Böcker av Joseph Mills

In Bleachers, the debut short fiction collection by award-winning poet Joseph Mills, fifty-four stories take place during two youth soccer games, capturing the thoughts, concerns, realizations, and perspectives of the parents on the sidelines and in the stands. As these spectators watch (or don't watch) the players on the field, their narratives interweave to form a portrait of community and of parenting-always unpredictable, often complicated, and rarely what it seems. From A to Z ("Aging" to "Zidane"), Bleachers can be read as a primer on parenting and family, as well as a paean to sports. If, as Dr. King said, Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America, then Saturday morning may be the most integrated as families gather to experience the victories and losses, both great and small, of the game that brings them together, "forming, then breaking apart, then reforming . . . . temporarily cohering" as a team.

This book, under construction over the past fifty years, uses history and fiction to connect the dots of known and unknown periods in the development of the human race. It presumes that God lives on a heavenly planet (Xeros) somewhere in our vast universe, that all humans begin at Level 3 and have the opportunity to move up to Level 2 (Angels) and then to Level 1 (Archangels), that He is colonizing planets throughout this universe, and that a battle between God and Satan (good v. evil) permeates His every decision. The book focus is on planet earth, the use of a natural disaster to exterminate the dinosaurs, the story of Adam and Eve and the process of populating planet earth, the story of Noah and the great flood, and the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was sent to save mankind. The book then explains the development of Christianity, the hidden story of the Nephilim, the Rapture and Revelation, Armageddon, the thousand year reign, and the new Heaven and the new Earth. In summary, The Study offers a message to the reader-that each Level 3 person makes choices every day, that each human being is so helpless without God''s protection, that the end of life on planet earth is very close, and that one must believe in Jesus Christ to achieve life everlasting.