KEYWORDS: stones, city, names, wall, thing

Heavenly Art--Introduction

David Berg

DFO15425/83

IDEAS FOR "MANSIONS IN HEAVEN" POSTER

Dear Son, PTL! GBY!

Here are my crazy pictures of possible Mansions in Heaven!—Ha!—And possible arrangement of'm on a 85 x 115 cm. Colour Poster of the City. If you've any better ideas, please suggest them!—Your guess is as good as mine. I was just trying to figure minimum housing & came up with this 12-room 9-bedroom 4-story Palace!—Ha!—Room enough for a Family of 24! (Want you & yours with us!—Ha!) Just wanted to figure how much Wall Space of City it would take—only first 100 miles all the 6,000 miles about!—Leaving lotsa skylite!—And about 1500 miles square for City Park below! 2-&–1/4 million square–mile Park!—With gigantic exhibit buildings of World History, Creation‚ God's Science, Biology‚ Power & Control Centres, etc.‚ etc., in the Park on ground level!—Like a Giant World's Fair!—Ha!—Or Universe Fair!—Our Miss Universe will be the Holy Spirit!

—All walls are clear crystal gold!—You could put furniture & families in the Front & Side Views.—Seen through see–through walls! Pix 1 & 3 are like House plans, 2 & 4 more like actual views. Each of these could also be full-page pix for new GN Letter "Heaven"! Wanna try'm?—I'm sure you could do much better than me! These are just rough sketches. Please return Xeroxes. Thanks! Send ideas soon!—GBY! ILY!—D.

1. THEIR SCI-FI SPACE CITIES DON'T EVEN COME CLOSE TO OURS! They're nothing compared to the beauty & the grandeur & the magnificence & the magnitude & the size of ours! They could do it with models just like they do on some of these sci-fi pictures‚ they do all those spaceships & planets & stuff with models. The Family could do it if they wanted to! Maybe we'll inspire somebody!

2. WOULDN'T THAT MAKE A PICTURE!—The surface of the Earth with the people looking up amazed as here comes our City! Well, that's for the future! You never ever worked on an art project where you had so many possibilities! You're cut out for this kind of work, because nobody could ever take photos of this sort of thing! Photographers are out! You have to create my Dreamworld, or even God's Dreamworld! So PTL!

3. ANYWAY, BACK TO THE CORNER! Through some of those layers, there should be some faint lines of the City. Not much, just like you're looking through glass blocks. It's not very clear looking all the way through, so it wouldn't be like looking through a pane of glass. That's one thing we don't know, the Bible didn't say how thick the wall was. But I have an ides it's plenty thick in order to be able to stand there 25 stories high! Probably it's at least as thick as those layers are thick. That certainly would discourage anybody from trying to climb it! It's probably going to be slick as a whistle! Spider Man would have to go up on his suction cups, but I don't think they'd let him in!

4. DO THE BEST YOU CAN ON THAT CORNER SHOT! On that, I'm really trying to give them some conception of that outer Wall. On that corner shot, the Wall is the thing! So don't waste too much time on the Pyramid, although that's going to be their first close-up view of it. And I really believe it's going to be divided in floors like that. Funny thing, I never got to see any of the private apartments or mansions. That's an alternative meaning of the word "mansions" in the Bible—"apartments" or separate quarters. So it could be almost like an apartment house! But it had some tremendous public rooms‚ & one of these days we'll get around to really trying to give you an idea of what they looked like! Eman put some pretty good ones in his "Space City" Komic. This City is a visual thing, & I want to give them some concept of it! One of these days we'll have a nice big poster that will really show our little kids what it's like!—God willing.

5. IT TOOK ME HOURS TO GO THROUGH THE BOOKS OF THE JEWELS & FIND OUT WHAT MODERN JEWEL NAMES THOSE WERE! Some of them, believe it or not, are still called by those same names! We're really going to have some house!

6. ON THE COUNTRYSIDE SCENE, HOW ABOUT PUTTING THE NAMES OF THOSE STONES on the part of the wall that's showing? Every little thing will help the kids remember things! Maybe put the names of the Apostles first, because the actual names of the Apostles are on'm. Isn't that funny? The names of the stones are not on the stones, but it gives you the exact order. But the names of the Apostles are actually on the stones. So you could even write them in vertically!—Literary license! After all, it doesn't say which direction they were written! My guess is as good as yours or theirs! Did you get that figured out as to which Apostles go on which stones? That's really quite a puzzle! Well, I hope you got it straight!

7. THAT'S ONE THING I AM ALMOST DYIN' TO SEE‚ I'D LIKE TO SEE YOUR COLOUR simulations, which is about all we can call it. There are several of those stones that there's some controversy over exactly what they were. And besides, in different dictionaries & encyclopedias, there were various opinions on what colours. And some of those stones do vary in colour. So I suggest that you just pick out the predominant colour, or the most popular colour, or maybe just the brightest shade of the various colours that they could be, so we have a good variety of colours.—Nice bright colours that will appeal to little kids.

8. REALLY I'M MAKING THESE AS MUCH FOR THE KIDS AS FOR THE ADULTS. I'm dyin' to see'm! I hope I'm not dyin', but I'm sure eager to see'm! Pick out whatever colours you think best, that are probably the most popular ones or the best known, & the brightest. Those coloured crayons I had, they were dead & dull! I guess you received my pictures! Ugh! Looked like Jacob's coat of many colours, something the Jews would like! It didn't have enough umph! Those colour crayons, you just can't get bright colours with'm. And my red pen did the best job on the ruby! Maybe we should have all the cardinal colours in there, the main colours, red, yellow, blue, green etc. Of course‚ then there are various shades of them in some of those stones. Oh, I can hardly wait! I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas!

9. I NEVER DREAMED THAT ONE OF THE MAJOR THINGS THAT HAS BEEN WRONG WITH OUR ART IS THE FINE LINING THAT DOESN'T BRING OUT THE OUTLINES. That's the thing that Maria discovered. She's the one that suddenly took her little hatchet & went to work on it!—Did it with her own little pen & made a real strong picture out of it! And boy oh boy, that makes all the difference in the World in these pictures!—Especially when they're shot down! My Lord, use a heavy pen after this!—Heavy outlines! So please outline the City there on the front page!

10. NOBODY HAS EMPHASISED THE CITY IN ALL THEIR FANCY MASTERPIECES! Maybe they didn't know what to draw. But boy, they're going to know from now on! I think these maps are important (see GN Vol.10), & I think it's important that we have the comparison to every single area where we've got people. They may not be familiar with distances in those other areas, so you can't just take one, not even Europe, but take every one of their areas. This covers practically everywhere we've got anybody, & they can get the relationship of the size right from where they are, get an idea of how big our Heavenly City is!

11. I DON'T THINK THE CHURCH HAS PLAYED THE HEAVELY CITY UP ENOUGH! How many sermons have you ever heard on it? How many descriptions have you ever hears of those stats? How many times did you ever hear the size, or even the width & the breadth‚ much less the height! Do you suppose they were too lazy to look up the word "furlong" to find out how long that was, 8 furlongs to the mile? Don't you think they had a Bible dictionary or something? I never heard anybody talk about it up myself!—And I was astonished! Furlongs could have been feet for all I knew! I think the dumb preachers were just too lazy to look it up!

12. I SPENT ALMOST A WHOLE HALF–A—DAY JUST FIGURING OUT ALL THOSE STATS! I guess you think I'm a little crazy on stats! But how else are you going to tell them how big it is & give them an idea of it, the stupendous, colossal, gigantic proportions of that City! And then put the bass on all these maps to give them a real idea of the distances! Just think‚ just from one corner of that thing, if you go cattywompus & walk across town from the one corner to the other, it's over 2,000 miles!—2,120 miles from one corner to the other walking across! And one of those edges going from one corner to the top, it's 1837 miles!

13. GOOD NIGHT, HE SAID A MOUTHFUL WHEN HE SAID MANSIONS! There's enough room there for everyone in the World that ever lived to have an apartment house or a skyscraper or a Texas ranch! So anybody who says, "No city could ever contain all the people blah blah‚" never even bothered to figure it out! Well there it is! Now they know!

14. I THINK THAT ARTICLE FROM PLAYBOY ON THE "CITY OF THE FUTURE" IS SORT OF LIKE A CONFIRMATION to show there's nothing man ever dreams of that God hasn't already thought of, & just to show what man is already planning, that there's such a thing already! Man is already thinking of that sort of thing & sort of getting in the mood for it. I've always thought that cities & pyramids & World's Fairs etc. are all cheap imitations of what the Lord's really going to do. They haven't even begun to think in God's terms yet! But it's sort of like a confirmation! They won't think we're entirely crazy, that God isn't too far out, that man has actually thought of such things. It takes some things like that to convince some people that God has a little sense. If man hasn't thought of it they figure it couldn't be possible. But If they can begin to get it down in scientific terms or show that science is beginning to think of it, well then maybe God could do it. Isn't that terrible?—To measure God by man?

15. I'M PRETTY SATISFIED WITH YOUR PICTURE SHOWING THE GATE AT THE BOTTOM & the couple starting out, with the inset & all that. You know what came to me as I was study this, what would look better though.—It was my fault, I was trying to give the impression of the Pyramid inside the Wall. I think it makes it look a little crowded, like the Wall's awful close to the City, it seemed to me like there're probably some gardens inbetween or something around inside the Wall. You wouldn't have the Wall coming right against the City, practically bumpin' into the Wall. Wouldn't that be logical to think there were maybe gardens around inside the Wall? Maybe make what looks like a park & a winding walkway through the park, trees, bushes‚ etc., make it look more like a garden between the Wall & the City.

16. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT, SON, SHOWING A LITTLE BIT OF GARDEN BETWEEN THE CITY & THE WALL? See, if we backed that City up there so that the corner of the City is well above the Wall, I mean even if you wanted to go three layers up from the fight hand Wall & five up from the left hand, you'd have lots of room of garden there & walkways with little tiny specks on it, people like ants & some trees & bushes. As it is, you look at it & it's sort of a puzzle, they're going to wonder, "Now, just what is this anyhow? Is it some kind of a box?" They're not going to really get the point unless they're already pretty familiar with the description. I think we could back the City up & show a little garden in-between.

17. NOW IF I WERE THE CONTRACTOR, DESIGNER OR THE ARCHITECT I think I would have done that, & I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Lord did. So what do you think about that? I think that would help to show more distinction between the Wall & the City, don't you? Otherwise, they look so similar, they'll wonder, "Now what in the World is this anyhow, what kind of a geometrical figure is it?" I think if we give it space there & a little distinction & a little garden in there, that'd be good. When I was studying this thing, that just came to me, so I think that would help.

18. SAY, THAT'S A TREMENDOUS THING THAT GUY WROTE ABOUT THAT PYRAMID! He's really quite a philosopher. I mean, it's amazing the psychology of the thing, the way he goes into it, the background of why man's going to have to have cities like that, blah blah. And of course that's all very applicable. I don't know that I'd want to publish the whole thing, I might be able to give kind of a condensation of it or something. It's very interesting.

19. I HAVEN'T GONE INTO THE COLOURS OR STONES YET, as long as‚ Son, you match'm the best you can, the stones with the names of the Apostles & their supposed birth month. Now, I don't know whether that's really true about their birth months or not‚ from Jeane Dixon‚ but it could come from Catholic tradition‚ you know, & it would seem like sort of a logical thing. After all, there were 12 of'm & there are 12 months‚ & it does seem like it would have been kind of logical to pick one of each different personality—at least Jeane Dixon's quite sold on the idea.

20. I DIDN'T USE THOSE OLD BIBLE NAMES FOR THE STONES AT FIRST because most of them were unfamiliar to me & I figured that if they were unfamiliar to me they would be to the public, too. So I tried to find an alternative name from the dictionary or the encyclopedia of a stone whose name was more familiar. And this is what I did. Now, if you find a better name, you're welcome. Now, if you think it's going to be safer just to put the Bible names of the stones & then put in parenthesis a descriptive name or a more modern name of each of the stones, maybe that would be a good ides. Maybe that would do it. Just go ahead & put the Bible names so they'd be sure I wasn't departing from the Word.

21. REMEMBER, IT DOES BEGIN AT THE BOTTOM & MY DICTIONARY DID SAY EITHER DIAMOND OR ZIRCON FOR JASPER AT THE BOTTOM. So since I didn't think jasper was as well-known a name as a diamond‚ I put diamond. Now you can look that up if you want to, or look these up in a good encyclopedia, but these are the names that I found that were closest comparative to them. In fact‚ I wasn't familiar with beryl, but apparently beryl is a fairly well-known stone.

22. SO MAYBE IT'LL BETTER IF WE USE THE BIBLE NAMES first & you wouldn't even have to put them in parentheses on the actual Wall. Put the Bible names of the stones just from bottom to top. The jasper was first, the first foundation, that means it's on the bottom, not at the top. Begin there & put the Bible names from the bottom to the top. And then after them, in parentheses, in case the people don't know what kind of a stone that is, put the alternative name, such as ruby & onyx etc. How would that be? Put those names in parentheses.—And then arrange your Apostles on the left side there in the order of those particular birth stones.

23. YOU DON'T HAVE TO STICK TO THE ORDER THAT I HAD the Apostles on there, except that I would imagine we should put Peter at the bottom foundation, I'm sure that would make the Catholics happy, besides the fact he was one of the primary Apostles. I would have liked to have put Paul at the top, but I don't suppose he fits the Amethyst. But you see I bet Jeane Dixon hasn't even got a stone for Paul because the average person takes for granted that Matthias was the one who took Judas' place simply because the Apostles chose him. He was not chosen by the Lord, he was not even chosen by any leading of the Spirit. They just rolled the dice to pick him out, can you imagine!—And you never hear of him again, so it was obvious he wasn't the one. But later on Paul himself claims to be the one, the Apostle, who was chosen out of time‚ "Out of due season" and claims definitely to be an Apostle. (1Cor.15:8-9) So it's obvious that Paul was certainly the one who took Judas' place & not Matthias. So, what Paul's month or birth stone was, God knows! So, why don't we take him & stick him at the top of the wall anyhow.

24. ON SOME OF THESE STONES, THERE'S SOME CONTROVERSY over which one they actually were, so I just decided to choose the one that's most familiar & the easiest for people to recognise. So I mean, our guess is as good as theirs! We're only trying to approximate, we can't be too exact, & we're not even sure about these birth stones nor the Apostles' relationship to the stones. But since dear Jeane Dixon's supposed to be an authority on the subject, I figured her opinion is as good as anybody's & since we don't have anybody else's, we're sort of limited! Ha!

25. A LOT OF THESE STONES HAVE FLECKS OF GOLD IN THEM, BEAUTIFUL! That's a characteristic of topaz, it has these sparkles of gold. And here's another one very similar, it is a golden-green stone, stone, sort of a golden apple green.—And also of the chalcedony variety. Now, does that help any? At least you've got the colour.

26. I THINK I CALLED THE CHRYSOPRASUS AN OPAL because in one of my dictionaries I think it said it was related to the opal or something like that. In fact, there's considerable difference of opinion of the interpretation of the names of these stones. So where there's a question, our guess is as good as theirs!

27. SOMEWHERE I GOT THE IDEA THAT THE CHRYSOPRASUS WAS AN OPAL. Now what do you remember an opal as being, do you remember anything about opals at all? It's a beautiful stone, it's kind of like a quartz. It has a bluish tint to the body but inside are these golden green crystals. It's really beautiful stone! Even the black opal, which is darker & it' more green, is still very golden, golden green. So that's why I put that name opal down there for chrysoprasus, because that was the closet thing to it. Opal is a more commonly known name than chrysoprasus, ha! How about that!

28. WE DON'T EVEN KNOW FOR SURE THAT THOSE ARE THEIR BIRTH STONES, REALLY. But now somebody's probably going to argue with us as to whether our choice of a topaz goes with Capricorn. But I notice that those birth stones lists vary too, did you notice that? So there! If we decide that we would rather have a topaz for Capricorn, Matthew, why not? Huh? I mean, our choice is as good as theirs if they're all guessin', which obviously they must be since they differ. I never went too much for birth stones anyhow, but since she seems to relate'm to the various Apostles that had their names on these various stones because they were their birth signs, I thought, "Well, that sounds interesting. At least it's an interesting point‚ something for discussion."

29. I MEAN‚ WE'RE NOT ABSOLUTELY SAYING POSITIVELY THAT'S IT! I mean, we could even put question marks after them if we wanted to, but not after the names of the stones, because we've definitely ascertained now which stones are which, right? And then if you start to put question marks, they're going to think, well maybe we didn't know. We ourselves are not actually the ones who are relating these Apostles' names to the stones. All we know is that they're there! And how does the Lord expect us to know which ones they're related to! Anyway, since we don't know, I figured Jeane Dixon's list was as good as anybody's‚ & on a lot of these things it's purely theoretical anyhow. All we know is that they are those stones, that we know, because it says so! And it makes it so specific that he even numbers them!: One, two, three, four, right on up! So that we know! And we've definitely ascertained which stones they are now, so we can say that with certainty. Now it's only the arrangement of the order of the Apostles' names which we're not sure of, but He doesn't tell us, so how would He expect us to know? So if we're wrong on that, well we'll say, "Dear John, that's your fault because you didn't tell us‚ so we just had to guess! So we had to listen to Jeane Dixon instead of you in this case!" I'm sorry we can't always be sure of things! We're sort of stickin' our neck out to even go this far!

30. BUT THAT MUCH WE DO KNOW, WE KNOW THAT THOSE ARE THE NAMES OF THOSE STONES & THOSE ARE THE STONES THEY ARE & IN THAT ORDER, THAT WE KNOW! Now the order of the names of the Apostles, we don't know. I'm very happy, though, that Peter's was a diamond so we could put him at the bottom! I'm a little sorry there's no way we could disassociate Jude from the amethyst & shuffle Paul around, is there? Huh? We could, why not? Amethyst is my birth stone, why don't we! I don't like that name Jude at the top. He was not important at all. And Paul was the last Apostle‚ so if it began with Peter & worked to Paul‚ Paul's name ought to be at the top, & maybe my guess is as good as Jeane Dixon's on that! Why not? Let's put Paul at the top with the amethyst like I had him, OK? You can just switch Jude around to whoever, what stone would he have now?—The aquamarine. OK, that suits me if it's alright with you! He's not one of the most famous disciples by any means & I'd just as soon his was put down in the middle or somewhere. Jude, I hope you'll forgive me for saying that. After all‚ his is the shortest Epistle in the whole New Testament. So as far as his writing capacity was concerned, GBH, he was a man of few words, he didn't take up as much time as I do.

31. WELL, THERE YOU ARE, HOW'S THAT? DOES THAT SOLVE ALL THOSE PROBLEMS OF THE NAMES & THE STONES?

32. PUT THE BIBLE NAMES OF THE STONES FIRST, no parentheses‚ working right up to the top, & then beside them—& you've got lots of room, thank God for a nice long wall—put these more commonly recognisable modern names & a description of the colour, such as amethyst, clear purple. Some of these are transparent, some are opaque, you know what I mean. Some of them you can see through, like a diamond. To be sure you get those descriptions of those stones, I think it would be well to put beside amethyst for example, "transparent purple", so even in the black-&-white they can know what colour it is supposed to be.

33. NOW CHECK EACH ONE OF THOSE. Now some amber is clear. If you don't want to say transparent, say clear, that's a shorter word for it, you won't have to write out so much. Some amber is clear, you can see through it, & some is not. So try to find out which of these are clear stones & beside the Bible name put in parentheses the modern or more familiar name & the colour & as to whether it's clear or not. I think it gives them a good idea which of these sections you can see through. So if you get that Wall straightened out & those names, you've got most of the battle over with. And if you back up the pyramid a little bit & show a little garden in-between, I think that'll help them get the relationship & perspective better, don't you?

34. I THINK WE'VE PROBABLY WORKED ON THIS PICTURE MORE THAN ANY WE EVER WORKED ON, HA! Well, it's pretty important! And it's very important that we give people a real good conception of what it really is going to look like, as close as we can come. I mean we're making a stab at it at least, at least in the proportions, we've got the right proportions & the right measurements & all that, & I think that's going to really help our picture.

35. I USED TO HAVE A STAR SAPPHIRE IN A BEAUTIFUL GOLD RING that dear Hezekiah gave me, that he made himself, he was a jeweler. And we lost it some how or another in France. I had it in my coat pocket & I threw my coat over Maria's lap to get her legs warm one day & the coat got turned upside-down somehow & the ring got lost. I had it checked by the jeweler once & he said it was quite a rare stone. I was sure sorry I lost that, it was a beautiful thing! It looked like a sunrise! The setting was really unique, he said it was very unusual. So sapphires are beautiful stones! Does that answer the questions? And what questions we can't answer, as long as we don't know, why our guess is as good as theirs!

36. THESE WOULD JUST BE GORGEOUS IN COLOUR‚ with all these different colours & everything! We'll see! That's still ahead. But at least we can start prepping them now so you'll have quite a selection to pick from‚ then you can colour'm later. So I wouldn't worry too much about the colour on this black-&-white right now. That's something you can do in your spare time just for your own amusement, play around with it & see what you can do.—But with the aim that someday, God willing, we will be able to use it as a colour poster‚ good?

37. NOW THESE LITTLE TINY SKETCHES at the heads of some of those chapters, they're not all that important to put too much detail in them‚ Son. Just draw something to give it a little identification & give them a little concept of what's in it, of the content. I mean‚ do your best but don't take too much time on it, because Maria feels‚ & I feel too, that that Art Advisory book‚ that's terrific! I went through that yesterday & it's really terrific, GBY! I don't see how you can do so many things, puttin' out LINs & Art Advisories & working with me on the art & everything else. Well, as soon as we get through with this one, I think we're going to let you have a vacation so you can do your other work! Ha! GBY! Lord, bless & give'm wisdom & help'm to do what You know is best, in Jesus' name, amen. ILY!

38. SO HE'S SCIENTIFIC (THE INVENTOR OF THE GEODESIC DOME)‚ he's the guy who invented the thing & they're built all over the World, there are thousands of them today! Apparently he's flippin' out over this triangular pyramidical shape, that's his latest kick. But the place he uses his domes on his city is for letting in light on those protuberances, they're supposed to have those domes on it, & these sort of circle the whole building, those ledges go completely around the building with domes all the way around & this is what lights it. And the inside on the floor is this huge park, garden, & it's an awful lot like what I saw, believe it or not! It's amazing! He must have had visions or dreams or something! But it's really amazing, it really is amazing!

39. MAYBE WHEN WE A LITTLE SPARE TIME WE CAN WORK ON THE INTERIOR OF OUR PYRAMID, like this one, & try to give'm little idea of what's inside. Well, at least I know about a few of the rooms. I remember distinctly three or four of them & the huge park, you remember reading about that, & we could show all that inside. And that seems to me was all down on the ground floor, you know, the park & the Crystal Room & the Throne Room & all that sort of thing seemed to be down on the ground floor. Then of course the living quarters & apartments would have to be upstairs. Then maybe way at the top would be the headquarters. So, PTL! Isn't that something! But his here is a piker of only 200 floors! Of course he also said it would be very easy to make one that could house a million, which I think he said would be a mile high, something like that, which of course is still a piker compared to our 1500-mile one! So this is a mere little sample of what you're about to do, Son, or have already done.

40. ANYHOW, I THINK IT'S REALLY SORT OF PROOF OR CONFIRMATION, here's a great World architect who is not just talkin' through his hat, he's done it before in other things‚ & he definitely feels this could be done if he gets the people to finance it & back it & do it. He said there are companies in the World today that have got the know-how & the materials that could build one of these pyramidical cities right now. He's got it all figured out. Obviously this is one of his sketches that I sent you‚ & he wouldn't have gone to all that trouble just for amusement. That's why he says in his article, "I didn't do it just for entertainment." He believes it! I mean he's got conviction in it, that it can be done & he thinks it ought to be done, because he claims it would be the most inexpensive, economical form of cooperative housing, like a huge apartment house, & much safer, it couldn't be affected by winds or storms or waves or earthquake or anything. Of course the bombs could affect it, he did confess that either man's going to do this or he's going to destroy himself, one or the other. He's going to have to learn how to live together or else! Well of course‚ we know the answer to that! The answer is going to be very similar to what he's got here! Ha! But not under present politics!

41. ADD MY ALL-CAPS HEADLINE ON THE LEFT OF THE "CITY OF THE FUTURE" article & then that subtitle on the right, & therefore, even if they don't bother to read the fine print, they've got the general idea. Don't those captions kind of insinuate where he got his idea?—I mean‚ even if he never read the Bible! I've always felt that that's what the Egyptians were trying to imitate, definitely!—And that they had seen some kind of visions of such things, or such a thing in fact. So, there it is!

42. I HOPE YOU'RE NOT MAD AT ME FOR MAKING SO MUCH WORK & keeping on making little changes or improvements‚ they're not really changes but they're improvements, but it's touching up a little. You guys are smart! You're doing a great job on illustrating. I haven't even had to make suggestions hardly‚ so you're doing great. You're inspired! So the Lord can speak to you just as well as to us.

43. BACK TO THE CITY: In the outdoor healing scene, looking at that as I would to try to think of it in colour‚ what colour looks like in black-&-white, don't you think it would be good to shade in the City a little bit? (GN 10, pg. 187) I think it would help to bring contrast. The outlining is good, but it still doesn't bring the good contrast, like we got on the map of Europe. (GN 10. pg.174) That really helped to bring out the depth, the 3-D, the contrast between the sky & land & all that. And even a Golden Crystal City would look a little bit darker than the sky itself. And it's considerably denser, it has solid golden crystal walls, so it's bound to be a little darker than looking right at the sky. So what do you think about just lightly shading that in? I think you could make it dark enough.

44. REMEMBER THERE ARE FLOORS, ETC., & BUILDINGS & PEOPLE & all kinds of things inside that are going to give it a little more density & darken it, & you're seeing through 1500 miles of City‚ so it's bound to be darker than the sky. I think even a fairly heavy shading that will show up on Xeroxes would even be good. You can't show floors at this distance, that's for sure, it would be impossible to even show the layers or anything, but if it were darkened if nothing else, at least it would show that there's something there! Is that OK? All right, that was my suggestion on that one.

45. I JUST SAT HERE LOOKING AT YOUR BEAUTIFUL GARDEN & it's such an improvement, it just makes it so realistic now. (GN 10, pg. 185) Your picture is getting so realistic & so accurate & more tending toward the idea of an actual photo, the only thing that seems to be inconsistent to me now is—& I don't know whether you want to kill me or what—but just by taking a pencil, I'd run it just along the full length of the Wall, on the right & the left both, just to shade a little bit to show it's a different colour, what do you think? Now the next wall, the clear gold, is so light it's probably transparent of course, so I think therefore maybe just a touch of shading, just a very light shading.

46. SOME SHADING YOU CAN RUN FULL LENGTH-WAYS OF THE LAYER, others you can run at a 45 degree angle all one direction, & then maybe the next layer 45 degree angle the opposite direction, shading with your pencil, when you wiggle your pencil back & forth. You're always running the pencil a certain way, you don't just scribble. I don't know how you do it, but that's the way I always did it when I was a kid in school, & that's the way I've been doing some of these things‚ only it's bringing out the artist in me again. Ha! Do you understand what I mean by shading different directions, so that it will give the impression of a different material? After all, how many different kinds of shading can you have in just 12 black–&-white shadings‚ that's pretty hard to do!

47. THE FIRST TWO LAYERS OF THE WALL ARE CLEAR, do you get the sense of that?—So that people standing outside can see in. Isn't that amazing? The first two layers are completely transparent so they can see right through‚ except that the sapphire is slightly blue. A good sapphire is very light blue & you can see right through it.—Also the top two jewel materials are virtually transparent: The jacinth is sort of like the City itself, clear crystal gold. I realise that some kinds of amber are almost opaque, but other kinds are crystal clear, & I'd rather think of that as something clear, wouldn't you? Just think how He designed some of these layers so that you can see through‚ Isn't that beautiful?—So that you can admire the City from outside the Wall, the people on Earth, & see it towering up there even from down at ground level.

48. NOW SON‚ YOU'RE THE ARTIST‚ WHY DON'T YOU DO WHAT YOU THINK IS BEST ON THAT. Just looking at that I thought, well now we ought to be able to tell some difference, even in black-&—white we should be able to tell some difference between the different materials, what do you think?—OK? You go ahead & do whatever you think best on that, but do shade'm a little bit or different directions or put some little lines on it or something to show there's a difference between those different layers. Otherwise, just having it standing there all white, it just doesn't look realistic, it just doesn't. And I really want this to be realistic.

49. I'M EXPECTING US TO COME UP WITH, IN THE LONG RUN, SOMEDAY WHEN WE HAVE TIME, SON, SOME NICE BIG POSTERS IN COLOUR! Won't that be gorgeous! If we get these first ones down pat & get them lookin' the way we want them to look, I think they're going to be worthy of enlarging to a nice big colour wall poster, sort of like our calendars, you know?—Or maybe even bigger! Maybe a great big one like that biggest one that we've done‚ with several pictures on the same poster. Wouldn't that be gorgeous? Hallelujah! You can work on that in your spare time, Son, when you feel inspired, sort of a combination of these best pictures, with the huge pyramid in the canter as the central figure in sort of 3-D. Make it so it's not just a triangle but at a slight angle so that you can see more than one side, & I think that would be beautiful for a big poster, don't you?