New Book Shares the Spiritual Adventure of a Lifetime

We're talking with Jerry Pollock today. Jerry is the author of Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God. Jerry will share the inspiration behind his latest release, his desire to give back to God, and the Divine miracles he has experienced along the way.

Thank you for this interview, Jerry. Can you tell us briefly what your latest book, Messiah Interviews, is all about?

And thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you.

Messiah Interviews is spiritual fiction and brings a message of hope for the future, and not Armageddon. Ever since the Creation of Adam and Eve, man has grappled with knowing whether life exists after death. Because humans achieve the possible, while God accomplishes the impossible, only the Creator knows our fate and destiny at the End of Days. Messiah Interviews tells the story of the book´s main character, Yoseph, an imperfect human being living an even more imperfect life on Earth, who finds himself transported to the Third Temple in Heaven for the sole purpose of being interviewed to be the Messiah. Joseph is a scientist. He is also a believer struggling to fulfill his spiritual mission.

As readers embark on a journey of knowledge and understanding, they´ll join Yoseph in an exploration of the implications of biblical history on our modern world. Through a series of unexplainable events, readers will get to decide if an additional personal spiritual effort is worth making in their lives, in order to possibly gain entrance to an uncertain futuristic Garden of Eden, the Messianic Age. In a process of the dreamlike interviews with biblical personalities―the angel Gabriel, Methuselah, Chanoch, Seth, King David, Moses, Jacob, Abraham and the prophet Isaiah―Yoseph is forced to bear his soul and his own hidden demons. The interviewers serve as advisors to God, Who is the keeper of the scorecard on the moral choices and decisions we make in our lives. It is God Who decides Yoseph´s fate and ultimately the lot of all of us.

As human beings, we are all flawed. That´s how the Creator made us. During the course of reading the book, readers will be empowered, like Yoseph, to exercise their free will to improve their moral character, in order to meet the requirements set out in the Messiah Interviews for admission into a future blissful life at the End of Days. The book is God-centered and discusses, briefly or at length, various topics, including The Ten Commandments, Creation, Evolution, Good and Evil, Primal Therapy, Bipolar Disorder, Resurrection, Aging, Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Lost Tribes, Monotheistic Religions, the future Third Temple on earth, the Messiah, and the Messianic Age. The book is full of biblical and modern wisdom written in layman´s terms, and is for anyone willing to begin or continue their journey down the spiritual road. It is also meant for the humanist, agnostic or atheist who has chosen a different road. God gives us a lifetime to return to Him.

Can you tell us what (or who) the inspiration behind writing your book was?

The Creator is my inspiration.

In the Sinai Desert during the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, God tells Moses, "I will have mercy and kindness on whomever I desire, even to a sinner who does not deserve that Divine mercy." I, Jerry Pollock, am that sinner who is crawling up the spiritual ladder inch by inch. I feel almost like I have been given an invisible mandate to write the Messiah Interviews. The Creator has brought His Divine Providence into my life and has literally saved my life, first in my mother´s womb in an abortion attempt, and as recent as 1995 in a suicide attempt. Let me be clear. I´ve never had conversations with God, but I did hear His Voice on three occasions, separated by a period of seventeen years. I have been blessed with more than my share of Divine miracles, which you can read about in the Messiah Interviews and in my spiritual memoir, Divinely Inspired: Spiritual Awakening of a Soul, due out in paperback on Jan.1, 2009.

This invisible mandate I believe is permission for me to give back to God. I know this sounds absurd and arrogant, but I feel I am helping God by writing this book. My statement could be considered nonsense, since God can most certainly speak for Himself by simply once again taking the public stage as He did back in biblical times. On the one hand, I just may be blowing smoke. However, it´s my humble opinion that God just didn´t come into my life without a further purpose that He has in mind for me. It would be nice if God told me what He wants me to do instead of keeping me guessing. Maybe I´ve already done it with the writing of the Messiah Interviews. I don´t know. You can judge for yourself by reading the book(s). One last point I´ll make. Since the Creation of Adam and Eve, God has always made Covenants with humankind. I believe that it was always God´s intention that there would be a merger between Himself and man. A spiritual merger implies that both parties work for the common goal of a better and more enlightened world.

I don´t want to leave you with a false impression that I am a Creationist. It´s my opinion that God is the master scientist responsible for both Creation and Evolution. I have a detailed discussion about the latter in the Epilogue chapter to Divinely Inspired and an abbreviated version in the Messiah Interviews.

Is this your first published book and if so, can you tell us your experiences in finding a publisher for it?

No. The first edition of Divinely Inspired: Spiritual Awakening of a Soul came out in 2003 and is being reissued on Jan. 1, 2009. Back in 2003, I had no success in finding a publisher. So I became the publisher.

Do you have an agent?

No. This did not work either. Maybe the right agent down the line would be good but not right now. I want to call the shots with my titles. An agent like a distributor is helpful if you want your books to be in the chain bookstores. You can get it everywhere else in the book world. I´m not knocking the chains. I would love to have my books in every chain bookstore and I´m hopeful that I will. I just have to keep swimming upstream.

Do you have any words of inspiration from other writers who would like to be wearing your shoes?

I´ve been through a lot in my life. I´m not sure anyone would want to walk in my shoes. I know you meant the writing, so my advice is to talk to God while you are taking a walk and ask for His help. I often do this and get inspired. For many years, I had a poster on my office wall at Stony Brook University. The words are timeless, "Happiness is not a stage you arrive at. It´s a manner of traveling."

What´s next for you?

Right at this moment, I can´t think beyond the marketing of the two titles. All of life is a building block, as seemingly unrelated past events in your life are actually essential to the task at hand. After 67 years, I finally know who I am, know where I´m going, and know what my spiritual mission is. What´s next for me? Continue to climb the spiritual ladder. For 30 years, I also had a saying from a Chinese fortune cookie taped to my office wall at the university. "Your soul is worth all the riches in the world." Now I finally know what the saying means. As the biblical Job said, "Days speak and a multitude of years teach wisdom." It takes a long time to get it and the pity is that some of us never do. I almost missed the boat. I was fortunate that God came into my life. I am also blessed with my wife Marcia and a family that loves me.

Thank you for this interview, Jerry. Can you tell us how we can find out more about you and your new book?

You are most welcome and thanks to you. Thanks also for the opportunity to plug the books.

I am listed on the AuthorsDen.com and authorsbookshop.com where signed books can be purchased. You can go to my website at www.shechinahthirdtemple.org. The website was recently updated. The site will have a Blog as soon as I learn how to get into the social media world. Links are provided on the website to purchase the paperbacks due out on Jan. 1, 2009.

The books are available at Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com and can be ordered from any bookstore.

I hope to have my books in public and university libraries. If you use Amazon´s Search Inside to look inside the pages of the Messiah Interviews or Divinely Inspired, please only view sparingly. If the Search Inside is overdone, a security box opens and the feature can no longer be used. EBooks are currently available for download at various e-Retailer websites for the Kindle, Mobipocket, Adobe Digital Editions and Microsoft Readers. Links are given on our website.

An Audio Book of the Messiah Interviews will be available soon. Finally, anyone can contact me by email at jerrypollock@bellsouth.net