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Jan
Peregrine
EDEN IN LIMBO: A Three Act Play in Spirit Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: toExcel (October 18, 1999) ISBN-10: 1583483950 reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com 11/20/2011 Would you recommend this book to other readers? Probably * * * * review: Under review: Ms Jan Peregrine's 1999 EDEN IN LIMBO: A THREE ACT PLAY IN SPIRIT. Its Dedication: "This
novel is written for all the marginal people of society.
... I hope to inspire reflection and compassion through these
words."
An introductory Verse "Eden" asserts the reality of a paradise that all of us can hope to find; "if it is not shared, though,
it is Eden in limbo." In a page and a half "Prologue" the unidentified third-person narrator places stage center a character called "Third God ... or rather the Third Emanation of God." He has been given yet another assignment by "Boss, the First God." Third God is to assume human form, gather together some humans and answer their questions. Why? "Nothing
else seems to be working, anyway. So few people inhabit the spirt and
the soul of God."
How assemble the right people? By "advertising on the Internet." Third God will go in the door of many who reply to his Internet invitation (they are hoping for an encounter with Jesus the Good Shepherd) in order to come out Third God's own door: namely, to realize how "he is
much more than Jesus, yes indeed, more than one religion's concept."
Third God finds the perfect scene, "a quiet
lovely meadow in the hills," to encounter his human auditors and is
made welcome there by its inhabitants: oak trees, a cooling wind, flox
and buttercups.
The rest of EDEN IN LIMBO spreads for a few hours of an afternoon across three Acts and 20 Scenes, an Epilogue and three verses. 25 additional verses in the Appendix then "show
you why I wrote EDEN IN LIMBO, how it came to be. You will also see my
dreams in a very real way,"
says author Peregrine. The Third God, God's Holy Spirit, sets up folding chairs for his guests. After they arrive in cars, he reads the thoughts of the dozens of people whom his Internet invitation has persuaded to the meadow, invites their questions, joshes with them and tries to make himself and "Boss" unnecessary to their daily lives! Boss kindly makes the sun stay above the horizon a few hours longer than usual, so that there is time enough for divine-human interaction before Third God falls silent and eventually goes away The author singles out a few humans in the crowd for attention, including a male homosexual couple, two ailing, believing Christian women, an East Indian couple and others. But the principal human heroine is a tall, angry, emotionally damaged Sioux Indian woman named Felicia. Whites have confined the Lakota to reservations. Circumabient Jesuits have killed the Amer-Indian Gods. Third God first tells how Boss, a female, created the known universe -- not from nothing but from pre-existing tightly packed, dazzling, annoying, noisy, congolomerates of lights -- by Boss's breathing and spreading the lights out far and wide where they can be seen to be beautiful. The rest of the afternoon is given over to dialog between Third God and his visitors. The message that Boss wants the Holy Spirit to share (In a nutshell, spirit and soul are what is important, not organized religion) is laid out most unequivocally and powerfully in Scene Five that concludes Act II. People have to learn to think for themselves. Third
God: "My job ... is to make it so
you don't
really need me! Yes to work myself out of a job." Speaking to
Felicia and her new friend Kyle, Third God asks: "Has Jesus changed your life, Felicia,
Kyle? If you hadn't heard of him, would your life be any different?
Same thing with God. If you hadn't heard about God, would you be the
same person?"
The bottom line: EDEN IN LIMBO is a well constructed novella or short play. In its narrative and through her 28 poems author Jan Peregrine of Lincoln, Nebraska, presents a vision of God(s) meant to cut across all organized religions and empower the marginalized and humiliated persons of Earth to live in soul and spirit. This they could never do when simply obeying divine decrees laid upon them from without. Third God can be flippant, patronizing, generally superficial compared to an Aristotle or a Thomas Aquinas. But his message of self-confident individualism undeniably provokes thought by readers. And that seems to be a large part of what the author wants. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/books/375523890.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) Open Library 12/20/2011 EDEN IN LIMBO COVER PHOTO Contributors • Reviewers T. Patrick Killough EDEN IN LIMBO A THREE ACT PLAY IN SPIRIT Published 1999 by toExcel in San Jose, USA . Table of Contents Dedication....................v Acknowledgments........vii Eden.............................xi Prologue.......................xiii Act One.........................1 (poem) "A Full Heart" 35 Act Two.........................37 (poem) "What If?"........59 Act Three.......................61 Epilogue.........................91 (poem) "Pow Wow".......93 Appendix: Poetry of an Eden in Limbo.....95 About the Author...........145 The Physical Object Format Paperback Pagination xiv, 145 Number of pages 145 Dimensions 8 x 5 x 0.4 inches Weight 6.9 ounces ID Numbers Open Library OL25128581M ISBN 10 1583483950 Read No readable version available. Borrow Physical copy, local WorldCat Buy Alibris Amazon AbeBooks Biblio.com Book Depository Powells History Created 1 day ago · 2 revisions Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation 1 day ago Edited by T. Patrick Killough Edited without comment. 1 day ago Created by T. Patrick Killough Added new book http://openlibrary.org/books/OL25128581M/EDEN_IN_LIMBO ==-=-=-=-=- (3) lunch.com 12/21/2011 name of review: What If The Marginalized of Society Chatted with the God(s) They Needed? rating: * * * * review: Lincoln, Nebraska poet Jan Peregrine dedicated her 1999 EDEN IN LIMBO: A THREE ACT PLAY IN SPIRIT to "all the
marginal people of society, the ones not accepted without prejudice by
the majority of society."
She added: "I hope
to inspire reflection and compassion through these words."
A large number of presumably marginal people within driving distance of a beautiful meadow surrounded by oak trees receive an email/Internet invitation to meet there with a God. This rare face-to-face Divine-human meeting is the idea of First God, the Creator, a female who would never meet one on one with any creature. This she delegates to her spokesman, Third God or Third Emanation of God or the Word of God or the Holy Spirit, who calls First God "Boss." From the Prologue we learn that Boss intends the meeting with humans to be brief, "just long enough to answer questions." Why must there be such a meeting? Why does Boss have Third God take on human form to communicate with people? Boss sounds desperate, willing to try anything. Says Third God: "Nothing
else seems to be working, anyway. So few people inhabit the spirit and
the soul of God."
So they come -- marginalized, automobile-owning, Internet-savvy men and women. They appear to be mainly North Americans either practicing or having fallen away in disappointment from one or more Christian sects. By inference the Eden-like meadow is in North America, perhaps Nebraska or within driving distance of Felicia, a tall, pony-tailed Sioux woman raised on a reservation surrounded by Jesuit priests who had demanded gratitude from the Indians while destroying their culture and ancestral religion. With the exception of an East Indian couple of Hindu persuasion, the other eight or nine persons singled out for attention by the Holy Spirit are apparently North Americans: two old Christian women, a homosexual male couple and others. But among the humans it is Felicia who interacts most with Third God. Boss intervenes almost obsessively with Third to make sure that he gets her message right. Who is God? Who is Jesus? Why are the three Divine emanations not persons but spirits? How are angels different from ghosts or spirits.? Humans are spirits exploring their bodies as wild unknown territory. Humans must learn to live in the spirit and in soul. In this way they will be in contact with the Gods and with all other created spirits as well. Humans must learn to live for themselves according to their own lights. There is no sin, hence no need for a Redeemer from sin. Humans do not need the Gods as a crutch. The business of Third God is to work himself out of a job, to convince humans to stay in touch with the Divine but not to waste time trying to please God. On and on the dialog goes. One interpretation of EDEN IN LIMBO that occurs to me is that author Jan Peregrine, filled with compassion for the marginalized, is looking for a world-view that -- (1) will make dominant,
politically correct "majorities" warm up to "minorities" whom they have
relegated to the sidelines,
-- will convince the despised and hurting that (2) much of what they have learned about God being on their side, for them, their protector, is either false or irrelevant, -- and (3) will go a long way to making the marginalized feel better about themselves. In the world view presented as accurate within EDEN IN LIMBO, historical, organized, supply side religion is inadequate to men's needs. Indeed, what with notions like obedience and sin, organized religions, notably traditional Christianity, tamp down what is best in Mankind while giving rein to destructive impulses. Better for hurting, marginalized persons is a chatty, wise-cracking George Burns sort of God or Gods, more concerned with making people feel better than with declaring dogma or enforcing commandments -- that sort of Divinity or religiosity. EDEN IN LIMBO was clearly not ghost written by either Reverend Billy Graham or Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. On the other hand, EDEN IN LIMBO resonates with views of respectable truth seekers like Professor Joseph Campbell, the cradle Catholic who later immersed himself in the myths of the world and told BIll Moyer that he no longer believed in a personal God. Campbell's world view comes across as much broader and formally learned than Jan Peregrine's. But Jan Peregrine has a way with words and her way of putting things has its appeal. Peregrine's mythologizing is anti-dogmatically Trinitarian, post-Christian. It does not draw much on Judaism, takes nothing at all from Islam and gives only a bit of a nod to Buddhism and Hinduism. Sioux Indian Felicia, by contrast, makes a strong case for her Lakota legends and beliefs, especially for her grandmother's Buffalo God. Felicia decides that her next phase in life will be to write poetry and articles for her tribal newspaper and perhaps letters to Third God as well. The last quarter of EDEN IN LIMBO, Appendix, contains 25 limpidly clear short poems by Jan Peregrine which can be construed as either fleshing out materials in the Three Act narrative or providing fresh slants into less explored dimensions of love and inter-human empathy. ********** Curiously, I finished my first reading of EDEN IN LIMBO on the day that the Vatican announced the coming canonization of Mohawk-Algonquian North American (New York-Quebec) Indian Kateri Tekakwitha (1656 - 1680). She was orphaned at age four, defaced by smallpox and left with extremely poor eyesight. Baptized at age 20 by one of those (French) Jesuits that EDEN IN LIMBO's Siouxan Felicia snorts against, Kateri became thoroughly marginalized within her uncle's Turtle Clan. I feel drawn to ask Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, "Lily of the Mohawks," to invite God's blessing on the striving, seeking spirit vibrantly alive in EDEN IN LIMBO and on the passionate, caring poet who wrote this thought-provoking THREE ACT PLAY IN SPIRIT. -OOO- http://community.cafelibri.com/reviews/d/UserReview -Jan_Peregrine_EDEN_IN_LIMBO_A_THREE_ACT_ PLAY_IN_SPIRIT-74-1789887-216512-What_If _The_Marginalized_of_Society_Chatted_with.htm =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) bn.com 12/22/2011 (First Day of Winter) Review Title: "sometimes in our Emails, the geyser will gush" rating: * * * * review: The story line of Ms Jan Peregrine's EDEN IN LIMBO (1999) is offbeat and absorbing. So much so that a reviewer might forget to mention that a book that is 3/4 prose also contains 28 poems: three chapter epitaphs and 25 verses collected at the end into the Appendix. Lincoln, Nebraska author Peregrine intended the book's prose and poetry to work together to produce a whole. In this review I will merely sketch the prose story line, then spend a bit more space on the verses. God is Trinitarian, sort of. The Creator (First God) is female. Her male spokesman is the Holy Spirit (or Third God). Jesus rather blends in with humanity and is less important than the Spirit. In the opinion of the Spirit, Jesus made a mistake voluntarily dying on the cross. He should have stayed around in the flesh and helped the weak and the alienated. First God aka "Boss" is worried that humans are not living in spirit and soul of God. So she sends Third God (Spirit or simply Third) down to earth in human form to explain the ways things are to humans. Third is then inspired to send out an invitation on the internet and hundreds of hurting alienated automobile owners flock in their cars to a beautiful mountain meadow (Eden?) where Third awaits them sitting on one of the folding chairs that he has set up. Third reads their thoughts (often hostile and skeptical). He tells Boss's version of Creation, the purpose of mankind (to stop depending on the gods and think for themselves) and much more. Of close to a dozen humans singled out, one, a tall, pig-tailed, emotionally scarred Sioux Indian woman named Felicia draws most of Third's attention. He sets a romance in motion for her. For her part Felicia determines to move away from her hurting by reaching out to the spirit in each human. In particular she will write for her Reservation newspaper and perhaps even email Third God now and then. In Author's Note to her appendix of 25 poems, Jan Peregrine says that the poems will reveal why she wrote her novelette, EDEN IN LIMBO, and how it was stitched together. "You will also see my dreams..." EDEN IN LIMBO has been an adventure for the author: in both prose and verse. The verses are unrhymed and consist in short lines of essentially oratorically rhythmic text. Let me single out one poem: "Voice of Our Love." The poet now writes emails to another person with whom she first spoke face to face over pizza. Immediately, she had sensed that they were speaking two different languages and that it would be important to blend them into one language, one voice. There was a geyser of unexpressed words between them. She has since found that communicating in writing is better than talking face to face, promoting at least occasional tapping into the latent geyser: "Feeling
safe and less nervous,
we express what we feel: sometimes in our E-mails, the geyser will gush." On first reading EDEN IN LIMBO I was disappointed: the non-traditional post-Christian view of God(s) seemed superficial, Third God something of a smart alec. But re-readings, especially of the poems, makes me think that the broken-hearted may find herein genuine balm in Gilead. -OOO- recommended reading: -- Marc Connelly - THE GREEN PASTURES -- Emily Dickinson, "There's a certain slant of light" -- Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Windhover" http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/eden-in-limbo -jan-peregrine/1003828505?ean=9781583483954&itm =1&usri=eden+in+limbo =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) amazon.com 12/23/2011 title of review: "You sure are a strange kind of God..." rating: * * * * review: In 1999's EDEN IN LIMBO, the weak, demythologized trinitarian god or gods of author jan Peregrine's imagining feel sorry for people of this earth. Like the author, the two main gods (or "emanations" of one God) are especially concerned for "all the marginal people of society, the ones not accepted without prejudice by the majority of society." To improve things, First God (aka Creator aka Boss aka First) sends Third God (aka Holy Spirit aka Third) to keep the marginal ones of earth from going all wobbly and completely losing heart. So First aka Boss sends Third in human form for a few hours of face to face interaction with marginal earthlings of Third's choosing. Third has been First's mouthpiece and spokesflame (the Word of God) for millennia. Being media savvy, Third invites the despised of earth to meet him via an ethereal invitation on capitalized "Internet". As they, too, are computer savvy in 1999 and also arrive in cars, the marginalized have not been made marginal by primitive brains or lack of cash to buy automobiles. So what
makes marginal people marginal?
Loneliness is a part of the problem, inability to reach out to or accept other people. Or if they do reach out successfully to others, as does a male homosexual couple present at the meeting, they are blamed and shunned by the calloused majority who invoke God and His laws. People misunderstand God of the Old and New Testaments to say that all men are born in sin, that sin is real and leads to hell and that all sin is disobedience to God. First God sends Third God to clarify reality and thereby bring comfort to the marginalized. First God aka Boss thinks that her messengers and disciples have distorted God's views down the centuries. Hence Third's appearance in human form to set things straight. He first explains creation from Boss's point of view. He also explains why Jesus (apparently long since demoted within the Godhead and/or dissolved within humanity at large) erred in freely choosing to be crucified to atone for human sinning. Third invites questions, he reads minds, he sometimes has to coax explicit questions from shy orthodox Christians and on and on. Third's principal interlocutor is a tall, pony-tailed young Sioux Indian woman named Felicia. Here is one of their exchanges: Felicia: "You
sure are a strange kind of God..."
Third: "Exactly, young lady! That's what I've been trying to make you understand. I'm not the God you've been taught to expect. God's spirit isn't contained in the Bible and other ancient texts. I'm written on your hearts instead of man-made laws formed with your understanding..." (II, 3, p. 49) Third goes on to explain that people depend on the gods far too much. Ideally, no man needs God(s). Freed from worry about non-existent sinning, people should think for themselves. That means growing up, maturing in spirit and soul. First and Third Gods don't mind if people turn away from them if they do so as part of an honest search for "who I am." At nightfall, the marginalized earthlings wander away. Third God's task is done. Did Third shake things up? P O E M S
In addition to this narrative, set within the frame of a short Three Act prose play, there are 28 poems in EDEN IN LIMBO. The verses are unrhymed. The thought is not notably compressed. The ryhthm reminds of prose. Yet they do helpfully frame the narrative and especially explore and clarify the avoidable state of human loneliness with suggestions on how to combat it and other human malaises. Here are three samples:
-- from "Just One Thought" "Now a simmering need
to greet life arises; you on my mind is making me thrill and cry out. I am seduced into smiling, your eyes invite kisses;" -- from "Fantasy Forest" "cornfields
are swimming in the sun all around us,
their green leaves shine after the shower of rain; it's like visiting at high speed a fantasy forest, tree children run with us as our bike revs along." finally -- from "The Way to your Spirit" "And I
am aware
spirit is found in many ways; all I can say, friend, is to yourself listen. We all have a voice that knows who we are: find the way to your spirit by finding your voice..." ********** EDEN IN
LIMBO: what does the title mean?
Consider the introductory poem "Eden" "There
is a paradise for us,
a place of beauty and love; if it is not shared, though, It is Eden in limbo." THE BOTTOM LINE: EDEN IN LIMBO cries out to be read and re-read. My first reading left me disappointed. -- Third God was an inferior divinity to George Burn's cigar-smoking, wisecracking God in the feature film (OH, GOD! -- 1977). -- The theology was not profound. -- The dislike expressed by Sioux Indian Felicia of whites, Indian reservations and culture-destroying Jesuit missionaries was all too predictable, albeit debatable. But then I read the 28 poems (wherein Jan Peregrine marshalled her semicolons and marched them to war) and then re-read the prose narrative, and the strengths of EDEN IN LIMBO moved into relief. Do not read this book if you intend to derive all its fruit in one quick reading."Tearing its heart out" will not work. But if you are willing to go slowly, sip not gulp, be empathetic to strange views and slants, then you may find thoughts and images that will stay with you for a long time. -OOO- http://www.amazon.com/Eden-Limbo-Three-Play -Spirit/dp/1583483950/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie =UTF8&qid=1321878080&sr=1-1-fkmr0 http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/ABABCN D8BHUXC/ref=cm_pdp_rev_title_1?ie= UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview#RR8M N45OI22BU =-=-=-=- (6) epinions.com 12/23/2011 Title of this review: "If you hadn't heard about God, would you be the same person? Reviewer's rating of EDEN IN LIMBO * * * * Pros: Post-George Burns (OH, GOD! -- 1977) wisecracking, amiable, empathetic Holy Spirit. Compassion for marginalized earthmen. Cons: For orthodox, closely-reasoned theology go to Saints John, Paul, Thomas Aquinas or Edith Stein. The Bottom Line: Re-imagines traditional Christian theology
to make it serve the marginalized.
Have humans a built-in craving for God? No! God wants us to learn to do without Her. Review by AOHCAPABLANCA: Which readers will most profit from meditative, reflective, open-hearted reading of Jan Peregrine's 1999 EDEN IN LIMBO: A THREE ACT PLAY IN SPIRIT? -- People who admire a literary text that
is melded into a unity that is three parts prose, one part poetry.
-- People who feel badly hurt emotionally-- for whatever cause -- and who judge that their inherited or organized religion should have either cured that hurt or not made it worse. -- Folks comfortable in and comforted by their inherited supply-side religion (Christian, Hindu, whatever) yet prepared to tolerate sincere efforts by others to imagine something new and different on the demand-side. -- Readers who believe that their pain can't be God's fault -- that He has simply been horribly misintepreted down the ages even by his most admiring servants. They want to see if author Jan Peregrine might have discovered "a more excellent way" back to Eden. A metaphysical premise of EDEN IN LIMBO is that there are two principal gods (or the flexible author will even accept "emanations" of one god): First God and Third God. Once upon a time there was a second God who we think of as Jesus. He seems to have been either demoted or to have dissolved himself into the human race that he loved so much. First God aka Creator aka Boss is close to despairing of the human race. They have got everything wrong. "So few people truly inhabit the spirit and the soul of God" (Prologue). Briefly, the story develops thus: First God aka Creator or Boss sends her eternal Word, Voice, Spirit, Spokesman, Comforter, the Third to earth in human form for a few hours both to lecture selected terrestrials and to interact with them through Q & A. Details are left up to media-savvy Third. He places an ad on the Internet. They are to meet him in a beautiful hillside meadow nearly surrounded by friendly oak trees. They come in their hundreds by automobile and find him sitting on a folding chair, one of hundreds he has set up. Boss, never heard by anyone but Third, kindly keeps the sun from moving for several hours (human watches show no change of time). Third begins by explaining the creation of the universe from Boss's point of view. Among other things he promises to explain whatever happened to Second God. Third preaches many things: there is no sin; all that Boss and the Spirit hope of humans is that they "mature," i.e., learn to stop invoking God and relying on Her/Him to do things they can do for themselves. As central and thought-provoking a teaching as any is given when Third raps by name with two of a dozen or so characters singled out for special attention: Sermonette of Third God (Act II, Scene 5)
addressed to Sioux Indian Felicia and white man Kyle. "But I'm not here to criticize the
religions. All of them are good...like your own Lakota
religion...and they're needed for all the many different people in your
world. I
just would ask you this...Has Jesus changed your life, Felicia, Kyle?
If you hadn't heard of him, would your life be any different? Same
thing with God? If you hadn't heard about God, would you be the same
person? I'm asking this to find out how much you think you need
me...to only blame and take your anger out on maybe...."
That challenge is reminiscent of "How on earth would anyone know that you are Buddhist or Jewish or Christian if you didn't tell him?" That gives you, I think, enough sense of the book's prose for you to decide if you want to read more. And more there is: 28 short poems, three serving as chapter epithets. They serve as choral voices commenting or enlarging on the story line. They offer remedies for loneliness -- apparently the greatest human need and often attributed to God as unsympathetic cause of human alienation. Here is one selection, From "Now Spirit I'm Listening": "But Jesus I listened
for the spirit of what I was hearing, hoping you'd say something to save me the pain. And I tried and I tried to imagine I knew God's spirit but I was only listening to
myself again."
There is something of value for any fair-minded reader of EDEN IN LIMBO. Sursum corda! Lift up your hearts! And listen for the spirit. -OOO- Recommended: Yes. http://www.epinions.com/review/Eden_in_Limbo_A_Three_Act _Play_in_Spirit_by_Jan_Peregrine/content_574219980420 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/peregrine_limbo.html |