I have been working on retooling the copy of the Erra Pater belonging to Iain, my character, to reflect the importance of the book being a text that accompanied him throughout his time on grid as well as before it.
Today, I finished.. it includes, of course, the full text of the Erra Pater we all know and love but with the addition of notes and journal entries/commentaries that were added in at various points by Iain. This item exists on grid and will be passed on to a character after Iain's death, but I wanted to share it here with you to, perhaps, give some insight into my character and share my efforts which, because of the privacy of this text, may not be shared in any other way.
Enjoy!
Iain's Erra Pater
Iain examines a worn copy of the 'Erra Pater' bound in black leather.
This copy of the Erra Pater, so commonly found around the Kingdom, is
well worn with age and travel. Its parchment pages have yellowed and are
riddled with dog ears, torn corners, and little rips in the margins. All
the same, the contents are complete and secure and include a few additions
from the owner. The inside cover is inscribed and numerous notes can be
found written in the margins of most pages. Throughout the book, loose
pieces of parchment have been inserted containing points of commentary and
reflection.
There is an inscription on the inside cover:
Father Iain Roseren, Lithmore City, SC 361
The Erra Pater is a constant of our lives, a firm stone around which the
tumult of human existence can rage. It is an image of the Eternal
Fountis--The wisdom of the Church borne within is as a wellspring,
refreshing tired minds to begin their pilgrimage anew.
May I everyday reach for a new height. One's journey ends not until it has
brought him to his eternal rest.
Notes, doodles, underlines, and all sort of other notations are scrawled
within the margins of the book's pages:
On the Title Page: A heraldic rose is drawn in the lower right-hand corner
of the page.
The Book of the Cosmos, I: (i) "water and fire" are underlined with a
notation above them, by the title of the page: 'The fundemental elements,
underlying all. Man himself is a union of the two: the fire of the will
and the cool water of the intellect/sensory faculties.' (ii) By the
narration of the whirlpool's narration: 'Each rotation reaches to a new
height of perfection. First, the inanimate, baseness of the Urth. Second,
the soul and its fleshly home in all various forms. Third, the Lord
himself. The soul anticipates the glory of te Lord of the Springs.' (iii)
A final note, written at the bottom of the page: 'Movement, change,
constant striving forms perfection. With the advent of the highest beauty,
the Lord himself, darkness itself is banished as night's gloom about the
flame of a single candle, crowded away into the margins.
The Book of the Cosmos, II: (i) At the top of the page: 'Purity is formed
from movement, evil and sin from inactivity and brooding. This reality is
reflected in medicine, the physical science as well as the testimony of
one's own life.' (ii) In the margin, by the second paragraph: 'With
nature's movement done, we must bear our own souls on to their own
perfection. The image of pilgrimage comes to mind, the tireless, persist
journey towards an end yet unseen. It is no mistake that we are commanded
by the Lord of the Springs to go upon pilgrimage.' (iii) At the bottom of
the page: 'The Church teaches, in its wisdom, that the Lord of the Springs
does not intervene upon our plane. And yet, He violates this on the
occassion of Dav. Omnipotent, He may not be, but disinterested... The
pity He feels for man here would suggest this is not the case.'
King Dav, Saint of Saints: (i) A single note is written at the bottom of
the page: 'Dav was chosen once, long ago, in the face of man's own
self-destruction. Will another, perhaps, be chosen again? Such things are
shrouded in mystery.' Next to it, in newer ink, is a note: 'The Page Boy
reports deliverance during the battle with Baylethe. Unbelievable tale,
but was Dav's any better? '
Declarations: (i) "Law of the Spring" is underlined, a note is written in
the margin beside it: 'Motion, activity, striving-- by these is perfection
given.' (ii) At the bottom of the page: 'The community of faith an Urthly
image of the Eternal Spring.'
Canonical Laws: (i) "The Law of Charity" is underlined without notation.
The Nature of Sin: (i) Next to the list of sins is a short paragraph: 'To
strive, we must have something to strive against. The weight of sin, part
of our human nature, at first seems a curse, in many ways it is. Every man
has many sins, some lament this and wallow in their sorrow, bewailing the
futility of the human condition. We must change how we see sin: if a man
but learns to put his sins under his feet, he can make of them a ladder to
the Lord of the Springs. Of what merit is the journey if one faces no
trials? '
The Nature of Magery: (i) The words "holy fire" are underlined and a note
written in the margin next to it: 'Fire -- emotion, force of will, passion,
love. It is fascinating that this force, which has also wrought so much
ruin, becomes a source of purity and a last hope for those in such dire
straits as the tainted mage. But, is the raw element not so as well? Fire
consumes and burns, it brings ruin to the efforts of men and kills, but at
once it is also a source of light, of warmth, and the fundemental cradle of
human society. Fire destroys us, but without fire, we could not live.'
The Signs of Magery: (i) In the margin, alongside the inscription of the
Primus, is a rouch sketch of a chalice. (ii) Scribbled in a corner is the
note: 'Mage Ash? '
The Nature of Good Works: (i) The words "we must not only avoid and atone
for sin but also do good works" is underlined. A note is written in the
margin: 'Movement makes perfection. It is not enough simply to refrain
from sin. Indeed, all men sin, it is our common lot. What makes a saint
is what a man does once he has sinned.'
The Nature of Prayer: (i) A note, written at the bottom of the page:
'Prayer is of paramout importance. Indeed, over any penance, any good
work, the duty to pray prevails. We are frail creatures with feeble wills.
Even the strong among us tire eventually and life's battle is constant. To
prevail against the baser parts of ourselves, it is not enough simply to be
good-- we must be like unto the Lord of the Springs: pure, perfect, full of
light. It is in the quiet solitude of prayer, looking beyond one's self
and to the source of all goodness that one grows ever closer to the
perfection he must have. From prayer the entire body of the devout life
flows and without it, even the most pious man will soon become a knave and
a wretch.'
Iain examines a worn copy of the 'Erra Pater' bound in black leather.
The following is a list of the parchments inserted into the book (OOC:
each is an extended desc, keyword bolded): On Dav and Divine Intervention,
Reflections on Metaphysics, On the Priesthood, Becoming Cardinal, The
Memory of Sin, and Pilgrimage.
This copy of the Erra Pater, so commonly found around the Kingdom, is
well worn with age and travel. Its parchment pages have yellowed and are
riddled with dog ears, torn corners, and little rips in the margins. All
the same, the contents are complete and secure and include a few additions
from the owner. The inside cover is inscribed and numerous notes can be
found written in the margins of most pages. Throughout the book, loose
pieces of parchment have been inserted containing points of commentary and
reflection.
There is an inscription on the inside cover:
Father Iain Roseren, Lithmore City, SC 361
The Erra Pater is a constant of our lives, a firm stone around which the
tumult of human existence can rage. It is an image of the Eternal
Fountis--The wisdom of the Church borne within is as a wellspring,
refreshing tired minds to begin their pilgrimage anew.
May I everyday reach for a new height. One's journey ends not until it has
brought him to his eternal rest.
Notes, doodles, underlines, and all sort of other notations are scrawled
within the margins of the book's pages:
On the Title Page: A heraldic rose is drawn in the lower right-hand corner
of the page.
The Book of the Cosmos, I: (i) "water and fire" are underlined with a
notation above them, by the title of the page: 'The fundemental elements,
underlying all. Man himself is a union of the two: the fire of the will
and the cool water of the intellect/sensory faculties.' (ii) By the
narration of the whirlpool's narration: 'Each rotation reaches to a new
height of perfection. First, the inanimate, baseness of the Urth. Second,
the soul and its fleshly home in all various forms. Third, the Lord
himself. The soul anticipates the glory of te Lord of the Springs.' (iii)
A final note, written at the bottom of the page: 'Movement, change,
constant striving forms perfection. With the advent of the highest beauty,
the Lord himself, darkness itself is banished as night's gloom about the
flame of a single candle, crowded away into the margins.
The Book of the Cosmos, II: (i) At the top of the page: 'Purity is formed
from movement, evil and sin from inactivity and brooding. This reality is
reflected in medicine, the physical science as well as the testimony of
one's own life.' (ii) In the margin, by the second paragraph: 'With
nature's movement done, we must bear our own souls on to their own
perfection. The image of pilgrimage comes to mind, the tireless, persist
journey towards an end yet unseen. It is no mistake that we are commanded
by the Lord of the Springs to go upon pilgrimage.' (iii) At the bottom of
the page: 'The Church teaches, in its wisdom, that the Lord of the Springs
does not intervene upon our plane. And yet, He violates this on the
occassion of Dav. Omnipotent, He may not be, but disinterested... The
pity He feels for man here would suggest this is not the case.'
King Dav, Saint of Saints: (i) A single note is written at the bottom of
the page: 'Dav was chosen once, long ago, in the face of man's own
self-destruction. Will another, perhaps, be chosen again? Such things are
shrouded in mystery.' Next to it, in newer ink, is a note: 'The Page Boy
reports deliverance during the battle with Baylethe. Unbelievable tale,
but was Dav's any better? '
Declarations: (i) "Law of the Spring" is underlined, a note is written in
the margin beside it: 'Motion, activity, striving-- by these is perfection
given.' (ii) At the bottom of the page: 'The community of faith an Urthly
image of the Eternal Spring.'
Canonical Laws: (i) "The Law of Charity" is underlined without notation.
The Nature of Sin: (i) Next to the list of sins is a short paragraph: 'To
strive, we must have something to strive against. The weight of sin, part
of our human nature, at first seems a curse, in many ways it is. Every man
has many sins, some lament this and wallow in their sorrow, bewailing the
futility of the human condition. We must change how we see sin: if a man
but learns to put his sins under his feet, he can make of them a ladder to
the Lord of the Springs. Of what merit is the journey if one faces no
trials? '
The Nature of Magery: (i) The words "holy fire" are underlined and a note
written in the margin next to it: 'Fire -- emotion, force of will, passion,
love. It is fascinating that this force, which has also wrought so much
ruin, becomes a source of purity and a last hope for those in such dire
straits as the tainted mage. But, is the raw element not so as well? Fire
consumes and burns, it brings ruin to the efforts of men and kills, but at
once it is also a source of light, of warmth, and the fundemental cradle of
human society. Fire destroys us, but without fire, we could not live.'
The Signs of Magery: (i) In the margin, alongside the inscription of the
Primus, is a rouch sketch of a chalice. (ii) Scribbled in a corner is the
note: 'Mage Ash? '
The Nature of Good Works: (i) The words "we must not only avoid and atone
for sin but also do good works" is underlined. A note is written in the
margin: 'Movement makes perfection. It is not enough simply to refrain
from sin. Indeed, all men sin, it is our common lot. What makes a saint
is what a man does once he has sinned.'
The Nature of Prayer: (i) A note, written at the bottom of the page:
'Prayer is of paramout importance. Indeed, over any penance, any good
work, the duty to pray prevails. We are frail creatures with feeble wills.
Even the strong among us tire eventually and life's battle is constant. To
prevail against the baser parts of ourselves, it is not enough simply to be
good-- we must be like unto the Lord of the Springs: pure, perfect, full of
light. It is in the quiet solitude of prayer, looking beyond one's self
and to the source of all goodness that one grows ever closer to the
perfection he must have. From prayer the entire body of the devout life
flows and without it, even the most pious man will soon become a knave and
a wretch.'
Iain examines a worn copy of the 'Erra Pater' bound in black leather.
The following is a list of the parchments inserted into the book (OOC:
each is an extended desc, keyword bolded): On Dav and Divine Intervention,
Reflections on Metaphysics, On the Priesthood, Becoming Cardinal, The
Memory of Sin, and Pilgrimage.
(Inserted in in the pages of the chapter on King Dav ab Harmon, Saint of
Saints.)
REFLECTIONS ON KING DAV AND ON THE URTHLY INTERVENTION OF THE DIVINE
In some ways, Dav, the Saint of Saints and the origin of all of our faiths,
also serves to represent one of the greatest challenges to my own personal
faith and understanding of the Lord of the Springs and of our relationship
to Him. There is a certain fitting irony in it. The Holy Church teaches
consistently to us that the Lord of the Springs, on account of His purity,
does not intervene in the affairs of men. Indeed, He I have heard it said
by certain men of sacred letters that He is detached from human affairs.
Far be it from me to dissent from the wisdoms of Holy Mother Church, but
alas.. This is a hard teaching.
To the assertion that the Lord cares not for us, I at least can find
consolation in holy writ. The Book of Cosmos's Second Part assures us that
the Divine, in seeing man's fate of subjection to the demonic, found our
condition "lamentable." And that He did indeed wait to intervene in human
affairs, at least so far as to imbue King Dav with the revelation upon
which the Holy Order now relies.
So in this testimony of the Scripture, I see it that even if the Lord of
the Springs no longer intervenes in human matters, He at one time did-- at
least some measure of deliverance is possible for the Lord. In this, I
find great joy, but perhaps also some confusion. If in Dav, the Lord
intervened, can He intervene again? If not, why not? If so, under what
conditions and why does He no longer due so?
There are a few things to note in pondering the problem. The Erra Pater
tells us that the Lord of the Springs did not simply intervene upon the
moment of his sorrowful vision of man. Instead, it says that "he waited
for a day where men's hearts might become open to the truth' before stating
that this day was fulfilled in the Travail of Dav. Even in this case of
intervention, this seeming exception of the Church's rule, aspects of the
Church's rule are confirmed. The Lord's action is still, ultimately,
reliant on the action of men. The Lord can imbue the human mind with
knowledge, as at the revelation of Dav, but it can only do so when man's
hearts are ready.
Something, maybe, can be said the same for more drastic forms of
intervention. If, say, the Lord of the Springs, could take action in the
things of Urth, it perhaps could be said it would only be done when the
hearts of men are ready for such intervention. This hope, this desperate
hope that the condition of man, still lamentable, might be lifted from the
muck and mire in which it wallows, could one day be lifted, relies on the
readiness of men's hearts. What a responsibility this hope levels on the
likes of us who are charged with the care of souls.
If such a day is ever to come, and there is little more than a desperate
glimmer of hope that it will, then it will only come out of the labors of
the Holy Order and of the just faithful. It lends an unbelievable value to
ever action of the priest, and a terrible gravity to his every sin. Every
blessing, every word of absolution, every counsol and adminition, is a new
step towards the salvation of this Urthly realm. Similarly, every
misplaced word, every scandal, every broken vow wrought at the hands of a
priest is a new weight dragging all of us further into terrible Abyss over
which we float.
--
(Inserted in the pages of both parts of the Book of the Cosmos)
REFLECTIONS ON METAPHYSICS
The Book of the Cosmos tells us that the world began in water and fire, two
fundemental elements from which all others are born. From the union of the
two, new elements are born-- heated water bursts into air, cooled fire
becomes rock. This discussion on fire and water, the "mother and father,"
if you will, of Creation can be drawn to reflections in metaphysics and on
the human soul.
Just as there are two elements, all things in this world are found at the
union of two principles: matter, the raw stuff of which a thing is made,
and form, the unseen principles the shape the matter into a distinct
thing--the mould into which matter is poured to form what it ultimately
will be.
The Erra Pater's Water reflects for us the principle of matter, the
apocryphal writings of Saint Remiel on Creation names water as being all
that once was, carved and distilled to what would eventually be by the
sacrifice of the Lord of the Springs-- His passion, His direction: fire,
which is form. The Erra Pater describes how the union of these forms other
things and how the rotation, the shaping, of the mighty whirlpool of water
makes of it new forms--the plentitude of all that is.
It is said by the scholar that the human person is itself a microcosm of
the entire Cosmos, its own interactions reflecting for us the greater
truths of the world we are but a part of.
There are two fundemental faculties of the human soul, just as there are
these two first elements. The faculties are will and intellect, which are
themselves fire and water. Fire is passion and emotion, it is movement and
motivation, these are the things of the faculty of will. Water cools, it
has regular rythym and constant flow. It is thought, reason, memory. When
made ecstatic by the influence of fire, it becomes air by which sense is
mediated. The water-matter of the human intellect fills the raw form
apprehended and delivered to the intellect, allowing things seen to take
shape within the aether of human soul and therein to be manipulated by the
powers of cognition. Similarly, the intellect is responsible for the
reception and understanding of the senses. When fire's emotion is cooled
by water, it becomes earth: the soul's resolution and the ground upon which
all may stand.
And just as water is matter and fire be form in the compisition of things,
the movements and actions of the soul too contain this union and dichotomy.
Just as the primeval waters were turned and driven by motion, the principle
of fire, the intellect is driven to its end by the will, the source of all
internal motion. The two work in tandem, the fiery will driving the action
of the intellect and the intellect presenting the will those things which
it must reach out to, strive for, apprehend, and shape.
----
(Inserted in the pages of the Canonical Laws)
ON THE PRIESTHOOD
The Davite priesthood is principally defined by the one command left it by
Dav: the Law of Charity. And how fitting a defining priciple that law is.
What distinguishes the Davite priest, from the priests of the Ancient
Church and from others of the Davite society, is that precise dictate of
charity, of selfless, self-giving love.
I do not say this as to insuinate that the priests of the Ancient Church,
truly our own forebears, lacked in compassion. I am no scholar of the
pre-Davite histories, but never have I come across a reason to believe that
the priests of yore were any less compassionate than today's clergy. No,
what I believe it means to say the Law of Charity is the defining law of
our priesthood, the dividing point between the Ancient Priesthood and the
Davite is that the authority of the priest, and therefore the authority of
the entire Holy Order, is founded principally in the duty of the charitable
self-gift.
We priests wield immense power in the Davite society. We guide the
searching, distinguish between truth and falsehood, dispense blessing in
the name of the Lord and give command on the same name. Aside from our
spiritual power, we are the leaders of our communities, judges of delicate
matters, administrators of fortunes, and we all hold power over the lives
of our flocks. While we cannot know the precise powers of the Ancient
priest, I think it is fair to say that they had similar authorities.
However, for the priest of long ago, that authority was something given him
by his tradition. It was a right handed onto him to weild and then hand on
to the next generation. The revolution of Dav is that this authority,
though unchanged and perhaps even expanded by the Consolidation's demands,
was not simply an ancient rite, it was a power entrusted as part of a
solemn duty.
All of the power of the priest is directed and ordered so that he can bear
out his first duty to charity. Our orders are very clear, we are to spend
ourselves until there is nothing more to spend. Our fortunes are forfeit,
our family names are forfeit, all of our power, our ambition, our former
greivances, everything is forfeit. All must be spent in order to purchase
life for the people entrusted for us.
The tradition we have been handed by those who came before us in the Holy
Order, which they in turn received from the priests of the Church whose
birth was in the shrouded antiquity, is important and it is real. But,
that tradition is given a new direction in Dav's Canonical Laws. It
reminds us that the intervention of the Lord in Dav was out of pity for the
sorry condition of humanity and the threat posed by sin and its servants.
The Church's purpose is to be a mysterious image of that pity and the
continued presence of that intervention. The priest is consecrated to be
that image to the people he meets in his life, but that means he must live
as an icon. His every action has to communicate that pity, even if that
communication is so subtle as to be hardly visible. Once the compassion of
the Lord of the Springs to men, the compassion which brought the Divine to
Dav at the Spring, is the entire burning heart of the priest, then and only
then will be worthy of the authority he weilds. In the meantime, we wield
the authority anyways, always conscious of our terrible unworthiness.
-----
(Inserted into the back of the book)
BECOMING CARDINAL
Today, it seems, the impossible has happened. The Synod, from all
indication, was rather perturbed to be reconvened following the startling
actions of Siva Nasamari and his quickly following resignation. I take as
no surprise that most of the more far-flung bishops, even those who oft
make the journey here for events like this, elected to appoint legates by
mandate to handle the election and discussion afterwards.
I personally thought that the present Cardinal of Farin would be a good
choice, a shift from her office at the head of the Farin Church, yes, but
the experience would have been welcome after the lack of it all in Siva.
Honestly, if our former Cardinal Sameer would have been more inclined to
take back up the mantle, I would see her return to the Seat of Aelwyn. No
matter, none of my hopes or guesses seem to matter now.
It began in the deliberations before the fifth ballot. A million names had
been thrown around and so far, no one seemed to be able to garner enough
votes to be called a front-runner in any respect. Archbishop Bolton from
northern Lithmore was a consistent pick, at least, but there were rumors of
some scandals among his clergy that seemed to frighten away many of the
voters. My name had been brought up before, though not in any serious way,
but after one rather heated argument was begin to resolve, a bishop from
Vavard raised my name again. It seemed, rather surprisingly to me as I had
made my fair share of enemies in the churches back home as the Synodal
Vistator to the Province, that the Vavardi prelates had set aside their
former bid to attempt to get the Archbishop of Vavard elected in favor of
me. They cited experience with the city, among other things.
Every entry of my name from the scrutineers on the ballot that followed
tolled like the funeral bell for me. Archbishop, I thought, was already
too lofty a place for me to rise to.. Bishop had been dubious enough! But
when the last ballot was read, my fate was sealed.
Here I am now, in the offices of the Cardinal until recently occupied by
Siva Nasamari in his fool's regime. They are a mess, both in the literal
and figuritive sense. I understand the Synod's decision, I seem to have a
talent for cleaning up some messes. That doesn't mean I am happy or agree
with that decision. It should have been another, more talented, more
experienced, more respected. I have never been one for spotlights, rather
I prefer to let others dress in scarlet and allow me do what needs to be
done to facilitate their goals. Lord save us, and in the midst of a
veritable invasion of the demonic into our Realm! It's been done, there is
no changing it. I only can pray and hope I do half the job they seem to
expect me to.
Maybe one day, I will be allowed to retire back to Vavard, where things are
calmer, slower, greener. One day.
------
(Inserted into the section on The Nature of Sin)
THE MEMORY OF SIN
You are Great, O Lord, and I call to you.. But how can I call upon my
Lord, for when I call out to him, I call him to myself? Where in my heart
can I find room to fit the great beauty of the Lord, which so late have I
loved, and only after so much sin? How can I ask for the Lord of the
Springs' light to take up its residence in me since He is so great, so
lofty, and in all my sinfulness, am so incredibely base?
I allege to serve thee, my Lord, and set myself up as your servant among
men, a priest. But, as I lay upon my bed in the night, when I am alone
with but my heart and with you, who I have called to me in the midst of
prayer, how my conscience stands before me as the prosecutor crying to
every declaration of my love, "You lie."
You know my past, O Lord, which I have confided to you so many countless
times in my prayer and before your servants in the cellula. You know into
which foul paths the winds of youth cast me. These things seem distant to
me now, most times, as they are in truth. Nearly 30 years past, 30 years
of priesthood. But far off as they are, at times something darker in my
heart returns them to me, makes them whisper nothings in my ear, reminding
me of the pleasures of life which I abandoned. Yet just as I should reach
out in my heart to grasp this memory, to live in it indulge in it, I am
reminded of the foul reaping that followed from such a sweet sowing: the
wages of sin are death.
What are we to do, Lord? If all men are called to you, to serve you, yet
our ascent to you is marred, even inhibited by the memory of each foul
thing we have done in our proper day, how are we to ever truly say we love
and serve you? Was not Dav a man, was not his own revelation, his own
speaking with you marred by his own memory of sin?
Perhaps this is the great internal tension of our faith. We strive and
strive to be better, but we will always be ourselves: imperfect. There is
not sense in loathing our whole person on account of things done long ago,
even if we must profess a hatred for our own sins and penitence. O Lord,
help me to look forward.
----
(Inserted in the pages on the lives of the Saints)
PILGRIMAGE
-Written while on Pilgrimage to the Holy Spring of Dav, Summer of SC 364-
I have written, in the past, about the question of sin. It's a question, I
suppose that has haunted me all my life, both out of personal experience
and from the simple impulse of a philosophical and theological mind. My
own experience with sin draws from my youth when I engaged in all the
deviences of young Vavardi.. Sex, drugs, alcohol, parties, petty crime.
It is amazing how these things forge such a world of oblivious paradise
around someone. I suppose, when you are young, with few responsibilities
and a million ways to seek pleasure, it is easy to turn into the company of
ones friends and ones self and being secreted away from the affairs of the
rest of the world. That dream, though, always seems to come to an end.
For me, it ended in death, the death of close friends and with a damning
sense of my own responsibility in it all. Sin, however it may seem to be
so, is never free, never victimless, never simply pleasurable. All things
end, all seeds grow and come to harvest.
What haunts me is what one is to do about sin. The Lithmorran theologian
would expound upon the true evilness of it all and condemn the sinner out
of hand.. The premises of this approach are valid and the end result bears
a truth. However, at times it seems to ignore that sin is not a curse
reserved for the particularly base among us, it is the patrimony of us all.
Some would ignore sin's existence, or lament in its inevitability.. If sin
is everywhere, if all men sin and this is the reality, why even fight it?
Why not simply give into it and live in the futility of the pleasure,
however fleeting it may be?
What strikes me as I stand here at the Spring of Dav, finished with the
path Dav himself walked and in turn commanded us to walk, that there is a
profound wisdom in this act we are all bound to do, and in that wisdom,
perhaps my answer.
Dav himself was a man, a sinner.. Some might condemn my saying that as a
heresy or blasphemy, but I think it is important to be honest about such
things. Dav was driven by the madness of sorrow into the wilderness, this
journey leading him to the Spring. So, I now see, it is with all of us.
Sorrow drives us from the comfortable protection of the cities within
ourselves, the comfortable lives which are fed in one way or another by our
vices, by our willful inability to look inward and make change. We can
linger in those cities for a time, but eventually, the consequences of our
actions, the reality of our vices, will drive us from them and out into the
forest. Like the road we walk to the Spring, this wilderness can be
dangerous. Bandits and thieves, wild beasts and the sheer force of
nature's elements lay in wait for us. It is a struggle to make our way to
the Spring, there are mountains, bad weather, hard times. Indeed, we may
often as ourselves why we ever left our homes in the first place, why we do
not just now return to our sin.. It may be hateful to us, but at least it
was comfortable and maybe lying to ourselves about the beasts with which we
sleep is preferable to having to face a reality that forces us to be more
than we think we can ever be.
But at the end is the Spring. The physical path we walk to the physical
Spring is but a symbol, a foreshadowing of the fundemental drama of human
existence: the drama of sin, of grace, of redemption. From the first we
heave a breath to the last rasping of our death beds, we are on this
journey. The journey does not demand our perfection, indeed it presupposes
our imperfection. All it asks is that every day we get a little further,
that we take a new step no matter how hard the road is. And like that real
pilgrimage, we never make the spiritual one alone.
We cannot allow our religion to be but theory, to simply be stories of
unreachable ideals. The Davite faith is one of a real journey, one often
difficult but ultimately rewarding. It seems that all we can say about
what it means to follow Dav can be seen in his own pilgrimage which was the
origin of our faith. His journey was hard, but in that image of him coming
dirty, broken, tired, thirsty to a spring high in the mountain and stooping
there to drink of the water, we see the truest image of ourselves. The
ideal of Dav is not one of complete sinlessness, it is one of honest
sinfulness, of being tired, thirsty, dirty, and broken, but stooping at a
spring to drink and, in doing so, touching the only source of purity great
enough to uplift us.
What is wonderful is that that purity uplifted Dav and, in doing so,
promised to uplift us all.
Saints.)
REFLECTIONS ON KING DAV AND ON THE URTHLY INTERVENTION OF THE DIVINE
In some ways, Dav, the Saint of Saints and the origin of all of our faiths,
also serves to represent one of the greatest challenges to my own personal
faith and understanding of the Lord of the Springs and of our relationship
to Him. There is a certain fitting irony in it. The Holy Church teaches
consistently to us that the Lord of the Springs, on account of His purity,
does not intervene in the affairs of men. Indeed, He I have heard it said
by certain men of sacred letters that He is detached from human affairs.
Far be it from me to dissent from the wisdoms of Holy Mother Church, but
alas.. This is a hard teaching.
To the assertion that the Lord cares not for us, I at least can find
consolation in holy writ. The Book of Cosmos's Second Part assures us that
the Divine, in seeing man's fate of subjection to the demonic, found our
condition "lamentable." And that He did indeed wait to intervene in human
affairs, at least so far as to imbue King Dav with the revelation upon
which the Holy Order now relies.
So in this testimony of the Scripture, I see it that even if the Lord of
the Springs no longer intervenes in human matters, He at one time did-- at
least some measure of deliverance is possible for the Lord. In this, I
find great joy, but perhaps also some confusion. If in Dav, the Lord
intervened, can He intervene again? If not, why not? If so, under what
conditions and why does He no longer due so?
There are a few things to note in pondering the problem. The Erra Pater
tells us that the Lord of the Springs did not simply intervene upon the
moment of his sorrowful vision of man. Instead, it says that "he waited
for a day where men's hearts might become open to the truth' before stating
that this day was fulfilled in the Travail of Dav. Even in this case of
intervention, this seeming exception of the Church's rule, aspects of the
Church's rule are confirmed. The Lord's action is still, ultimately,
reliant on the action of men. The Lord can imbue the human mind with
knowledge, as at the revelation of Dav, but it can only do so when man's
hearts are ready.
Something, maybe, can be said the same for more drastic forms of
intervention. If, say, the Lord of the Springs, could take action in the
things of Urth, it perhaps could be said it would only be done when the
hearts of men are ready for such intervention. This hope, this desperate
hope that the condition of man, still lamentable, might be lifted from the
muck and mire in which it wallows, could one day be lifted, relies on the
readiness of men's hearts. What a responsibility this hope levels on the
likes of us who are charged with the care of souls.
If such a day is ever to come, and there is little more than a desperate
glimmer of hope that it will, then it will only come out of the labors of
the Holy Order and of the just faithful. It lends an unbelievable value to
ever action of the priest, and a terrible gravity to his every sin. Every
blessing, every word of absolution, every counsol and adminition, is a new
step towards the salvation of this Urthly realm. Similarly, every
misplaced word, every scandal, every broken vow wrought at the hands of a
priest is a new weight dragging all of us further into terrible Abyss over
which we float.
--
(Inserted in the pages of both parts of the Book of the Cosmos)
REFLECTIONS ON METAPHYSICS
The Book of the Cosmos tells us that the world began in water and fire, two
fundemental elements from which all others are born. From the union of the
two, new elements are born-- heated water bursts into air, cooled fire
becomes rock. This discussion on fire and water, the "mother and father,"
if you will, of Creation can be drawn to reflections in metaphysics and on
the human soul.
Just as there are two elements, all things in this world are found at the
union of two principles: matter, the raw stuff of which a thing is made,
and form, the unseen principles the shape the matter into a distinct
thing--the mould into which matter is poured to form what it ultimately
will be.
The Erra Pater's Water reflects for us the principle of matter, the
apocryphal writings of Saint Remiel on Creation names water as being all
that once was, carved and distilled to what would eventually be by the
sacrifice of the Lord of the Springs-- His passion, His direction: fire,
which is form. The Erra Pater describes how the union of these forms other
things and how the rotation, the shaping, of the mighty whirlpool of water
makes of it new forms--the plentitude of all that is.
It is said by the scholar that the human person is itself a microcosm of
the entire Cosmos, its own interactions reflecting for us the greater
truths of the world we are but a part of.
There are two fundemental faculties of the human soul, just as there are
these two first elements. The faculties are will and intellect, which are
themselves fire and water. Fire is passion and emotion, it is movement and
motivation, these are the things of the faculty of will. Water cools, it
has regular rythym and constant flow. It is thought, reason, memory. When
made ecstatic by the influence of fire, it becomes air by which sense is
mediated. The water-matter of the human intellect fills the raw form
apprehended and delivered to the intellect, allowing things seen to take
shape within the aether of human soul and therein to be manipulated by the
powers of cognition. Similarly, the intellect is responsible for the
reception and understanding of the senses. When fire's emotion is cooled
by water, it becomes earth: the soul's resolution and the ground upon which
all may stand.
And just as water is matter and fire be form in the compisition of things,
the movements and actions of the soul too contain this union and dichotomy.
Just as the primeval waters were turned and driven by motion, the principle
of fire, the intellect is driven to its end by the will, the source of all
internal motion. The two work in tandem, the fiery will driving the action
of the intellect and the intellect presenting the will those things which
it must reach out to, strive for, apprehend, and shape.
----
(Inserted in the pages of the Canonical Laws)
ON THE PRIESTHOOD
The Davite priesthood is principally defined by the one command left it by
Dav: the Law of Charity. And how fitting a defining priciple that law is.
What distinguishes the Davite priest, from the priests of the Ancient
Church and from others of the Davite society, is that precise dictate of
charity, of selfless, self-giving love.
I do not say this as to insuinate that the priests of the Ancient Church,
truly our own forebears, lacked in compassion. I am no scholar of the
pre-Davite histories, but never have I come across a reason to believe that
the priests of yore were any less compassionate than today's clergy. No,
what I believe it means to say the Law of Charity is the defining law of
our priesthood, the dividing point between the Ancient Priesthood and the
Davite is that the authority of the priest, and therefore the authority of
the entire Holy Order, is founded principally in the duty of the charitable
self-gift.
We priests wield immense power in the Davite society. We guide the
searching, distinguish between truth and falsehood, dispense blessing in
the name of the Lord and give command on the same name. Aside from our
spiritual power, we are the leaders of our communities, judges of delicate
matters, administrators of fortunes, and we all hold power over the lives
of our flocks. While we cannot know the precise powers of the Ancient
priest, I think it is fair to say that they had similar authorities.
However, for the priest of long ago, that authority was something given him
by his tradition. It was a right handed onto him to weild and then hand on
to the next generation. The revolution of Dav is that this authority,
though unchanged and perhaps even expanded by the Consolidation's demands,
was not simply an ancient rite, it was a power entrusted as part of a
solemn duty.
All of the power of the priest is directed and ordered so that he can bear
out his first duty to charity. Our orders are very clear, we are to spend
ourselves until there is nothing more to spend. Our fortunes are forfeit,
our family names are forfeit, all of our power, our ambition, our former
greivances, everything is forfeit. All must be spent in order to purchase
life for the people entrusted for us.
The tradition we have been handed by those who came before us in the Holy
Order, which they in turn received from the priests of the Church whose
birth was in the shrouded antiquity, is important and it is real. But,
that tradition is given a new direction in Dav's Canonical Laws. It
reminds us that the intervention of the Lord in Dav was out of pity for the
sorry condition of humanity and the threat posed by sin and its servants.
The Church's purpose is to be a mysterious image of that pity and the
continued presence of that intervention. The priest is consecrated to be
that image to the people he meets in his life, but that means he must live
as an icon. His every action has to communicate that pity, even if that
communication is so subtle as to be hardly visible. Once the compassion of
the Lord of the Springs to men, the compassion which brought the Divine to
Dav at the Spring, is the entire burning heart of the priest, then and only
then will be worthy of the authority he weilds. In the meantime, we wield
the authority anyways, always conscious of our terrible unworthiness.
-----
(Inserted into the back of the book)
BECOMING CARDINAL
Today, it seems, the impossible has happened. The Synod, from all
indication, was rather perturbed to be reconvened following the startling
actions of Siva Nasamari and his quickly following resignation. I take as
no surprise that most of the more far-flung bishops, even those who oft
make the journey here for events like this, elected to appoint legates by
mandate to handle the election and discussion afterwards.
I personally thought that the present Cardinal of Farin would be a good
choice, a shift from her office at the head of the Farin Church, yes, but
the experience would have been welcome after the lack of it all in Siva.
Honestly, if our former Cardinal Sameer would have been more inclined to
take back up the mantle, I would see her return to the Seat of Aelwyn. No
matter, none of my hopes or guesses seem to matter now.
It began in the deliberations before the fifth ballot. A million names had
been thrown around and so far, no one seemed to be able to garner enough
votes to be called a front-runner in any respect. Archbishop Bolton from
northern Lithmore was a consistent pick, at least, but there were rumors of
some scandals among his clergy that seemed to frighten away many of the
voters. My name had been brought up before, though not in any serious way,
but after one rather heated argument was begin to resolve, a bishop from
Vavard raised my name again. It seemed, rather surprisingly to me as I had
made my fair share of enemies in the churches back home as the Synodal
Vistator to the Province, that the Vavardi prelates had set aside their
former bid to attempt to get the Archbishop of Vavard elected in favor of
me. They cited experience with the city, among other things.
Every entry of my name from the scrutineers on the ballot that followed
tolled like the funeral bell for me. Archbishop, I thought, was already
too lofty a place for me to rise to.. Bishop had been dubious enough! But
when the last ballot was read, my fate was sealed.
Here I am now, in the offices of the Cardinal until recently occupied by
Siva Nasamari in his fool's regime. They are a mess, both in the literal
and figuritive sense. I understand the Synod's decision, I seem to have a
talent for cleaning up some messes. That doesn't mean I am happy or agree
with that decision. It should have been another, more talented, more
experienced, more respected. I have never been one for spotlights, rather
I prefer to let others dress in scarlet and allow me do what needs to be
done to facilitate their goals. Lord save us, and in the midst of a
veritable invasion of the demonic into our Realm! It's been done, there is
no changing it. I only can pray and hope I do half the job they seem to
expect me to.
Maybe one day, I will be allowed to retire back to Vavard, where things are
calmer, slower, greener. One day.
------
(Inserted into the section on The Nature of Sin)
THE MEMORY OF SIN
You are Great, O Lord, and I call to you.. But how can I call upon my
Lord, for when I call out to him, I call him to myself? Where in my heart
can I find room to fit the great beauty of the Lord, which so late have I
loved, and only after so much sin? How can I ask for the Lord of the
Springs' light to take up its residence in me since He is so great, so
lofty, and in all my sinfulness, am so incredibely base?
I allege to serve thee, my Lord, and set myself up as your servant among
men, a priest. But, as I lay upon my bed in the night, when I am alone
with but my heart and with you, who I have called to me in the midst of
prayer, how my conscience stands before me as the prosecutor crying to
every declaration of my love, "You lie."
You know my past, O Lord, which I have confided to you so many countless
times in my prayer and before your servants in the cellula. You know into
which foul paths the winds of youth cast me. These things seem distant to
me now, most times, as they are in truth. Nearly 30 years past, 30 years
of priesthood. But far off as they are, at times something darker in my
heart returns them to me, makes them whisper nothings in my ear, reminding
me of the pleasures of life which I abandoned. Yet just as I should reach
out in my heart to grasp this memory, to live in it indulge in it, I am
reminded of the foul reaping that followed from such a sweet sowing: the
wages of sin are death.
What are we to do, Lord? If all men are called to you, to serve you, yet
our ascent to you is marred, even inhibited by the memory of each foul
thing we have done in our proper day, how are we to ever truly say we love
and serve you? Was not Dav a man, was not his own revelation, his own
speaking with you marred by his own memory of sin?
Perhaps this is the great internal tension of our faith. We strive and
strive to be better, but we will always be ourselves: imperfect. There is
not sense in loathing our whole person on account of things done long ago,
even if we must profess a hatred for our own sins and penitence. O Lord,
help me to look forward.
----
(Inserted in the pages on the lives of the Saints)
PILGRIMAGE
-Written while on Pilgrimage to the Holy Spring of Dav, Summer of SC 364-
I have written, in the past, about the question of sin. It's a question, I
suppose that has haunted me all my life, both out of personal experience
and from the simple impulse of a philosophical and theological mind. My
own experience with sin draws from my youth when I engaged in all the
deviences of young Vavardi.. Sex, drugs, alcohol, parties, petty crime.
It is amazing how these things forge such a world of oblivious paradise
around someone. I suppose, when you are young, with few responsibilities
and a million ways to seek pleasure, it is easy to turn into the company of
ones friends and ones self and being secreted away from the affairs of the
rest of the world. That dream, though, always seems to come to an end.
For me, it ended in death, the death of close friends and with a damning
sense of my own responsibility in it all. Sin, however it may seem to be
so, is never free, never victimless, never simply pleasurable. All things
end, all seeds grow and come to harvest.
What haunts me is what one is to do about sin. The Lithmorran theologian
would expound upon the true evilness of it all and condemn the sinner out
of hand.. The premises of this approach are valid and the end result bears
a truth. However, at times it seems to ignore that sin is not a curse
reserved for the particularly base among us, it is the patrimony of us all.
Some would ignore sin's existence, or lament in its inevitability.. If sin
is everywhere, if all men sin and this is the reality, why even fight it?
Why not simply give into it and live in the futility of the pleasure,
however fleeting it may be?
What strikes me as I stand here at the Spring of Dav, finished with the
path Dav himself walked and in turn commanded us to walk, that there is a
profound wisdom in this act we are all bound to do, and in that wisdom,
perhaps my answer.
Dav himself was a man, a sinner.. Some might condemn my saying that as a
heresy or blasphemy, but I think it is important to be honest about such
things. Dav was driven by the madness of sorrow into the wilderness, this
journey leading him to the Spring. So, I now see, it is with all of us.
Sorrow drives us from the comfortable protection of the cities within
ourselves, the comfortable lives which are fed in one way or another by our
vices, by our willful inability to look inward and make change. We can
linger in those cities for a time, but eventually, the consequences of our
actions, the reality of our vices, will drive us from them and out into the
forest. Like the road we walk to the Spring, this wilderness can be
dangerous. Bandits and thieves, wild beasts and the sheer force of
nature's elements lay in wait for us. It is a struggle to make our way to
the Spring, there are mountains, bad weather, hard times. Indeed, we may
often as ourselves why we ever left our homes in the first place, why we do
not just now return to our sin.. It may be hateful to us, but at least it
was comfortable and maybe lying to ourselves about the beasts with which we
sleep is preferable to having to face a reality that forces us to be more
than we think we can ever be.
But at the end is the Spring. The physical path we walk to the physical
Spring is but a symbol, a foreshadowing of the fundemental drama of human
existence: the drama of sin, of grace, of redemption. From the first we
heave a breath to the last rasping of our death beds, we are on this
journey. The journey does not demand our perfection, indeed it presupposes
our imperfection. All it asks is that every day we get a little further,
that we take a new step no matter how hard the road is. And like that real
pilgrimage, we never make the spiritual one alone.
We cannot allow our religion to be but theory, to simply be stories of
unreachable ideals. The Davite faith is one of a real journey, one often
difficult but ultimately rewarding. It seems that all we can say about
what it means to follow Dav can be seen in his own pilgrimage which was the
origin of our faith. His journey was hard, but in that image of him coming
dirty, broken, tired, thirsty to a spring high in the mountain and stooping
there to drink of the water, we see the truest image of ourselves. The
ideal of Dav is not one of complete sinlessness, it is one of honest
sinfulness, of being tired, thirsty, dirty, and broken, but stooping at a
spring to drink and, in doing so, touching the only source of purity great
enough to uplift us.
What is wonderful is that that purity uplifted Dav and, in doing so,
promised to uplift us all.
-
BattleJenkins
- Posts: 112
- Joined: Fri May 08, 2015 5:00 pm
I just wanted to say that I finally gave all of this a read, and what an extremely good read it was! I think this should definitely be required reading for anyone looking to play an Orderite - it's definitely the portrait of an at once pious and devoted as well as thoughtful and critical individual.
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