The Chasm: A Journey to the Edge of Life - Hardcover

Alcorn, Randy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 160142339X ISBN 13: 9781601423399

Verlag: Multnomah, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

A Journey He Couldn’t Miss… and a Step He Couldn’t Take

He found himself a traveler in the strangest of lands. Where invisible secrets come starkly into sight. Where the fairest of companions leads the way into unsuspected danger and darkness. Where hidden battles burst into the open. Where so much is grasped…and so much more seems unattainable.
   Driven by a yearning he doesn’t understand, compelled toward a destination he can’t quite see, the traveler navigates the inhospitable landscape with determination and a flicker of something like hope—despite the obstacles that seem to unerringly block his path.
   Best-selling novelist Randy Alcorn weaves a supernatural interplay of wills and motives, lusts and longings, love and sacrifice. It’s a potent mix that leaves every reader wondering: Do I really understand this world I live in? Do I really understand myself? Is there more to all this than I’ve ever dared hope?

INCLUDES 12 ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Randy Alcorn is the bestselling author of Heaven, with more than 500,000 copies sold. As a fiction writer, his novels include Deadline, Dominion, Deception, Edge of Eternity, Lord Foulgrin’s Letters, The Ishbane Conspiracy, and the Gold Medallion winner Safely Home. He has written numerous nonfiction books as well, including The Treasure Principle, The Purity Principle, and The Grace and Truth Paradox. A former pastor, Randy is the founder and director of Eternal Perspectives Ministries. He and his wife, Nanci, live in Oregon and have two married daughters and four grandsons.

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Chapter One

For most of a day, I’d been climbing a sharp incline of rocks and shale, for an outcropped ledge that would afford a better view than anywhere else in this strange land. Finally, scrambling up the last twenty feet, I stepped out on that ledge and looked. What I saw took my breath away.
   There it lay, stretched out against the horizon as far as I could see—the thing I’d been warned about, the thing I’d been told was ultimately unavoidable. The sight of it was even more devastating than I’d feared.
   Here I was, hoping to travel to the distant shining city, a world of wonders I absolutely had to reach. For my first thirty years, I’d never dreamed such a place even existed. Then when I started to believe it might, I tried like the devil to avoid thinking about it, for reasons I still don’t understand. And now here I stood, all hopes of reaching that magical place dashed. Before me lay the biggest obstacle imaginable.
   No, it was absolutely unimaginable. That great yawning chasm took my breath away. An abyss of staggering proportions. I had once stood with my family, when I had one, gazing down into the Grand Canyon. I’d been swept away by its grandeur for a few minutes before needing to pack up the kids, grab a hamburger, and get them to the hotel. But this endless rift, this hole in the universe, made the Grand Canyon appear in comparison as the grave I dug when ten years old, to bury my old dog Ranger. It seemed infinitely large, deep and foreboding, containing not a shred of beauty. It stripped my heart of hope. For clearly the Chasm meant that the city calling to me from the great beyond, if it were real at all, lay forever out of reach.
   All that mattered for me was the place I could still glimpse on the horizon, far beyond the impassible barrier spread out below me. I had to get there—I had to reach that stunning capital of a great undiscovered country, that shining city that rested on the great white mountain. The place named Charis.
   My name is Nick Seagrave. My story is true, though what world it happened in is hard for me to say. The memories burn in my brain, more real and weighty than what we call the real world. Before I tell you the incredible events that unfolded next, what happened to me at that chasm, I must first take you back to explain what led up to the moments I have just described. Only then can you understand me and my story, and perhaps unfold its meaning.
   I remember like it was yesterday that moment when I caught my first glimpse of Charis, glimmering in the distance. Initially I thought the remote city seemed cold, even oppressive. Our band of travelers that day had rounded a bend shaded by rock towers, and there it was, off to the west, rising high on a ridge. Silently, we all stared at it.
   From where we stood, all we could see between us and the mountain crowned by Charis were rolling green hills scrawled with various pathways, including a ribbon of red. This was the “red road” I’d first learned of in some ancient inscriptions in a cave I’d entered one evening to escape a pounding rain and crashing thunderstorm—and something far worse. But that’s another story, to tell another time.
   As my traveling companions and I continued absorbing our first glimpse of the faraway city on the summit, it took only a moment for my heightened vision to pierce its walls. How did this happen? I can’t explain it, but I was as certain of my perception as I could be. My intuition told me that the light was but a ruse, that inside the city all was dank and shadowy. And enthroned there sat a dreadful, intolerant tyrant, squashing creativity and initiative, enslaving any subjects foolish enough to have entered the city. I envisioned him granting his slaves freedom enough to make a mistake just so he could condemn them for it and command their execution.
   I’d long ago learned to trust my instincts, which had helped make me such a successful businessman and entrepreneur. And those prized instincts assured me this city was a monument to the pride of some self-proclaimed, glory-hungry sovereign who delighted in robbing men of their dignity. A strangely confident assessment for one who knew so little. But if I lacked something in those days, it was not confidence.
   As this insight percolated within me, our silence was broken by one of my companions—a white-haired, craggy-faced man they called Shadrach, dressed in a tattered toga. “Behold,” he said, air moving through a gap in his teeth, “Charis, the City of Light.”
   Light? What about the shadows I felt certain lie within? How could that old geezer be fool enough to trust that light on the outside meant light within?
   Then suddenly another traveler, a young African woman named Malaiki, her face glowing, gasped, “Do you hear it? Music!”
   I heard nothing. Who was she trying to trick, and why?
   With enchanting fervor Malaiki exclaimed, “Songs of life and learning, choruses of pleasure and adventure! In a thousand languages!” She broke into dancing, soon joined by some of the others.
   Were they trying to make fools of themselves? The uncomfortable thought struck me that perhaps I envied them, wishing I had a reason to dance. I quickly pushed the thought away.
   Even as they twirled and high-stepped, they kept looking toward the city. Following their gaze, I found my perception changing, despite my resistance. The coldness of the place was gradually replaced by light and warmth and by what seemed to be the radiant energy of people there celebrating. The city began to shimmer on the horizon, touched by sparkling blues and greens and golds that blended with the sky and sunlight, pulsing in and out of my vision.
   Soon I, too, could hear music from the city and then what sounded like a geyser of laughter exploding from a fountain of joy.
   My traveling comrades went on to speak of Charis as the city of a certain king whom they described in fantastic language. But my ingrained skepticism welled up and overtook me again. How could they make such claims? For reasons I couldn’t grasp, I refused to let myself fall in with these people or be drawn to this city that enchanted them. I could not surrender control of my life’s journey or its destination. I was master of my fate and captain of my soul. Besides, I reminded myself, I knew of someone who could take me elsewhere, to a better place.
   I’d met Joshua on the morning I stumbled out of that cave, when I’d wandered in a daze, not knowing where I really was. I started running, and as I came into an oak grove, a man bounded in my direction. He was tall, muscular, and handsome, with a neatly trimmed copper beard. He wore sandals and an emerald toga, cinched at his slender waist with a braided red cord. Though his dress was like a statesman’s from another era, he somehow appeared modern and fashionable.
   “Welcome, Nick,” he called in a rich, clear voice, smiling broadly.
   I wanted to grill him with a dozen questions, starting with, “How do you know my name?” and “Where are we?” and “How did I get here?” But I didn’t want to reveal too much about myself and my ignorance.
   “Call me Joshua,” he said, extending his arm. I was struck by the strength of his grip. I couldn’t help staring into his eyes—morning-glory eyes,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multnomah
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 160142339X
• ISBN 13: 9781601423399
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: MULTNOMAH; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/75020/multnomah-publishers-inc/; ; 1745 BROADWAY Attn: Madison Forwander; NEW YORK; NY; 10019; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar