeare.” Then the Holy Spirit whisked his tail of many colors and in a blink Elizabeth was standing alone in a blue space.

The corner of the blue space opened like a page. On the next page, she saw in a distance a beautiful man who appeared to be God the Son. She wanted to run to him, but she couldn’t, because behind him stood her cousin Mary, once the Queen of Scotland. Elizabeth was not ready to see her yet. She just stood there in the blue space until the Son waved at her. Then he sent a young girl out to talk to her.

Elizabeth bowed her head because she knew a saint when she saw one. The little girl said, “Elizabeth, I am so glad to be working with you. I’m Catherine of Siena. Before we go to Purgatory, we have to return to Earth.” At this, the blue space turned into a circling funnel twirling Elizabeth and Catherine until they found themselves on a cliff overlooking an ocean. In the distance a man was waving a stick and shouting orders at trees. Catherine said, “That man is Napoleon, once Emperor of France, and this is the Island of St. Helena.”

The island began to shake. Dante pointed to the waters of the Atlantic. Out of the waters rose Lucifer shaped like a man with great bat wings. He was completely made of ice. The sun’s light reflected on Lucifer’s icy form making him as brilliant as he might have been when he was Lord of Light before he led his rebel angels into Hell. His brightness did not diminish his coldness, and the cold surrounding Elizabeth reminded her of the loneliness she had felt when she was alive on Earth.

Pergatory Road 2Catherine, unaffected by the chilling satanic presence, greeted Lucifer, “Why have you come to this island?” Satan coldly replied, “I am here to claim the soul of Napoleon.”

At this moment, Napoleon’s soul left his body. His soul was an ever-changing mercurial presence, but looked like the figure of a man in his twenties standing above the body of Napoleon. Catherine herself stood between this emerging soul and Lucifer. She looked Lucifer right in the eyes and declared thatshehad come to claim Napoleon’s soul in the name of the Trinity. Lucifer laughed and his laugher hung suspended in the air as ice. He turned his attention to Queen Elizabeth.

“I have no claim on you, my virgin Queen,” he said to Elizabeth,”and I have always admired your sensibilities about justice.” Elizabeth thought she had heard this voice and these words many times before. She nodded for him to continue. “I have been misrepresented to the people of Earth.” He waved his icy hand and a painting appeared to tell Lucifer’s side of the story.

The painting showed Lucifer standing before the Trinity arguing an important point. The Trinity hovered in a glowing triangular shape above the head of a sleeping man and woman. In the painting scene Lucifer was objecting to what the Trinity was about to do. “If these human animals were to be given the freedom of accepting God’s love, then the balance of the great work of God and the angels would be lost. Had not the Trinity and the angels shared in building a physical universe in unity and order that stretched from the smallest particle of the smallest part to the expanding vastness of the largest galaxies?”

For a moment Elizabeth lost her sense of standing over the body of Napoleon. She was caught in Lucifer’s words as he described the brilliant creation of a universe more complex, yet subtle and simple. Lucifer’s words rang with a lucidity. He questioned the Trinity on their sincerity in telling the angels they were partners in this plan. Now because of a whimsical idea of the Holy Spirit, an insignificant part of that vast creation was going to be made free and equal partners, too.

Lucifer pointed to the sleeping figures. This man and this woman and the others that would follow were not worthy of this power. They would fail in their freedom and the universe would fall away from its order. They would make wrong choices that would become compounded until nothing would be right, until there would be no justice. God the Father, speaking for the Three, declared, “All the plans of the Trinity always leads to justice and to love.”

Lucifer responded, “You and I are always free to disagree.”

Quickly the images in the living painting showed the rest of the story of the rebellion. Lucifer spread the news of the Trinity’s decision to give freedom to a remote species in a far-flung planet of the physical universe. Many angels agreed with Lucifer and could not understand how this decision of the Trinity could result in any justice or peace. They joined with Lucifer and complained loudly until the other angels asked them to leave Heaven and the presence of God. At this point the living painting shrunk until it was small enough to fit in Lucifer’s hand.

Elizabeth reached out to touch Catherine’s shoulder. She knew Lucifer was trying to throw her equilibrium off and she felt Catherine’s solid strength steadying her as she responded, “It is a very compelling story and you’ve obviously learned to tell it well.”

This response seemed to annoy Lucifer, who asked, “Don’t you agree that human history has proven me right? Isn’t life on Earth filled with disorder and injustice? You know that to be true.”

The Queen felt like her old self in command of the moment as she snapped at Lucifer. “My experience with you, sir, is that this was a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Lucifer dismissed Elizabeth with a scoffing laugh and turned his attention back to Catherine and Napoleon. In a commanding voice he stated, “By all standards, Napoleon’s actions has earned him damnation. At least in Hell, we can attempt to distribute a fitting justice where every punishment fits every crime. If you don’t believe that, ask the poet here.” He pointed at Dante, who became flustered by Lucifer’s bold assumption of his supposed support. “Oh, well, um, that’s true up to a point in a very limited structure,” Dante said. “But it isn’t actually holding up very well. Human choices have become more complicated. Of course, Hell is very organized and a form of unerring, unremitting justice was being handed out. But it, too, is dependent on a certain amount of human acceptance, and I’ve noticed a great deal of discontent the last time I was there.”

This was not what Lucifer wanted to hear. He silenced the poet by bellowing, “I have at least five unquestionable reasons why Napoleon belongs in Hell.” Then Catherine asserted in a strong, but gentle, voice, “I’ve got one irrevocable reason why that isn’t true. The Trinity has decided that Napoleon can enter Heaven once he has walked the Purgatory Road.”

Lucifer laughed his iciest laugh, the one that suggests he had planned things to work out just this way. “If that is God’s judgment on Napoleon, so be it. In justice, however, I will allow everyone out of Hell who has equal or less reason than Napoleon to be there.” At this he rose above the island like an icy meteor and then plunged into the ocean, shaking the island with great force.

“Something terrible is about to happen,” said Dante. At this a great gulf appeared in the Ocean revealing the entrance to Hell. The voice of Lucifer reverberated from the deep icy depths of Hell shaking the old gate of relinquished hope.

“Go, go, find your own justice,” yelled Lucifer, sounding almost petulant. With one last “Go!” his voice shook the old gate off its foundation, causing it to shatter into many pieces. Winking at Elizabeth, Catherine said, “Just another self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Catherine reflected on the scene. “Life in Hell. Look at them trampling each other to escape, pulling and fighting with each other, each soul only worried about itself. They don’t even know where they are going.”

Dante pointed to the high edge of the ocean wall, “Look, the Holy Spirit,” he cried as a bright shimmering light filled the sky above them.

“Bright power with intelligence and personality,” said Elizabeth as she looked the shimmering light.

Pergatory Road 3 “Reminds me of the Aurora Borealis in the northern skies,” said Napoleon. “I always took it as an omen of momentous time ahead.” He ran to the edge of the island, the chasm to hell below him and the wall of water above him. Elizabeth and Catherine both followed and grabbed his arms to hold him back.

“So who has made you my keepers?” inquired an annoyed Napoleon, sounding like an arrogant adolescent. He turned and glared at the two women.

Elizabeth, recognizing the eyes of the Holy Spirit in the shimmering light, pointed up to it and replied, “God has.”

The eyes of the shimmering light suddenly were before the two women and Napoleon. One eye winked and the voice of the Holy Spirit said, “Mind your manners, boy. These two women can handle you.”

Napoleon was shocked by this encounter. He looked suspiciously at the two women and could not look the Holy Spirit straight in the eyes. Dante ran up in front of Napoleon and asked the Spirit, “What is going to happen?”

“Things change,” said the Holy Spirit and his voice seemed to be filled with a delighted laughter. Then the shimmering light began to move back to the top of the waters. The mob of torrented souls escaping Hell had now noticed the light. The first line of escaping souls stood frozen, while others continued to push out of Hell causing a massive pile up of figures.

“But what of Hell, what of justice?” Dante cried to the holy light now high above the plain, the island and the ocean.

“There will always be a Hell and those who choose will always dwell there. But now it is time for a transformation.” A shining giant hand came from the light and lifted up Dante. The Spirit’s voice continued, “Come with me and I shall explain it to you.” Dante seemed overjoyed as the hand pulled him into the shimmering light.

“But what of us?” said Catherine.

“You will learn to be patient, my fiery child.” With a smile that glowed across the shimmering light, the Spirit continued. “That’s the beauty of it. You three are the remarkable answer to Lucifer’s claims of injustice, and I have to admit this is one of the Father’s best ideas yet.” With that statement, another giant hand pulled the water like a curtain higher and higher. The island rock upon which the three companions stood was lifted with the water.

Then the light and the tower of water rolled like a great wave over itself and fell with a crash to the plain catching the escaping souls from Hell. The wave hit them and sent them floundering in the ocean. Now the chaos became a great disorder of water mixed with the screaming figures of tormented beings. The water rushed into the broken opening of Hell and a distant angry roar of Lucifer’s voice could be heard trying to formulate a protest that was drowned out by the rushing water.

The island now towered above the ferocious flood. The three companions stood on the rocky edge of the island and watched as all those who had escaped from Hell tried to hold themselves above water. In the distance, a spiraling mountain rose above the waters and all the souls attempted to swim toward it.

Pointing to the mountain, Catherine said, “That is Purgatory. That is where we must go.”

“What if I don’t want to go?” retorted Napoleon.

At that moment four stars that had shone in the sky since the water began to rise, blinked and began to move in the sky. Like comets the four stars fell quickly to island, landing like fireworks surrounding Napoleon. When the fire cleared, four unusual figures stood around Napoleon. One figure was an angel holding a bag of coins. One figure was a man writing in a book. One figure was a lion standing on its hind legs wearing a golden pendant around its neck. The last figure appeared to be a large duck..

“Who are they?” Elizabeth asked Catherine.

“They are the Four who stand around the Throne of God,” replied Elizabeth. “Or as Second Person of the Trinity calls them, the Four Stooges.”

At this the figures turned to glare at Catherine, who politely smiled at them. “Quack, quack,” said the duck as if to caution her to silence. Then the four circled Napoleon.

“So the boy thinks he is still an Emperor,” said the angel.

“Come with us,” said the man. The lion supported the request by growling and menacingly approaching the surprised Napoleon. The duck jumped into the water and immediately became a large duck boat. Quacking impatiently, the duck boat made it clear it was time to leave the island.

Napoleon realizing he had no other choice jumped into the boat. The man escorted the two women into the boat and helped them to step aboard. The lion leapt into the boat landing next to a subdued Napoleon. The man pushed the boat from the island and swung himself onto the boat. The angel flew ahead of the quacking duck, as it sailed with its unusual passengers toward the spiraling mountain of Purgatory.

To be continued . . .

She whispered that question into Catherine’s ear not wanting to involve the angelic presences traveling in the boat. Catherine gave her a surprised look and said, “They must get to the shore on their own. From there we can help them and we will.” When Catherine said this, the four chuckled and in the next instance, a tea party was set out before Catherine and Elizabeth.

Napoleon on seeing the biscuits left the prow of the boat and came to enjoy tea with his companions. As Catherine poured the tea, Elizabeth found she felt a great sense of relief. Events had moved so quickly since she had died that she had no time to think. It was a welcome time to sit with a hot cup of tea and enjoy the journey to Purgatory.

The sky was filled with brilliant colors to enjoy and without much adieu the lion, the angel and the man were playing chamber music, while the duck boat quacked softly along. This relaxed Elizabeth and she began to feel sleepy. “Can I sleep?” she asked Catherine. “You aren’t falling asleep,” said Catherine. “You are just experiencing time unfolding. Relax and enjoy no time in the present.” Elizabeth looked around the vast seascape and realized time seemed be moving at different speeds.

The water and the swimming figures slowed down until they seemed almost motionless. The churning waters and the moving arms moved as if seconds had become hours. The boat kept up its regular pace sailing rapidly through the slowing waters. In front of them, the mountain of Purgatory seemed to be caught in a time where years were like seconds.

The sun rose and set with such rapidity, that day and night were barely blinks. A rumbling could be heard as the mountain of Purgatory began to become smaller as if eons were passing wearing it away. Then a great explosion marked the emergence of new mountains from the ocean floor. Within a few instances, a mountain range appeared on the island where before only one spiraling mountain existed.

Elizabeth watched calmly because she was in the present where there seemed to be, as Catherine had suggested, no time. She felt her mind, her heart, her whole being coming to a great calm, to a sense of no movement although she was aware of traveling in the rapid boat. She was outside of time and around her time unfolded in different layers like a flower. The tempo of the music played by the four floated in and around the different layers of time as if the tempo of the music was leading the layers of time, separating them. Elizabeth saw time as a rose, and she knew she was at the center of the flower. She felt a light breathe of love above her as if she were a beautiful scent being inhaled by someone who loved her. Then she herself took a deep breathe and time caught up with itself. The water, the swimmers, the angelic musicians and the boat moved in unison.

But something remarkable had happened. In calm, as if it had always been there, the new mountain range rose before them. The musicians on the boat chuckled and announced they would end the journey with a popular hymn titled, “Nearer My God to Thee.” Catherine was not amused. “One of their in jokes. They are teasing us,” she said. “They know how much time has passed on Earth in this unfolding.” Over ninety years,” the duck boat quacked as it came to a stop on the beach of the island of Purgatory. “We’ll have to catch up on our earth history. It is now the 20th Century. As if our job hadn’t become difficult enough,” said Catherine.

She, Elizabeth and Napoleon found themselves standing on the sandy beach looking at Purgatory. It was no longer one spiraling mountain that they had to investigate, it was a mountain range. Where there had been only one path to climb to the top of Purgatory, now there were many. The four angelic figures stood before them and sang in unison, “It is your task to find the path of glory on the Purgatory Road.” “How do we know which way to go?” asked Elizabeth.

As the four figures began to grow brighter, they said, “Follow him.” They were pointing at Napoleon in the instance when they again became 4 stars on in the brilliant sky above Purgatory. Napoleon took that as his cue to run along the beach of the island toward of crowd of swimmers who were coming onto shore. “Just our luck,” said Catherine as she ran after him. Before Elizabeth followed them, she turned and waved at the stars. “Nice to meet you,” she yelled. Then she took off her shoes and ran along the beach after her companions.

As she stood staring at the sun, a figure emerged from it, a flying form moving toward her. It was birdlike in its movement , and the closer the from came as it flew towards her, she thought she recognized who it was. In one blink the figure was before her smiling. It was the Holy Spirit colored in bright red, cloaked in thousands of little fingers fluttering like wings on a bird in the air..She now recognized that the identifying feature of the Holy Spirit was the Spirit’s two eyes bright with mischief,

“Two people I’d like you meet, Elizabeth,” the Holy Spirit said lifting her up and flying her beyond the running Napoleon, who looked up at them obviously annoyed at having to follow them instead of being in the lead. Catherine walked comfortably ten yards behind Napoleon talking to a figure that Elizabeth thought was an angel. As Elizabeth was carried aloft, she and Holy Spirit came closer to the shore where the figures of people washed onto the beach carried from the gate of Hell.

The Holy Spirit landed in front of a woman dressed in workman’s clothes, sleeves and pant legs rolled up. She was helping the swimming figures stand as they emerged from the water and she was directing them to tables lined up along the shore of Purgatory as far as Elizabeth could see. Each table had a figure sitting looking down at charts that seemed to glow with a colored life. The newly arrived souls didn’t seem to have to wait long before they could sit and talk to one of the people at one of the tables.

“Eve, stop for a moment and say hello to Elizabeth,” said the Holy Spirit. “Elizabeth, meet the great lady, Eve, first of a long line of beautiful human women to grace Heaven and Earth.”

Eve came over and hugged Elizabeth. Her embrace felt like a long forgotten hug from Elizabeth’s mother, a memory pulled out of an infant awareness deep in Elizabeth’s being. It was a welcome hug and, like the sun shining on her, gave Elizabeth more strength and a sense of well being. “Elizabeth, I’m glad to meet you in person. I’ve been an admirer since you were a child, poor girl caught in political circumstances that only a brave young soul could survive.” Elizabeth looked at the Holy Spirit, “…and you, eternal conniver, what impossible task have you set her upon.”

The Holy Spirit only chuckled as Napoleon caught up with them, momentarily breathless. He said, “We are to find the Path of Glory between here and Heaven.”

Eve looked with skepticism at Napoleon. “Always in search of glory, my young progeny. Be careful when it comes to doing special work for this person of the Trinity, all is never as it seems. I should know.” She winked at the Holy Spirit, who flew in a circle around Elizabeth creating a frame. A picture came to life around Eve. She was now standing in a landscape that reminded Elizabeth of ancient forests described by explorers, who had come back from the new worlds of her time.

Catherine ran up and pushed Elizabeth and Napoleon into the frame. “We don’t want to miss this,” she said. “What is this?” said Elizabeth. Catherine responded, “It is a living memory and I think a very important memory.”

The three companions stood on the ground of the forest in the memory of Eve and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the Great Storyteller, began the narrative and as he spoke the three companions could see the story happening before them.

“At one time before humanity had become the center of creation, I was off investigating a distant part of the First Person’s creation. Number One’s creative bounds know no limits. I could, can always find something new and beautiful brought into existence from the divine imaginative impulses of the Creator. I came upon the small globe, later to be called Earth, in a far flung end of the pocket of creation humans now call the cosmos. The planet I came upon was filled with interesting, diverse forms of life, amazing even to me, who in the end has to account for all the First Person creates. In my investigation, I found two young creatures that were playing in a field of grass circled by remarkable tall trees.”

As the Holy Spirit told this story, the companions could see two primitive young human figures running after each other in a grassy plain on the edge of tropical forest, a male and a female. The female looked like Eve. Elizabeth thought that the male figure must have been.. “Adam,” said the voice of Eve, who was both in the memory and observing it with them.

“We had a great afternoon playing in the grass. I imitated a small firelight that flickered in front of these two children. They attempted to catch me in a playful romp, competing with each other to be the first to grasp the small flicker of light I had become. Then I accidently…”

“Don’t be fooled by that,” said Eve. Catherine added, “Nothing accidental happens with the Holy Spirit.” Elizabeth noted that people who had spent time in eternity seemed to be quite forthright in the presence of the persons of God, almost rude by her standards as a queen. At one time, she would never allow such questioning of the facts of her stories.

The Holy Spirit ignoring the comments of Eve and Catherine continued the narrative. “Proud I was the Creator’s ingenuity in allowing for such remarkable living beings as my two new playmates. Bursting with pride and admiration, I exploded into a ball of color.” The pictures showed the two human figures reaching for the flickering light at once, when it suddenly became a rainbow colored ball with the two eyes of the Spirit, the eyes that contained the knowledge of the vastness of all creation, and it was clear that in that instance something changed in the two humans.

“They became aware for a moment of me, of God, of something far greater than themselves,” said the Great Storyteller.

Eve added, “…and even more important. Adam and I became aware that the powerful thing before us was aware of us, loved us and was proud of us. That is when we first became truly human.”

The Holy Spirit flashed fast forwarded images in front of them of that awareness spreading out to other human creatures, a spontaneous explosion of awareness that made the other human animals like Adam and Eve into something new.

The Holy Spirit closed the living memory bringing all the figures back to Purgatory’s beach. The Spirit added, “That awareness became the problem, set the busy agenda for Heaven. Human beings will never be content until they were aware of everything.”

“As if you didn’t know that, getting me, us into all this trouble,” Eve added. She leaned over and kissed the Third Person of the Living God, who seemed to blush with pride. Then the Holy Spirit lifted Elizabeth, Catherine, and Napoleon up and carried them away along the rows of tables. Eve yelled after them, “Nice to meet you.” She then returned to her task of helping swimmers emerging from the water.

The Holy Spirit set the three down at a table where Elizabeth recognized Dante talking to another a man. The Holy Spirit flew away from them saying, “I’d like you to meet Charles Darwin. He will help you find your future direction.”

“Yes, I have much to tell you,” said the man now identified as Darwin, “Things are evolving rapidly, so you need to be on your way to the find the Path of Glory.”

To be continued . . .