Gabriel On The Moon

One day, God said, "I am going to create the heavens and the earth." All the Angels rejoiced at this, but not one of them knew what "heavens and the earth" might be. So they all gathered around God and watched as he began to speak things into existence!

First he set a space for this all to exist, which was a place quite apart from Heaven. Then they watched in wonder as he created the sun, moon and stars, and then the earth itself, with all of its life in the air, in the seas, and on the land. Last of all they watched as he created Man in his image!

God saw that it was all very good, and so did all the Angels. Then God rested. After he was through resting, he called Gabriel over, and showed him the place where he could practice all he wanted without bothering anyone. It was the beautiful and perfect satellite of the earth! There was no air on the moon, but that was all right. Gabriel was continually surrounded by the airy realm of Heaven, wherever he might go, so that was not a problem for him. The terrible heat and cold of the moon lacking an atmosphere was also no problem, since Angels are impervious to such things, being creatures of Heaven.

So Gabriel, in full view of Heaven, and with the lovely earth high in the sky above, sat down on a mountain, with his feet in a dry sea, and began to practice. He could always hear the music in Heaven, (having Angel ears so that they can hear everything), so he tried to play along with that great music he was hearing.

Soon he was caught up in his practice, so much so that as he sat there, he put the trumpet pointing down to the ground and blew hard. "Poooom!" "Oh no!" Gabriel thought. "I put a hole in God's perfect new moon!" He got up and wandered off to another place to sit and practice. But soon there was another crater at his feet. His horn was especially powerful, even though it was only a small silver one. (And you all thought it was rocks that made them craters!)

Life, and time went on. Gabriel practiced all the time on the moon, but sometimes he just sat and watched the people on the earth. (Angels have angel-eyes, so they can see everything everywhere.) He saw man in Eden, and he saw God bring Eve to the man. Then he saw them tempted by the serpent, and he saw them fall. After that, Gabriel increasingly shied away from watching Man, for the whole race was becoming ugly, violent, and wicked. Soon Gabriel sought the back side of the Moon to practice and play, since he could not stand to watch Man any more.

One day, God came to see Gabriel. (He was very polite not to mention all the holes in the new Moon's surface.) He said, "Gabriel! I want you to play for me, just for a short time, right here from the Moon. This is the note I want you to play, at just this pitch. I want you to play it when I tell you to, and play it for forty days straight.. Can you do that?"

Gabriel said he could. It was easy, really. For Angels also live in God's time, where a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. Gabriel had only been on the Moon for a day or so, you see, even though a thousand years had passed on the earth.

Gabriel also knew why God had asked him to play such a peculiar request. It was because of Man. God was very sad that he created Man, so he was going to wipe out all life on the earth. (We know God was very kind, because in all of this, he had gotten eight people in a family to build a boat, which would carry all the land animals and insects, and the birds to safely.)