Jesus

These stories explore the spiritual depths of people living lives of challenge and worth in Hawaii, worlds some tourists may never see. Meet a struggling young bellhop in a posh hotel who summons the courage to defend his dignity at the risk of his job. . .and a former advertising executive seeking spiritual renewal who opens a storefront chapel close to the Waimea Canyon, hoping to attract congregants. Share the fate of Pi’ilani, the beautiful young woman with heavenly eyes as she discovers that living with her grandmother leads to illusions about the true nature of love. Glimpse a suggestion of the Menehune, the legendary little people said to be the first inhabitants of the islands, when Connie Mariyaki takes her boyfriend home to her grandmother’s shack in the shadow of the macadamia trees. . . .Surprise, heartache and redemption also enter the lives of other characters in this collection: Lily Caceres, a teacher at the Molokai School, gets a telephone call that changes her life...Percy Hefferman, a WWII veteran, encounters a Japanese visitor at the Pearl Harbor memorial who alters his view of the value of the sacrifices his comrades made during the war. The title story of this collection, Volcanic Jesus, reveals the volatile combination of spiritual forces at work in this culture, as the aged Father Martin Lahiri tries to prevent religious hysteria from taking over a small parish on the slopes of volcanic Kilauea after a thunder storm produces a lightning-print of the face of Jesus. These stories take you behind the surface of life in an island paradise, revealing people who are, and are not, like you and me.