Glass Cathedral: A Novel that Faces Deep Religious Questions, with Humor, part three.

Now, in the final sections of the novel Glass Cathedral about which I have written previously, Misty and Emilio have to figure out how to tell the world that God appeared in the sky. They decide to build a glass cathedral out in the desert, near the site of The Appearance of God, and invite people to come and find out about what happened. This undertaking is more humorously difficult than either of them had guessed it would be. Misty and Emilio ended up with lots of money and had to figure out what to do with it. They planned a religiously-themed restaurant that served Jesus Pizza with lamb, tomato sauce, and Ezekiel 4:9 crust. They also planned to make their glass cathedral a giant tropical greenhouse. Both Emilio and Misty—now pushed far outside her comfort zone of shyness—went on speaking tours.

Dan went out into the desert to visit Misty. They meet in the desert springtime and see the flowers that grow rapidly in the rain then die a few weeks later. Misty realizes that Dan is in fact doing what Jesus said to do, but what few Christians do: to consider the lilies of the field. Dan realized that just one of the little wildflowers was more beautiful than all the works of man. Job had asked why God put beautiful flowers out in the desert where nobody can see them. Both Dan and Misty realize that this is a very good question.

But mainly they organized a gigantic opening ceremony with hundreds of high school bands and choirs. They supposed they had thought of everything, but with a hundred bands (several hundred tubas) playing the fundamental note of the resonant frequency of the building, the cathedral shakes from its foundations and blows away in a storm like a jellyfish in the surf. In the ensuing chaos, Misty gets trampled and disabled.

Once again, it’s not supposed to happen like this. But Emilio remains ever bubbly in his faith. No more giant cathedrals. He runs a homeless shelter in L.A. along with his nearly unresponsive wife Misty. When all the main characters unite at the end, including Margaret who has married Dan, they all agree that what God wants us to do is just to help make the world a better place.

You all knew this, of course, in principle. But in this delightful novel, you can watch diverse characters discovering this simple truth for themselves.