As It Was In The Beginning: Need is the Aim

by Mark Howell

“As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end” From “One Love”, a song by Bob Marley. “….and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.” ACTS 4, 35 “We must endeavour by patient and faithful service to prepare for the day when there will be an effective world government resting upon the main groupings of mankind” Winston Churchill, speaking at the 1948 Hague Congress as Honorary President Synopsis The happenings of three generations of a family tragically divided but eventually reunited describe a pathway to world government through a second cold war to a world of united federations and democratically supervised, need satisfaction maximising, rather than profit maximising, entrepreneurs, still however troubled by pirate states. As the friendship blossoms between collaborators John James and Luke Williams their fathers, Jason and Lenny, after so long in the dark learn the truth about their family in time to reconcile. Many years earlier John’s grandfather Paul James was Emily Bloom’s old flame, although it was Rob Williams, Luke’s grandfather, their grandmother married first. Rob died when their son Jason was little. Soon afterwards Paul left his marriage for newly widowed Emily. She had Lenny by him. The next few years seemed happy. Many memorable get-togethers took place, like the one to witness the Palestine Wall come down and the secular state of Semham created, which Jason reminded Lenny of later in life. Then tragedy occurs. We follow first the story of Emily and Paul’s son Lenny, living under the cloud of the rift that would tear him and his mother and father apart from his half-brother Jason, before taking up Jason’s own story after he abandons them and vanishes for a generation from their lives that nevertheless parallels Lenny’s in so many different ways. While neither son quite understood their mother it was Jason who became and remained for years hopelessly mistaken. The powerful and healing yet innocent friendship between John and Luke came too late for Emily though. She dreamt but did not live to see just how much the world would continue to change.

312 pages, Paperback

Published February 24, 2017