Sometimes an excerpt matters

In reading Straight to the Heart: The Hawk Book Three, I'm astonished at how timely is the message, despite being set in autumn of 1962. Below is a section from Chapter 76, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was in full swing.

When he reached the studio, stars twinkled in the sky. Eric could make out the storage building, and turning back, the house blazed with light. Yet, he needed to set something to canvas, although he didn’t wish to work in the sunroom. He wasn’t sure what bubbled inside him, other than a sense of purpose. Perhaps this was how President Kennedy felt, his hands just as tied. Yet Lynne had been right, it was too dark to work. Again gazing upwards, Eric admired the night sky, chuckling at himself. Then he walked around the studio, standing in front of the storage building. Something tugged at him from within, so he pulled the key from his pocket, opened the door, then flipped on the light. There on an easel was the portrait of Marek and Jane.

Stepping into the small building, Eric couldn’t look away from his daughter. She wasn’t that little now, even if he’d painted this a few months before. Before made Eric shiver, for all that had occurred since this painting, up to that very evening. Jane was inside, probably being dressed for bed, with no idea what was happening in Washington and Moscow. She had no clue as to what others had suffered since, she was only a baby. She also had no manner to discern all that had occurred to the man holding her, but for the first time, Eric had an inkling, and it made him shudder. Marek’s brown eyes glowed with an eerie knowledge, propelling Eric to step closer to the canvas. Leaving a foot between himself and the painting, Eric peered at what he had created, but seeing far more than layers of paint. In Marek’s chocolate brown eyes, Eric saw a multitude of horrors, more than any person should realize.

Instead of being repulsed, Eric traced around Marek’s eyes, sensing how such misery could, over time, become beauty. Eric had translated something similar, yet carrying much less emotional weight, when he painted the blue barn. Sam, Laurie, and Stanford had asked how Eric did it, and there was no verbal manner in which to answer that question; Eric had simply picked up a brush, dabbed it onto his palette, then transferred those feelings onto canvas. He had done the same when painting Marek and Jane, but while Jane’s eyes held only joy, Marek’s possessed a deep well of sorrow hinting to the unmitigated catastrophe that somehow that man had overcome. Suddenly Eric stepped back, in awe of such tragedy having been healed. The loss of Marek’s entire family didn’t prey on that man’s mind, or within his soul. Marek’s soul was protected by Christ.

The last two nights Eric and Lynne had made love, but not as they had been for the last few weeks. Lynne had purposely used her diaphragm, telling her husband she didn’t feel the timing was right to actively try for another baby. Her unspoken message had been clear and Eric hadn’t argued. The world was still a terrible place, nothing was certain. Eric had wondered if Sam’s fears about becoming a father would be exacerbated by all that was occurring, but how could this compare with previous disasters in human history? If Khrushchev gave the signal, would the destruction of America’s East Coast be worse than The Holocaust in Europe? Would it be more evil than what sat plainly in Marek’s brown eyes?

For the first time since the president’s announcement on Monday night, Eric didn’t worry about his family’s future. Perhaps this was another step on his journey as a Christian, or an artist, or simply as a man. If the very worst occurred, it wouldn’t be the absolute end of the world, for the worst had been recycled time and again. In just that century, two world wars had ravaged across much of the globe, millions of lives lost, so much desolation accrued. But in a small town on the West Coast, Eric had fashioned beautiful paintings, he couldn’t deny that. Assuming Kennedy and Khrushchev negotiated a way out of this mess, by the end of November, this painting, along with others, wouldn’t even be where Eric could see them; they would be in New York, then onto London, then to…. Eric smiled, the first real joy he’d felt all week. Making love with his wife had been a balm, but actual happiness rumbled inside him, in part from peace and from the truth within Marek’s eyes. If one day Eric heard those facts, they wouldn’t be any more vile than what he had implied within that man’s gaze. Yet, anguish wasn’t the essence of what Eric had portrayed. Love covered all that wretchedness, so great a love that grief, loneliness, and despair hadn’t been able to stay.

Then Eric shivered; whatever had sent Seth to Korea was a similar kind of devastation, yet Seth hadn’t been able to fight himself free. Eric wondered if perhaps as a child Seth had been molested, but Seth and Laurie were so close, had that been the case, Laurie would know. Or maybe not. Then Eric considered the figures at Stanford and Laurie’s apartment, sculptures that had been fashioned by someone with a tremendous will to live and love. Nothing dark clouded those statues, from their hopeful stances to their vibrant hues. Two vivid blues enhanced those figurines; Seth hadn’t made them in the throes of depression, but in youthful optimism. But that confidence had been short-lived. Laurie had mentioned Seth wasn’t exactly soldier material, that he’d had a few issues even before he’d enlisted. What had he thought going to Korea would accomplish, and once there, what had he seen or done that had so tarnished his soul?

Again Eric gazed at Marek, but not at his face. This time Eric studied how tenderly Jane rested in the pastor’s grasp, almost with as much affection as Eric held his daughter. Marek had never spoken of a lover, maybe a woman had been left behind in Britain or in…. Marek had been a teenager during the war; might he have lost a girlfriend alongside his family? Eric ached to know, then he sighed, feeling chilled. He turned off the light, locked the storage building, making his slow way back to the house with as many questions, albeit about different subjects, than as when he had headed outside.