The Valley Rose Between the Star and the Light

“Even the very wise do not see all ends.”Danger Geist obsessed over two things as a child: playing stitch at recess and scrupulizing the coming Christian apocalypse in the geopolitical epicenter of Armageddon. Now an adult, nobody can tell him he’s not allowed to eat popcorn for dinner or that he can’t walk through Israeli minefields, so he trades the Midwest for the Mid-East to travel to the Nativity manger, the Temple Mount, Rachel’s Tomb, the site of Christ’s Baptism, the Mount of Temptation, and even the hallowed Tomb of Jesus Christ – all of which he’s denied entry – in what is certainly the worst Holy Land tourism experience imaginable.Danger’s pilgrimage takes a serious turn when he meets two women – one, an oppressed Palestinian and the other, an Orthodox Jew – who are shut off from each other by an ethnic, religious, and literal wall. While stuck between the two irreconcilable worldviews, Danger is clipped with the darkest tragedy his family has ever endured. Suddenly, the truths from the mountaintop aren’t translating in the valley, and Danger finds himself questioning the most central tenets of his entrenched faith.If there was something that you believed with your entire being – your whole mind, body, and soul – but it was actually a lie, would you want to know?