A small glimpse

You may have seen me comment on occasion (okay, on fairly regular occasion) that I'm currently in the process of editing the sequel to Chronicle of Angels and Men. And as everyone knows, sequels mean more of what you love.

Also more of what you don't.

But if you dug book one of The Circuit Angel Chronicles, chances are you'll really dig the upcoming book two, tentatively titled The Circuit Angel Chronicles: Crisis of Man. I wanted to give everyone a small glimpse into what's forthcoming by revealing the opening to chapter one.

So go ahead -- gaze into your future, and see what awaits you in June 2012.  Go on. Dare ya. ~Tet

<Visual representation of your future>

The Circuit Angel Chronicles : Book Two | Crisis of Man

Chapter One [Opening Excerpt]

     Man was comprised of three parts – body, spirit, and soul.  This was the simple formula which defined not just life, but specifically Human life. 

     The spirit, also known as the mind, was what gave man his individuality, or personality, so to speak.  It was what separated beast from Man, and Man from one another.  A Man’s spirit was uniquely his, and so it labeled him as a person as meek or kind or vengeful or complacent.  It was what gave him confidence or humility or placed within him ideas of love for his fellow man or holocaust.  It was passion, compassion, or antipathy.  And in many ways, it was the most telling part being Human.

     The body was Man’s physical self – his flesh.  It was what where he felt pain and what taught him how to inflict it on and upon others.  It experienced ecstasy in the height of sexual contact and despair when it was torn away from the respite of bone.  It provided Man tactile interaction with the world around him and through this, the ability to subjugate that world.  The body was the basic building block for any who sought to create life.  It was the temple for the soul and for the spirit, without which could not be joined into a single conscious being.  And for this reason, the body was pivotal in developing life.

     But many were mistaken in their understanding of the soul and of how it helped comprise three-part man.  They often confused the soul with the spirit, or vice-versa, or failed to separate the two at all.  It was oft thought the possession of a soul was what distinguished man from animal.  This was in part true, though, reliance on this distinction alone was both a common and critical error.  The soul was the center of Man.  It was the binding force what linked Man’s spirit with Man’s body and formed him into an individual.  Most would agree the soul had no form tangible or visible, save for those cursed with such gifts.  However, the most pressing distinction between the spirit and the soul was this: The spirit belonged to Man.  The soul belonged to God.

     It was this characteristic which made Man so unique and so uniquely loved by God.  No other creature on Earth could make such a boast – animals with spirits but no souls, plants with souls but no spirits, and those Heaven-born Angels with spirits and souls, but no bodies.

     So it should follow that upon God’s banishment of certain Angel-kind to this Earth, there should remain some differential between that creature which He created as Man and that creature which He created as not.  And with their newly granted bodies made flesh, it would serve to reason that they must have been deprived of one of the other two elements of Man – spirit or soul.  The trick was in discerning just which of these two crucial parts of Man was missing. 

     When the Angels were fell to earth, they divided themselves naturally into two factions – those which identified with Man and those which identified with God, known respectively as the Peace-Mongers and the Separatists.  But what if the presence or non-presence of soul or spirit also played a part in this division?  Had the Peace-Mongers the coveted spirit of Man but lacked souls?  Had the Separatists souls but lacked the individuality and earmark  blessed by the possession of a spirit?  It was a grave consideration either way, particularly for creatures such as we, who so longed to gain either the attention of Man or the pity of God.