THE ADVENTURES OF CARA ON PLANET
EARTH
By Forrest
W. Schultz
INTRODUCTION
Sherry Thompson’s Narentan Tumults series begins with Seabird, one of the best fantasy books I have ever read, whose
greatness is due primarily to its attractive central character, Cara Marshall,
whose absence from the ensuing books in the series to date is lamented by her
fans, one of whom, Michael Dunne, expresses the hope that he’ll meet Cara
again.
I am pleased to announce my discovery that
Cara is continuing her adventures here on Earth, beginning at the very moment
she was returned from Narenta. But here
she has no exalted title nor does she battle enemies like the sorcerers on
Narenta but rather foes like the student bullies at her high school. And, rather than being in the limelight, she
stays in the background and encourages others to lead the battles.
In one sense this seems like a different
Cara, but it isn’t: it is Cara adapted
to her current environment – a senior in high school in a small rural
town. Cara does NOT resent her return to
her humble milieu, but embraces it and decides to bloom where she is
planted: and bloom she does, as
you will see in the episodes narrated here.
And these stories are written for you not as works of literature, but as
simple statements of what has happened in Cara’s life since her return, which
are quite interesting in themselves and not in need of any literary embellishment.
OK, here now, without any further ado, are
THE ADVENTURES
OF CARA ON
PLANET EARTH !!
-1-
CARA # 1 -- THE CAMPAIGN
AGAINST BULLYING
After Cara completed her mission on Narenta, she was returned to Earth
at the exact time and exact place from which she had been taken. The
beach was the same but Cara was now a very different person.
She immediately had the opportunity to express
her new self here as she saw the class bully, Melissa, threatening several
little kids. Cara had named her Mal – issa, because, unlike Abraham
Lincoln, she had malice toward all and charity toward none!
As Cara approached Malissa and “called her
out”, she was reminded of her encounter with the Narentan sorceress
Rabada, except that Melissa was not beyond redemption, so that she
treated her accordingly.
She rapidly immobilized Mal and threw her on
top of an incoming wave. Mal’s shock was so great that all she could do
was sputter, “How in the world did you do that??!!”.
Cara wasted no time in getting to the
point. “I will explain later, but for now what I want is for you to join
me in my campaign against bullying.” Mel immediately consented,
“Yeah! I’d like to! When do we start?”
Cara's reply was that Mel would be in
charge of mobilizing and organizing a lot of concerned students as
anti-bullying "police": enough to monitor all
places outside the school building and in the school buses and inside
the school building: classrooms, hallways, lockers, cafeteria, restrooms,
etc. with the purpose of (preferably) preventing bullying, and of
stopping it if it breaks out. (Mel had no problem doing so:
the students were wowed by the leading bully now running an anti-bullying
campaign!!)
-2-
Cara then explained to
Mel that the scope of the campaign was not limited to bullying as
ordinarily understood, but also included the abolition of football because of
all the harm its collision and tackling involve, which has finally and very
belatedly being given attention in the news. They had to move very
rapidly because there was just barely enough time to get the high school
football team abolished and replaced by a soccer team. Their first stop
was to visit the person who would be in charge of that: her friend Harry,
who was the Quarterback, (who immediately agreed, with gusto, because of his
great concern, so great he was seriously considering dropping off the
team). Well, to make a long story short, he along with Mel and Cara quickly
got everyone on board – the coaches, principal, cheerleaders, student council,
school board, etc. – so that, just in time the football team was abolished and
replaced with a soccer team!! WOW AND WOW AND WOW and this was not only a great
achievement but LOTS OF FUN !!! And, this is just the beginning – lots
more adventures were to come!!
As important as this is, there is something
even more important, and, in fact, of greatest import. When Cara met for
the last time with Alphesis immediately prior to her return to Earth, she
expressed her sorrow at having to leave Him. He told her in very plain
words, just as Aslan told Lucy in Narnia, that He was also present on Earth
(where He has a different Name), which she soon found to be the case, and He is
the One now guiding her and helping her here!!
More will be said about this in Cara’s
next adventure (Cara #2), which will be especially interesting because it
itself deals with interesting things!! So, stay tuned!!
-3-
CARA #
2: THE INTERESTING NATURE
OF SCIENCE AND HISTORY CAMPAIGN
If this were a TV series, I would begin by saying, “Previously on
Cara…”: and then proceed to note that as soon as Cara returned to Earth (during
her summer vacation prior to her senior year) she set into motion for her high
school: (1). An anti-bullying campaign
headed by the former chief bully [Melissa]; and (2). A campaign led by the
Quarterback [Harry] to replace football with soccer! The newspapers loved reporting these,
using headlines like “Former Bully Heads Anti-Bullying Campaign” and
“Quarterback Leads Campaign To Abolish Football”. Cara was rarely mentioned, which is exactly
what she wanted! Her purpose is to set things into motion, not to run them or
gain notoriety.
She followed this same principle in her next project: having high school subjects taught so that
the interesting things in them would be included in the textbooks and classes
instead of being excluded, as is usually done now, which makes it look like the
subject is boring. One step toward
rectifying this in Cara’s high school was unwittingly taken right after the end
of the last academic year when a biology teacher was hired, Jane Smith, who was
named after Jane Goodall, and who even worked for Goodall for a while, and who
taught all the interesting stuff in biology in her classes. Cara rejoiced in this although, of course,
she was not involved. Cara now did get
involved by taking steps to get two more interesting teachers on the
faculty. One is Kurt Schmidt, who was
named after Kurt Goedel, and studied under him for a while at the special
advanced study program up at Princeton.
Cara’s uncle, who is an engineer and a friend of Schmidt, at Cara’s
entreaty, asked him to become a teacher at Cara’s high school; and Cara
rejoiced when he agreed, was interviewed by the Principal and hired. He is very knowledgeable on the
interestingness of Goedel’s Theorem and other things in math and physics and
logic, which he will include in his class lectures.
The next addition to the faculty was Dr. Ernest Donald, an excellent
young historian, whom Cara persuaded to join the faculty where he now teaches
US History and World and NJ history and also Latin, and delights in telling his
students all the interesting stuff in them.
-4-
Dr. Donald is also an
excellent comedian who uses humor in his teaching. The only comedian in the USA which I know of
who is funnier is Donald Trump! The
students, recognizing this, call him “The Donald in Our School”, claiming that
the only one who can trump him is Trump!
Cara’s grandfather
has shared with Cara a lot of interesting things he knows about all kinds of
stuff. Cara in turn has shared some of
this with the teachers via her assigned papers, and with many of the students,
who often use these in the papers they write for class. This plus the popularity of the three
interesting faculty members – Miss Smith and Mr. Schmidt and Dr. Donald – began
to gradually affect the other teachers, some of whom are now also beginning to
include interesting stuff in the classes they teach.
Cara’s grandfather
told Cara that the reason that there are so many interesting things in all
subjects is that God is interesting, a fact which has been omitted from the
systematic theology books. Yesterday
Cara went with him on a trip to Philly where he turned over a copy of all his
research into these interesting things to a young theologian who will be including
them in a new systematic theology book he is now composing.
The most recent
interesting thing that her grampa wrote was a response to an answer someone
gave to the question of what the Devil’s greatest triumph was: this person claimed it was the Devil
convincing people that he does not exist.
Cara’s grampa rebutted this by claiming that the Devil’s greatest
triumph was to convince people that the Devil is interesting, and God is
boring. The truth is that The Devil is
boring and God is interesting.
-5-
CARA # 3: SMALL AND LOCAL CAN BE BEAUTIFUL
Cara’s first two achievements after her return from Narenta greatly
improved her high school by making it free from harm from bullies and football
injuries, and by encouraging the teachers to include the interesting things in
the subjects they teach. Cara’s third achievement has just begun and will be
improving and expanding as more and more people put into practice the
recommendations recently reached by the local think tank. Cara contributed much to the thoughts behind
their manifesto but her main contribution was to get them to start DOING them
instead of just discussing them!
The first recommendation was that people should get married shortly
after puberty so they can enjoy their marriage sooner and can more easily avoid
sexual temptations. The other
recommendations are closely related to this.
People also begin working at a younger age than they do now, which in
turn involves the adoption of a work/study program similar to the co-op plan
developed long ago by Drexel U. in Philly, where students earn much higher pay
at these co-op jobs than the typical kind of jobs college students are now able
to get, e.g. working at Mickey-D’s. In
other words, they start working at good jobs while going to college instead of
having to wait until they graduate.
Eventually also the current 12 grade system will be reduced to 8 grades
with students learning more material at younger ages, which is not only
possible but which was done in the nineteenth century, as can be seen by
looking at the McGuffey Readers and other textbooks used then. This will make it easier for marriage to
occur shortly after puberty, because it
will coincide with the ending of the 8 grades.
And the “classical school” methodology will be used, the one advocated
by Dorothy Sayers. AND, heeding Cara’s
warning, those advocating this do NOT refer to the current retrograde system as
a “Dumbing Down” of education because this terminology is indicative of the
very thing they are opposing. (See if
you can figure out why!)
-6-
This plan also advocates working at or near one’s home either by
continuing to work for a big company far away but doing your work at home on
your computer to avoid the outrageous amount of time (and gasoline) wasted in
commuting or, preferably, working at or near your home in your own business
which you establish. AND in this set up
it is not just the woman returning to the home but the man also, who
establishes his business there with his wife as his administrative assistant,
which also avoids the sexual temptations when his wife works for another
man. This plan therefore does NOT adopt
the usual plan most small towns do, namely trying to get a big company to build
a factory in or near their town. The
idea is to preserve the nature of the small town where people know and care
about each other and where in this town there are small stores of all kinds so
people can shop there instead of driving to a humongous shopping mall some
distance away. Cara’s grandfather had a
great influence on her thinking when he told of the small town near the farm
where he grew up – this town had EVERYTHING in it – the elementary and high
school to which he went, as well as their doctor, their dentist, their barber,
their bank, their post office, their grocery stores, hardware store, pharmacy,
bakery, photographer, movie theatre, and
the people living in the town could walk to most things or at most drive their
car a few blocks to get to where they wanted.
Our modern setup is NOT an advance but a RETROGRESSION!! The next main recommendation in this plan is
to pay cash for everything, including houses.
And since hardly anyone today can afford to pay the outrageously
outrageous high prices of today’s new houses, they advocate systems such as the
Amish use where the whole congregation builds the house or barn for the family
needing it or something like the plan used by Habitat For Humanity. AND when a church needs a new building the
members work together to build it, which was done by a church which Cara’s grandfather
went to several decades ago. And,
finally, settle down in a small town and stay there – quit all this stupid
moving. Btw, this is easy to prove from
the Bible from looking at the passage talking about the qualifications for an
elder. The only way this can be known is
if people live in a place long enough to know the man, which they can’t do if
they keep moving.
-7-
CARA # 4:
CARA AND HARRY
PLAN TO MARRY
Cara and Harry are planning to marry
immediately after their high school graduation in June. And they both will be attending (part-time)
the college located a few miles from their town, and they both will be working
(part-time) for Harry’s parents, who are the co-founders/co-owners of a candy
store on Main Street behind which is the large building where the candy is
made, about half of which they sell in their store, and the other half is
bought by several stores in nearby towns.
Harry lives with his parents on Third
Street, a block behind the candy manufacturing building, AND next door to the
house where Cara lives with her parents.
So, Yes!, Cara will marry “the boy next door, who works at the candy
store”! Cara says that she was not
influenced by the famous song by Johnny CASH, but she says that the song might
have been counter=productive if it had been sung by Johnny CREDIT!! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Yes, Cara has not only returned to Earth but
her humor is very “down to Earth”!!
Because of their community improvement work
and their good grades in high school, Cara and Harry have each been awarded
full tuition scholarships to the college!!
Their only expense will be the (high!) cost of their textbooks and the
(low) cost of commuting to the college, which is only a fifteen minute drive
away.
Cara and Harry after they marry will be
moving into a house given to them by Cara’s father, who recently inherited it
from his uncle. Her father will also pay
for the renovation cost and the furniture.
Their jobs at the candy company will be low
paying at first but they will soon be promoted to managerial level jobs, which
will be high paying, and then, after they graduate from college, the business
will be given to them, and then Harry’s parents will be enjoying a long-awaited
and much deserved retirement beginning with a cruise around the world.
-8-
The local think tank manifesto plus the
example Cara and Harry are setting by following its principles is affecting
many other community residents and former community residents. For example, several young adults who had moved
from the community to a big city have changed their minds and have returned to
their roots. One young man, disgusted
with city life, has returned to take over his father’s business, a local German
bakery; and a young woman for similar reasons has come back to take over her
mother’s salon.
Much more could be said but this, I
believe, will suffice to show that Cara is doing fine and does not resent her
return, and the adventures just keep on coming, small though they may be. And Cara has never regretted their size – she
has never, like Naaman did to Elisha, complained of not being given “some great
thing” to do!!. We would do well to
follow her example! Amen!
-9-
AFTERWORD
There are many other worthy and interesting deeds Cara did after she returned to Earth. Those I have narrated here are but a sample which are presented to you to show you that Cara's adventures did not cease after she was returned to Earth.
These adventures of Cara continued and will continue for the rest of her life here on Planet Earth and for the life she will then lead in the New Heavens and New Earth. In short, the adventures of Cara on Planet Earth will never cease!! Amen and Amen !!!
Forrest W. Schultz
Grantville, GA
February 22, 2016
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