The Lost Coin

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by Samuel Hayes Sherwood

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Is there such a thing as Total Truth? Sam Season finds the answer!

The Lost Coin is a Christian novel about Sam Season, a lost soul perplexed with button-down Christianity that doesn’t work until one day an old man hands him a mysterious silver coin that guides him on a path to overcoming his demons and learning the Total Truth of the mystery which is Christ in us, what Galatians 2:20, Christ living in him, is all about.

Defying death and the laws of physics, Sam survives when he stalls and crashes his small plane. In the hospital, Sam falls in love with his nurse, Mo, who introduces him to the mystical world of deeper life Christianity.

As Sam struggles with alcohol, depression and a hatred for his older brother who tortured him from birth, Mo patiently watches God work His love into him. The coin appears at revelatory moments, each time displaying different images confirming God’s truths.

Steven Season is Sam’s obsessively ambitious brother whose lust for more money and status takes him on a downward spiral of embezzlement, adultery, gambling, and murder. He is determined that his grandfather’s multi-million dollar inheritance will not be split with undeserving Sam, whatever it takes.

Sam is the parable’s lost coin diligently sought and found by the Lord. He, in turn, searches for other lost coins in Iraq and at home. In the end, it is a story of love and redemption as Sam makes the ultimate sacrifice of love for one last unlikely lost coin, his brother, Steven.

Read Chapters 1 through 4 . . .

CHAPTER 1  The Old Man and the Coin

Sam lay in a quagmire of mangled and confused dreams, twisting, turning, futilely fighting back as evil phantoms swirled around him jabbing at his consciousness with flaming swords of accusation.  He was no stranger to these importunate psychopathic minions.  These faceless cowards always took flight in the drunken half-light of morning when their victims were most vulnerable, obfuscating good and evil without compunction, set into motion by the Accuser of the Brethren.

Sam moaned.  “No!” he yelled, yet no sound came out of his mouth.  “Not true!  Leave me alone!”

They paid no heed to his pleas, but shoved the hot swords deeper into his soul.  He tried to fend off their allegations, to deny, to stop their threatened disclosures.  But he had no defense.  They mercilessly sifted him like wheat.  The more he denied and resisted, the louder their accusations became.  The noise became unbearable.  He covered his ears.  He couldn’t breathe.  He was going under.

As he grasped for consciousness to break the spell, a still small voice said, “Agree with your adversary quickly in the way.”

“What?” he cried.

“Agree with your adversary quickly in the way,” it repeated, “lest he deliver you to the judge and the judge cast you into prison.  You won’t come out then until you have paid the last farthing.”

It was his grandfather’s voice.

Ok, he conceded silently, you’ve got me.  I’m guilty.

Their power neutralized, the phantoms vaporized into the morning light.  His clenched muscles exhaled all their built-up tension.  Sleep started to drift back over his eyes but it was short lived.

The peace was shattered by an excruciating crescendo in his ear.  Sam’s eyes opened in a tiny slit, enough to see the black box on the night table.  He started to reach for the snooze button but his hands were bound in a self made cocoon of sheets raveled around him.  He finally wrangled one arm out of his straight jacket and pounded the black plastic box into silence.

“What the hell?” he cursed.  “Damn!”  His still inebriated brain struggled to calculate what day it was.  It was Sunday.   “What an idiot,” he muttered.

He lay there staring at the ceiling, exhausted, slowly getting his eyes used to the dim light.  At least the phantoms were gone.  Cowards, he thought.  Couldn’t stand the light of day.  How he wished for more rest, but his pounding head disallowed that.

He ripped off the sheet.  His body was wet with sweat.  He realized he was naked.

What’s this, he thought?  Too drunk to put on PJ’s?

He got up and headed to the kitchen.  His foot knocked over an empty beer can.  He shook his head as it kept rolling with a tinny rumble until it was stopped by a chair leg.  John’s door was halfway open.  He was still passed out.  Wonderful, Sam thought, to be able to sleep through that alarm.  His girlfriend lay next to him.  Half of her naked derrière and one long leg hung limply down the side of the bed.  He reached in and closed the door.   Whether for her modesty or his, he wasn’t sure.  He was pleased to find two lone Advil’s in the kitchen cabinet.  He popped them in his mouth and chased them down with a handful of water.  He walked quietly back to his room and splayed himself back on the bed to wait for some relief.

After the throbbing started to secede, he moved on to the next priority –  Coffee. Yes, need some coffee.  He pulled on his jeans and grabbed a shirt off the floor and repeated his Indian style walk back to the kitchen.

He fumbled through the cabinets for the coffee.  Where did John put it this time, he wondered?  His anger started to kindle.  He was afraid to open any cabinets that John had been into for fear of what might fall out.  What the hell, he said.  Gotta do what I gotta do.  If it wakes you up, it’s you own fault buddy.  Luckily, he found the foil bag on the first try.  No avalanche.

Sam crashed into the old overstuffed chair and let it percolate.  Hope started to revive as the aroma began to fill up the room.  Finally it stopped percolating.  He ventured into another cabinet for a cup.  This time one stray cup fell out and bounced off the wooden floor with a thump.  At least it didn’t break, he thought.  Thank God for wooden floors.

Sam sunk back into the well worn chair and slowly sipped the strong coffee.  There was no such thing as too strong.  It had the added benefit of washing the latent taste of Scotch from his tongue.

The morning light started to fill the room revealing the wreckage from the previous night.  The reminder of a bad idea lay before him on the coffee table.  A “Dead Soldier”, as his mother called it, lay on the coffee table saluted by a cadre of empty beer cans.

Something has to give, he sighed.  This ritual is killing me.  He stared at the empty Cutty Sark bottle hoping it wasn’t he alone that polished it off.  Joe was there last night.  No one loved free booze like he.  The freeloader normally rubbed Sam the wrong way, but this time he held out hope.  His only gage was his throbbing head and it doubted he had help.

There was a time Sam hated the taste of Scotch.  Now his newly “acquired” taste drew near each night like a siren, beckoning, seducing, and eventually breaking his resistance.

He shook off what he couldn’t remember.  Other aromas attracted his attention to John’s perpetual ashtray.  It was never full and never emptied.  The butts just fell to the floor.  The aroma of spent tobacco, whiskey, and beer was not a cocktail designed to aid a hangover, he was sure.

John’s yard sale ashtray was a sore spot between roommates.  It was a huge ceramic blue maple leaf about the size of a basketball cradled in a brass metal stand.  The tips of the maple leaf were like the fingers of a hand reaching out to hold your butts.  Sam admitted that panache was not a prevalent motif in their college apartment, but did he have to go out of his way to prove it?

To escape the depressing sights, smells, and lost memories, he stepped out on the veranda to finish his coffee.  It was a rickety wooden structure overhanging an alley between two apartment buildings.  The cool fall air slapped in the face.  It felt good.  He was finally feeling alive.  He relaxed into his favorite plastic chair to enjoy the view, the backside of his equally classy neighbor’s apartments towering high above an alley lined with trash cans and dumpsters.  The nascent sun was peeking over the roofline.  He could feel the slight warmth on his face.

The coffee helped, but it was no cure for the Sunday blues or the hangover.  The loneliness of Sunday always triggered the same nagging questions; questions that kept repeating like a scratched record and never moved on to the answer.  What was wrong with him, he kept wondering?  Everyone else seemed fine with the status quo.  His brother sure fit the mold, racing off in unison after things the world said you should want.  Sam wondered if they weren’t more like a bunch of lemmings herding toward disaster in the sea without any idea why they were doing it; robots programmed by some arbiter operating behind a curtain.  What was it he didn’t get?

Church wasn’t an option.  That path had dried up long ago.  He just couldn’t bring himself to sit through one more boring self help sermon that didn’t help.  His childhood was filled with the servitude of church attendance.  As he got older he wondered at all these faithful parishioners sitting there week after week with glazed looks on their faces.  Why did they go?  What were they getting out of it other than an attendance award?  Another group of lemmings?  He tried prayer.  That didn’t work either.  It had been constipated for a long time.

He had no answer.  His grandfather was the only one that seemed to know.  The truth, he remembered him saying, was hid in plain sight.  That seemed to make sense but at the same time didn’t.  This is goofy, he thought.  He let it go, releasing his mind to random thoughts. He had a plane reserved for the afternoon to practice maneuvers.  He focused on that.

A movement across the alley caught his eye.  A young lady was watching him from the apartment building on the other side two units down.  She was bundled up, but he could see that she was very pretty.  The steam from her coffee curled up around her face like a halo.  She smiled at him.  He forced a smile and looked down.  A look from a pretty girl for Sam was like a vampire being flashed by a cross.  Suddenly self conscious of his ragged appearance, he looked for a way to escape.  He gulped down the last of the cold coffee.  How he hated cold coffee, but it was the only way to save face.  He stole one last glance at her before going inside.  She was still smiling at him.  Maybe laughing, he thought.

The apartment warmth greeted him along with the undiminished smells now accentuated by the fresh air.  It was time to get out of there.  Sam showered and stood in front of the mirror with his shave cream.  Staring back at him was a red eyed, puffy faced young man that looked older than he should.  Looking down at his belly, he pressed in on it with both hands.  It returned to its original shape.  Grimacing, he lathered his face.

The shower and clean clothes made him feel somewhat like a real person.  His head was only slightly fuzzy now.  John and Molly were still sleeping as he left.  Must be nice.  He wished he could do that.  He navigated the three levels of narrow stairs of his walkup apartment and proceeded toward his favorite dive diner.

The sun was now bright in the east.  He decided to take a shortcut through an alley.  Generally, it was to be avoided given the reputation of the neighborhood, particularly at night.  With the day looking so beautiful, what evil could possibly lurk there this morning, he thought?  This would shave off a couple minutes and he was hungry.

Despite the bright sky overhead, he was surprised how dim it was between the narrow apartment buildings.  He moved decisively, navigating through trash cans, old cars, and dumpsters.  As he was passing the second dumpster, he was startled when a hand reached out from behind and touched his jacket.  Sam immediately jumped back, not sure if he was facing a knife or some other malevolent intent.  An old man stood there.  His smile immediately disarmed Sam.  There was something familiar about his blue eyes but he could not place them.  The many lines in his face portrayed kindness.  It was strange.  His hand was extended out to Sam.

Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out an empty lining.  “Sorry, sir, no change,” Sam said, “wish I could help, but I can hardly help myself.”  He started to move on, but the man pulled gently on his arm as he tried to leave.

“Sam,” he said.  It wasn’t a question.

Startled, Sam stopped and turned back around.  “Do I know you?” he asked.

The old man’s hand was still extended, but now he noticed it was not empty.  It held a small round object.  “This is for you, Sam” the old man said quietly, inserting it in Sam’s jacket pocket.

Sam stared in bewilderment as the old man turned and started to walk away without saying another word.  What just happened, he wondered?  How did he know my name?  He reached into his pocket to see what he placed there but it was empty.  Was this a trick?  He checked his wallet.  It was still there.  He looked back down the alley.  The old man was gone.  How could he move so fast?  Weird.

He hurried to the end of the alley and into the light.  Across from the outlet was an old church.  The bells started to toll.  The mixture of bells and loneliness smelled like someone frying chicken.  Really, he thought?  Who actually fries chicken in the morning?  The tune of “Sunday Morning Coming Down” stuck in his head along with the bad feelings that go with it.

He stopped and watched the faithful walking up the steps in their Sunday best.  He felt so disconnected.  There was a time he enjoyed the days in church with his mom and dad.   It was a long time ago.  He wasn’t sure what happened.  Shaking off the “bad” feelings, he marched onward to his greasy destination.

The diner appeared in the distance.  It was cheap, greasy and tasty; all the elements needed for fine dining.  If there was ever a diner called The Greasy Spoon, it should have been reserved for this place.  But it wasn’t called that.  It was called La Grande Bouche.  The name was the only thing French about it since the owner was an Italian from New York and the food he served was about as basic American meat and potatoes as it could get.

The name, however, did match its owner, Joe, who never shut up as he took orders from the patrons in gruff New York style and shouted them out to his cook.  The morning menu was simple: bacon, eggs, toast, sausage, no substitutions.  No Eggs Benedict here.  The only greeting offered here was a “Watta’l it be?”  Which meant you had the choice of fried or scrambled, crispy bacon or not crispy.  It also meant you better know what you wanted before he came to your table.  Asking for a special order was asking to be skewered New York style.  He was the breakfast Nazi of all breakfast Nazis.  Take it or leave it.  Those of sensitive dispositions probably didn’t frequent La Grande Bouche, but the New Yorkers around loved it.  It was like home to them.

Sam walked in and glanced around.  He only had a half dozen tables and a counter that would hold twelve.  There was one cheap painting of the Eiffel Tower.  That, and the name, was the sum total of French ambience.  The tables were filled with people looking about as ragged as he felt.  No church people in here.  No diamonds.  No minks.  My kind of people, he thought.

Sam took a stool at the counter.

“Watta’l it be?” he asked looking down at his pad.

“Two eggs over medium, medium bacon, and wheat toast,” he said proud that he was able to avoid the disdain of the proprietor.  He was hoping that this would be the final cure for his hangover.

“Drink?”

“Coffee.”

“Guido,” Joe yelled, “cluck and grunt medium, wheat raft.”  Old Guido stood right behind him and nodded his head like he hadn’t already heard the order.  To be sure, everyone got the order.  Guido’s spatula pushed a healthy bead of grease toward the trap with one hand while the other masterfully cracked the eggs laying them sunny side up on the surface.  The bacon sizzled as it hit the grill.  He could have subsisted off just the aroma.

Guido stabbed the bacon off the grill and soaked up the excess grease by folding it between two paper towels.  He did the same with the eggs and slid the plate in front of Sam.

“Anything else?” he asked.  The New York tone was almost like a dare.

“No, thank you,” Sam replied sticking his fork into one of the eggs.

Things were looking up.  The self induced migraine started to subside as he dug into his delicious breakfast.  He wondered why it tasted so good.  It had to be that grill.  The Lord knows how many years it had been seasoned by tons of bacon and sausage.  It looked like it may have been the first one after the discovery of electricity.  Maybe, he fantasized, it was converted from a coal stove into an electric grill and was 200 years old.  Whatever, he thought.  It’s mighty good.

Joe set the check in front of Sam.  Cheap.  Only $7.39.  He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out his wallet.  It was empty.  Sam panicked.  Did that old man pick my pocket, he thought?  He was sure there were a couple twenties in it the last time he looked.

“Dammit!” he mumbled as he went through his other pockets.  His hand hit an object in his jacket pocket.  What’s this, he asked himself and then remembered the old man put something in his pocket?

He pulled it out and examined it.  It was an old tarnished coin.  By the look, feel, and weight, he thought it could be silver but dismissed that idea.  There’s no one in their right mind out there handing out silver coins.  He thought about biting it like in the movies but he wasn’t sure where it had been.  The inscription grabbed his attention.  One side of the coin had a figure of a human bust with a crown.  He wondered if it was Greek, Roman, or what.  The other side looked like sheaves of wheat.  He didn’t know much about coins, but somehow he was pretty certain he wouldn’t find this in any coin book.  He was also certain Joe wouldn’t take it as legal tender.

Sam frantically fumbled through his other pockets as his anxiety increased.  Joe didn’t suffer bums and he was sure that Guido wouldn’t hire him to wash dishes.  He shoved the coin back into his jacket pocket and felt some paper bills.  Two twenties.  His mind swirled with questions.  How did they get in that pocket, the pocket that was empty a few seconds ago except for the coin?  Was he still drunk?  Relieved, he thanked God and plunked a twenty on the counter in front of Joe who quickly snatched it up.

Sam picked up the ten and told Joe to keep the rest.  Joe nodded.  Then he jumped up and stepped outside into the cool air trying to clear his head.  The sun felt good on his face.

“What a weird morning,” he said to himself.  “I must be really losing it now.”

Sam decided to take the long route back to the apartment and walk the rest of his haze off and avoid that alley.  He checked his watch.  He had a flying session scheduled at noon.  He had just received his solo certificate and was looking forward to taking the controls alone for the second time.  And nervous.

The traditional route took him down Church Street and that was no misnomer.  It was lined with churches that were starting to come alive.  Cars circled for parking places as people crisscrossed each other’s paths without looking or speaking.  Each headed robotically for their particular worship site like schools of salmon programmed to swim up their separate home streams oblivious to any other fish or where they were going.

There were seven churches on that one street.  Unbelievable, Sam thought.  All worshiping the same God but needing seven different houses of worship to make it happen.  Explain that.

The first was a Baptist church.  They were already in the mode, sort of.  He could hear “Just As I Am” faintly emanating from inside.  Could use a little more enthusiasm, he thought.  Sam has a soft spot for Baptists.  You had to love them.  Their heart seemed to be in the right place, but it was just too hard to get to heaven.  That wasn’t for him.  Anyway, he was sure “alchies” were not welcome.

The next was the Episcopal Church.  He grew up in one of them.  Most of these people showed up in minks and Cadillacs and those that didn’t were not in any way shrinking from their superiority complex.  No, he decided some time ago he was a misfit for them also.  Ragged jeans and unkempt appearance weren’t greeted with much warmth.

Then there was the Catholic Church.  This was one of Sam’s favorites.  He had to give them credit.  For a church that was drowning in myriads of do’s and don’ts, venal and mortal sins, they sure seemed to be much less burdened than the Baptists who, despite being saved by grace, carried tons of guilt around on their faces.  For those Catholics that didn’t get their sins absolved Saturday night, they had a second chance on Sunday.

Then there was Unitarian Universalist.  No comment there.  He passed the Methodist and the Lutheran churches and was coming up on the darkened doorways of the Seventh Day Adventists when his cell phone started to ring.  The caller ID’d Steve, his brother.

“Damn,” he muttered.  “Guess I’ll get a sermon with or without church.”  Sam’s head started to hurt again.  He wondered how his orthodox brother was able to tear himself away from his church duties to make a personal phone call.  Then again, he was always able to make time to sermonize, chastise, criticize or otherwise lecture him on his deviant lifestyle.    “Hey, Steve,” he answered.

“You in church this morning?” Steve blurted, not wasting time on salutations.

“I’m fine, Steve.  How are you?” he replied ignoring his question.

“Don’t be smart,” Steve fired back.  “How am I going to get through to you?  You get wasted again last night?”  Without giving an answer a chance, he fired at him some more.  “You’re headed for hell, buddy boy, if you don’t get your act together.”

Sam could see this picking up steam and going nowhere.

“What did you really call me for, Steve?”  Interrupted Sam.  “I’m sure you’re worried about my spiritual wellbeing, but I doubt that’s why you stepped away from your solemn duties to call me on a Sunday morning.”

“Go ahead, Sam,” continued Steve.  “Be a smartass. But you’re right.  I’m only calling for Pop.  He’s not doing all that well and, for whatever reason, he keeps asking about you.  Says you haven’t been to see him for quite a while.  It beats me what he sees in you considering how you have wasted his and Dad’s money and I am the only one he can count on.”

Sam was silenced.  Steve’s remarks weren’t far from the truth.  He had neglected his Grandfather.  He was the only one who continued to believe in him as he intermittently sputtered his way through college despite quitting twice and taking seven years to finally get an engineering degree.  When he needed money, Pop was there, no questions asked.  That was in contrast to his father who, though also generous, always needed an executive summary, then the details, before handing out the bills.  He was never turned down, but somehow he felt he earned every dollar.  Now that he graduated and found a real job and seemed to finally be on his way, he hadn’t been around to show his gratitude, but he was.  He was very grateful to both of them.

“I don’t know about how wasted their investment was, Steve,” Sam fired back, “you’ve got some nerve but you tell him I will see him this week.  And you know what you can do with your little talk.”

“You are right about one thing, there probably is no point in talking,” he replied and hung up.

Sam picked up the pace, fuming.  His brother knew how to get under his skin.  He was tired of all the self-righteous preaching from someone he didn’t consider all that righteous.  Steve was ten years his senior and it was clear as far back as he could remember that Steve wasn’t the one that invited him into the world.  He was perfectly content being an only child and garnering all the attention.

“You’re a quitter, Sam.  A quitter!” Steve reprimanded Sam the first time he left school.

In retrospect, Sam thought it was overrated whether it took him four years or seven to finish.  He finished and that was all that mattered and he had a responsible job.  His only penance was constantly having to hear Steve go on and on about how he had busted his ass in college and Sam was a ne’er do well slacker, never to amount to anything in this world.

The nostalgia occupied his time until suddenly he was back at the apartment.  John had drug himself out and looked like hell.  His girlfriend not much the better.  The amenities were slight given everyone’s condition.  “My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton,” John mumbled as he headed for the medicine cabinet.

“I’m with you brother,” retorted Sam.  But he at least was starting to feel much better.

John was Sam’s cell mate, as he called it, in college. Both had meandered their way through the university meeting in Heat Transfer class.  Their friendship took off and they started sharing living quarters and expenses.  John was still looking for a full time job.  His anti-establishment hair and attitude didn’t match up with employers’ vision of an engineer.  Nevertheless, he didn’t seem concerned.  He always was the rebel, particularly with his father who was an officer in the Army.  When straight-lace meets ambiguity, the result is always the same.  John and his father basically had a stale mate and that was where they left it.

“Hey, I’ve got a plane reserved this afternoon,” Sam told John.  “Want to go for a ride?”  He laughed.

“I may still be drunk,” John replied, “but not that drunk.  By the way, I thought you had to be sober for 24 hours before flying?”

“Nahh, I think that’s just for commercial pilots.  It’s less than .02% for private.  I think I’m close to being legal,” he laughed.  “Anyway, I’m heading on over.  I’ll catch you this afternoon.”

“Good luck.  Don’t crash it,” he laughed.

“Funny.”  Sam headed to the street to his car.

Sam pulled into the private terminal and sauntered over to the office.  It was a small regional airport that at least had a control tower.  His instructor was not there so he signed in and got the keys to the yellow Cessna 152 he had been training in.

He began to tense up a bit.  They could say it was like driving a car, but that was bull.  There was nowhere to pull over in times of trouble.  Fear was a good thing as long as it was mixed with the enjoyment of flying.  He enjoyed the maneuvers, particularly the engine failure exercise where you simulated a loss of power and had to glide onto the runway.  You had only one shot at it since theoretically, the backup plan was . . . well, crash.  He was pretty good at it.

“What a perfect day,” he thought.  The sun was shining.  Visibility was great.  He was nervous and excited.  He slowly walked around the plane doing the preflight inspection.  He checked everything, the pitot tube, the elevators, rudder, wheels, tires and ailerons.  Once satisfied, he hopped into the two seater and put the key in the ignition.

“Clear,” he yelled popping open the window. He always felt a little foolish yelling into the wind since it was obvious there was no one within a hundred yards of the propeller.  The little plane reverberated as it started and smoothed out as the engine revved up.

He keyed the mike, “Ground control, this is seven-zero-four hotel tango, ready to taxi.”

“Roger, seven-zero-four hotel tango, you are cleared to runway three zero,” came the crackling reply.  It was difficult to hear over the engine noise.  There were no other planes in sight.

Sam revved up the engine and it started to pull out on the taxiway.  The plane lurched forward like it was being pulled by a rubber band.  He slowly taxied up to the runway and stopped short.  He revved the engine up and checked the carburetor heat.  The engine quickly responded with a sputter.  Carburetor heat off.  Check.  He operated the rudder, elevators, and ailerons.  Check.  He ran the flaps wide open and back.  Check.  The trim was set for takeoff.  He was ready to go.

Switching over to the tower frequency, he keyed the mike one more time,” Tower this is seven-zero-four hotel tango, ready for take-off.”

“Roger, seven-zero-four hotel tango, you are cleared for takeoff,” came the same voice.

Sam squared the plane onto the runway and pushed the throttle all the way in.  He used the rudder to compensate for a brisk wind from the left.  The plane was quickly up to 56 knots as he began the roll, the wind shifting it to the right as he left the ground.  Banking slightly to compensate he climbed to 400 feet at 70 knots and banked left heading out over the hills.  He climbed to 3000 feet and leveled off, resetting the trim and adjusting the throttle to regulate his speed.  The houses were reduced to toy size while the roads snaked through bright fall colors.  There was enough turbulence to bounce him around in the cockpit.  He firmed up his grip on the stick.

Sam started out with some easy maneuvers keeping his eye on the airport.  He liked to leave breadcrumbs of landmarks to make it easier to navigate back.  He practiced the usual maneuvers, banking to the right, banking to the left.  This was very routine, and after a while, he was a little bored.  Need to spice this up, he thought.

He decided to practice a power take-off stall.  This was more interesting and required some real skill.  It was done to simulate a stall on take-off and how to recover.  One of the first things Sam learned was that an aeronautical stall had nothing to do with stalling the engine.  A stall means the airplane has no lift.  There is a minimum airspeed required to keep a plane aloft.  Anything less, the plane falls.  There is no gradual loss of lift.  It was all or none.  When a plan stalled, it fell from the sky like a rock.

He pulled the nose up, thrust the throttle all the way back in and reset the trim to take-off position.  He inched the nose up, slowly, watching the speed drop off and keeping his eye on the little white ball on the lower left hand side of the dash.  That indicated that enough right rudder was being employed to compensate for the torque of the engine and keep it level.  As the plane speed slowed, more and more rudder was applied to keep the ball in the center.  He waited apprehensively for the plane to stall which would be a quick dip of the nose if he did it correctly from which he would nose the plane down to recover enough airspeed to resume control.

Slowly . . . slowly, he nosed the plane upward.  Slowly the airspeed dropped.  The ball stayed centered.  As he approached 40 knots, he knew he was getting close to stall speed.  The right rudder was pushed to the floorboard.  And then the stall.  The nose dropped. He pushed the stick forward and quickly recovered, level and flying straight.  He was proud of himself.  It was textbook.

Suddenly without warning and with full power still employed, the plane dropped.  It fell like a rock.  No lift.  The strings cut.  No control.  Straight down with full throttle.  The plane went into an immediate counterclockwise spin.  The earth rose up to meet him, a kaleidoscope of greens, oranges, and browns in a dizzying blur.

Sam immediately reacted.  His instructor had shown this to him how to recover but he had never done it himself.  He struggled to remember.

How did he do it again?  He panicked.  The altimeter was spinning, only 2,000 feet left to recover.  Full right rudder to stop the spin? . . . yes  . . . that’s it.

Sam pushed the right rudder to the floorboard.  No effect.  The plane continued to spin out of control as the rotating earth loomed larger and larger.  He pulled on the elevators.  Hard.  As hard as he could.  No effect.  They would not budge.  He turned the ailerons clockwise hard.  The plane continued its downward spin.  He was out of ideas.  Totally helpless.

The situation was dire with only seconds remaining and he knew it.   The tach was redlined.  The airspeed was pegged.  In the few seconds left, Sam’s life started passing before him.  Even in his panic, he could hardly believe the old cliché, but it was true.  He remembered his childhood, his acrimonious brother, the loving eyes of his father and mother.  He wished he could see his parents one more time to say . . . to say he was sorry for not living up to their ideals.

Something fell out of his pocket.  He watched it hit the windshield and wondered why it caught his attention above the roaring noise.  It was the silver coin that old man stuffed in his pocket that morning.  That crazy coin.  What good is that?

The plane seemed to spiral downward at supersonic speed.  The earth roared up to meet it.  He never thought about praying nor had he time.  He resigned himself to his fate as he twisted and pulled on the controls.  What else could he do?

Click on Page 2 to read Chapter 2  God and Mammon

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