Ben Shepherd 
Book of Say 

A Father’s rare blood disease cannot be healed by evangelical faith in the early 1980’s. As he leaves for treatment on the AIDS wing of the National Institutes of Health, his young son Finn goes to live in the homes of strangers in the rural South. Carrying his red fireman’s bag as a metaphor for his Father’s disease, Finn listens to his emotions about who is Good and who is Evil-conflicted as to why a loving God will not provide a miracle of healing, or heat, or food, or the love of a Mother.Sent to live with an Elderly couple in their rustic cabin on Panther Mountain, Finn is shown and taught the ways of the Native Cherokee that lived in the meadow. In the lantern glow of deep conversations, he learns that love is a fountain whose only business is to flow. Finn witnessed the handwritten letters of Jon and Elizabeth and their promise to each other to be reincarnated as Doves.Finn returns to the Wheat Hill House in grief. Wishing his Stepmother would be content only to break his bones. He becomes a caretaker for his Father, who is desperate to buy a pardon from God. Finn returns to the mountain when his Father returns to the National Institutes of Health.Introduced to the Beloved Community, he learns how plants heal themselves. The history of the Cherokee, Skyuka, and the Elder Fire becomes real as he uncovers artifacts on the mountain. He realized that the universal language of every heart is truth and that all who love are born of God. Eternal life is not merited but measured in how much love we leave behind. Though, at times, Evil does kill the Chiefs of Peace, time has never stopped seeing them being born.