My grandmother certainly considered herself to be white. Her name was Julia Leone, nee Gush, and though I never had the chance to ask her about it or anything, that was still pretty clear. She had plenty of reason to. She had skin that was within the reason range of shades for a white person and no features that marked her otherwise. Her maiden name had any indication of ethnicity mangled out of it before she was born, while her married name, though Italian, was white enough. Her husband was white; she was even the mother of a pink-skinned, green-eyed, yellow-haired girl-- the proverbial angelic blonde child. The culture she sprang from and identified with is white culture. If you saw a picture of her, chances are you would not think anything different.
But really... my grandmother wasn't all white. Not completely. She was a first-generation Russian-American. Both of her parents emigrated from Russia in the early Twentieth Century. They met, married, and had eleven children in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of whom was my grandmother Julia. They spoke Russian, worshipped at a Russian Orthodox Church, and identified with the associated ethnicity. My great-grandmother Anna Sherba was fair and blonde, the source of Mom's looks, so unlike either of her parents. This is not an usual appearence for an ethnic Russian, but I was very surprised to hear it-- after all, Grandma, the foremost representative of Russian blood in my life, had sharp features and dark coloring. But that's because of my great grandfather, Tymko Gush, known sometimes as James Gush, whose real surname was lost to Americanization a hundred years ago. According to my Mom, he had tan skin, high cheekbones, and almond shaped eyes. To look at him, he was not a white man, he was obviously Asian.
Because of the Mongolian conquest of the area that would become Russia, there are parts of it where the inhabitants have quite a bit of Asian blood. I'm not positive, but my great-grandfather may have even been Siberian, where it is particularly common. Because of this his ethnicity would be hard to qualify, since he was likely the product of generations of mixed people marrying other mixed people, but he was probably some proportion of Asian and white. That combination is likely the reason why my grandmother looked as white as she did. But it makes me wonder-- what did my great-grandfather consider himself? Did he think of the white versus nonwhite issue? Or was he just "a Russian," a more important distinction in a new country where so few share your ways and customs? I have no idea if there's any conflict between Russians of pure Caucasian decent and the Russians who have some Asian in them. In America, I know pretty much every immigrant in my family suffered some poor treatment from someone on account of their ethnic background. Did my great-grandfather ever get treated differently for someone recognizing him to be nonwhite?
I think of my immediate family. Now on the third generation in this country, my family appears very white, and benefits from the associated privilege. In fact, people have assumed that we must have the very highest level of privilege that being white in this country can possibly confer on you because of how well we present-- that we're not descendents of relatively recent immigrants (we are), that we do not have a close working class history (we do), that we come from people who are rich and educated (we don't). My grandparents-- poor, uneducated, and foreign --did not experience that same privilege. Their backgrounds made them targets for all kinds of hate and discrimination; even my mother and father faced some of that growing up. But still, the time and place my grandmother lived, when you're already suffering because you're ethnic, well, at least you're not tormented for being nonwhite. Getting to claim whiteness was some status better than none. So I guess it's not so strange that my grandma would forget or ignore that part of herself. After all, people tend to consider you to be what you look like. When she looked around, in the mirror or at her blonde daughter, it was probably easy to forget.
Tymko Gush, however, is not the only one I wonder about on that side. My great-grandmother Anna makes me wonder as well. She came to this country from Galitzia, a small area that has been owned by several countries but at the time was Russia, at the age of seventeen to escape the Bolsheviks. At the time, many Jewish families were fleeing from the exact same place to America as well. Her first job in the country was working as a maid for a Jewish family. And I realized when I came to Brandeis that many of the weird "family words" we'd been using-- nebbish, noodge, schmatta --were Yiddish, and had come into use because Anna used them. Those are small things, but they made me wonder... could my great-grandmother have actually been born a Jew?
My mother scoffs at the idea. That blonde ethnic Russian? This was the woman who took her to church every Sunday, who was devoutly Russian Orthodox her entire life. She explains the Yiddish with Anna's maid job when she was first learning English, so their words became her words. (Also, it turned out we used them mostly wrong.) Mom's almost certainly right; of course she knew the woman and I never did. But I can't help wondering, if for only one reason-- Anna Sherba was my mother's mother's mother. So if she was Jewish, then under the law, so are we. So am I.
I know myself to be a white Christian. Though I acknowledge my background to be infintessimally nonwhite, I think it would be silly to consider myself as anything else. That part of me is extremely small and extremely distant from me, plus I see a pale face and Caucasian features when I look in the mirror. But it's fascinating to know it's there in my background-- that I'm a little more complex than meets the eye. And I'm a Christian in my bones. I've heard of people discovering their Jewish heritage and deciding to return to it, but I can't imagine why that alone would be enough to draw you. It certainly wouldn't compel me. But how strange to think that a fact in the past could possibly make something true, that, without its acknowledgement, seems like a fanciful impossibility. I could, technically, be a Jew. It doesn't change me... but it changes something.
Funny how these things work.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
From FALLEN - Marcus
My last science fiction and fantasy submission for the semester. This
time I tried to introduce a lighter element by showing Gabriel having a
friend. There are in the Ministers of Grace who have gotten past his
appearance and nature. One of them is Marcus, a student from America who
was sought out for his manifestation of powers of superhuman strength.
He tries to be a good friend, even when it's hard, and calls Gabriel
"Batman." There's also a mention of Rachel, who is an English student
with the power of empathy, and her agnosticism has not been improved by
witnessing what Gabriel has to go through.
Gabriel knew him a mile away. No one could sneak up on him under the best of circumstances, and he heard the heavy tread making its way up the stairs even before the cheerful humming. Gabriel waited there, perfectly still, so still that he might have been a carved gargoyle, but for the ceaseless slow twisting of his tail.
“I swear you do that to freak out the freshmen.”
Gabriel’s head turned over his shoulder. There was Marcus, still half-in his rugby gear, a six-pack of some cheap local beer in one hand and a steaming box of pizza balanced on the other.
“Do what?”
“The whole part-of-the-architecture thing.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “If they’re spotting me, then I must not be doing it right.”
“Don’t stop now, Cameron loves it. He likes to gaslight the kiddies when they talk about seeing some creepy statue coming to life on the battlements.”
Marcus sat beside him on the ledge. Gabriel turned around and watched him dig enthusiastically into the pie. “Why is it always pizza and beer with you?”
“Just properly representing myself as an American. Plus I miss the States. You can’t get a decent pizza in the Irish countryside.”
“You still eat enough of it.”
“Lousy pizza’s better than no pizza at all.” He popped a beer out of the plastic rings and scooped up a steaming slice, then held them out with a tilted head and a raised eyebrow. Gabriel wasn’t much of a drinker, but he accepted the pizza with a nod.
Marcus grinned. “You know, for a hellspawn, you have remarkably few vices.” He cracked open the can and took a long slug. “For my part, I mean to completely undo all the healthful exercise I just got in.”
Gabriel bit carefully into his slice. His teeth were not particularly suited to pizza, but he liked the cheese, and he was glad for the company that came with it. He didn’t even mind the way Marcus teased him, casually throwing around words like creepy and hellspawn as if they were nothing. Quite the contrary, Gabriel was grateful for it. It meant that Marcus was not afraid. That alone made it worth it.
Normal conversation, too, was unusually rare for him, so he was glad to take the opportunity for it when he could. “How was practice?”
Marcus made a face. “Good as it’s going to be. Football’s my game, but they don’t even know what that is here. Rugby’s the closest I’m going to get.”
“I’m surprised they let you play. You have something of an unfair advantage.”
Marcus laughed. “Hey, I never crack that out on the field, okay?”
“How would anyone know?”
“Because I never left anybody a grease spot, that’s how!”
“Didn’t your power first manifest in the middle of a football game?”
Marcus affected an innocent face and tipped his head airily from side to side. “That may have been the case… but that was before I developed my superb level of control. And that kid only spent a month in that body cast, it could have been a lot worse! He was wearing a helmet, you see, so it was okay. You should come to a game sometime.”
“I’m sure Braden would love that.”
“Oh, so perch in some tree and watch me from there. Next one’s Sunday night!”
“Can’t. I go to confession then.”
His friend looked surprised. “You doing that again?”
“Now that there’s somebody to hear it.”
Marcus chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Oh, yeah. Father… Julien, is it?” He swallowed and grinned. “Should have known you’d be all over that.”
Gabriel shrugged. “I like him. He’s kind. He… he tries hard.”
“All priests walk on water to you.” The young man snorted. “Even old Cortes could do no wrong.”
“Have you met him? He’s not like Cortes.”
“There’s something in his favor.” Marcus made a face. “Well, you seem somewhat less miserable than you did coming back from it, so he must be an improvement somehow.”
The fanged jaw tightened. “That wasn’t Cortes’s fault.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re just fine at torturing yourself on your own.”
“It’s not about that.” Marcus had never understood Gabriel’s confessional habit.
“I still think you’re too hard on yourself.”
He cast about for something, some words he could use to explain the thing that had always been. “I… I need it, Marcus,” he said lamely. “I need to do it.” The words sounded so pitifully wrong. But they were easier to say than to describe to a normal person the feeling of hell breathing down his neck.
Marcus grinned in that wry way of his. “As they say, God doesn’t make junk.”
It was a kind thing to say, and Gabriel was grateful for it, but… “It’s not so simple. Not for me.”
He rolled his dark brown eyes. “Whatever you say, Batman.”
There was nothing Gabriel could say. Catholicism amused Marcus. Born and raised in a loving and social church community, his version of the religion was more about picnics and volunteering in soup kitchens on Thanksgiving than the powers of hell and mortal sin, even now that he’d seen such things face to face. Nuns wore funny hats, Christ’s love was complete and uncomplicated, and people got credit for doing the best they could. The rest was all slightly absurd.
Gabriel wished he could take it all so lightly. It was the whole of the world he lived in, and for all the burdens it laid on him it was still the source of the only comfort he’d ever known. He loved it as he loved all the good things in his life, with the sad, hopeless love that lived with the knowledge that he would never be worthy of any of it. He had no choice but to walk the path, but that did not take away the thorns.
Marcus sighed at the abrupt plummeting of Gabriel’s mood, sorry but not surprised. He stretched out one arm to laid across the crenellation and regarded the demon as if considering what he was about to say next.
“Gabe… can I ask you something?”
Gabriel nodded once in silent assent, not looking at him.
“What did you do?”
Now he lifted his gaze, and saw his friend’s expression was uncharacteristically serious. “What?”
Marcus shifted uncomfortably under the weight of those eyes, but still he pressed on. “I’ve seen the way everyone acts around you… the way they treat you. You’re scary, you’re a monster. There’s… something bad about you. I mean, I get it. Hell, I’ve seen you tear things apart when we’re out on missions. Nobody has to tell me that part.”
He took another sip of his beer and licked his lips. “But… you do that to fight monsters. To save people from them. But still. You’re always this bad thing for some reason. And I got to tell you, I don’t really know why. It’s like… everybody else knows it, but nobody talks about it. Nobody told me, and… that’s not the Gabriel I know.”
He pressed those white all-American teeth together and swallowed hard. He looked up and forced himself to return that golden stare.
“So… what bad things did you do? Why do you feel so guilty?”
Gabriel rose from his crouch on the ledge and began to pace. “It’s… it’s what I am.”
Still Marcus didn’t understand. He stood up too and followed after. “What is that? Is it… is it the violence? The-the killing stuff? Like they’re afraid you’ll go off on all of us—?”
“Of course they are!” Gabriel spun around so fast that he drove Marcus a step back. “You said it yourself. You’ve seen.”
He stood his ground. He was a six-foot-one running back, but Gabriel’s massive frame dwarfed even him. “Have you even ever done that?”
“Yes, I have! Braden—”
Marcus threw up his hands at him. “Oh, screw that! Braden’s the most badass telekinetic on the planet! He could nail your ass to the wall tonight, much less when you were half your size!”
Gabriel turned from him again, wanting to escape, before the rage welled up, before the truth broke out of him. But Marcus would not let him go.
"I know you, Gabriel. No matter what you or anybody else thinks about you. How could you be damned if you haven’t done anything worth damning you over!?”
“I don’t know!” he snarled. “I don’t know, all right!?”
He turned back around to see Marcus shocked, staring at him. His head shook back and forth, uncomprehending.
“I do everything I can to keep a hold on the monster in me. I don’t do all the terrible things they all think I’m going to do! I confess and I atone and I am so God damned sorry every minute of my life! And still… I know, in my guts, that no matter what, I’m damned.”
But Marcus didn’t see it, his whole life was built on the wide open arms of grace. “You can’t know—”
“I’m something that in a perfect world never would have come to be!”
Gabriel had so rarely spoken of it aloud. He hated it, wanted to disbelieve it with all of his soul, but again and again, he found himself crushed against that stark truth. The truth for which he would spend the rest of his life atoning.
“And all I can do is keep trying, and keep hoping… and I don’t know if I ever can. I don’t know if I can ever make up for it.”
The words felt empty, inadequate. No, he could not make light of it. It meant everything in the world.
Gabriel’s head bowed low on his long neck. Suddenly it was too much effort to hold it up. He blew out hard through his teeth. “I am demon, Marcus. Whatever else, I’ll never get away from that.”
He sank in a crouch back on the wall, not looking at anything. After a moment Marcus settled in beside him, the strength seeming to have run right out of him. “Jesus, Gabe.”
The hawk-like talons flexed and clenched. “Still think I’m just torturing myself?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Of course you don’t.” How could he ever? How could Gabriel convey to him that he felt it, felt it in his bones, how far off grace was when his very existence was an affront against God? The weight of the shame of that knowledge?
“It’s not always that bad. Right?” Marcus shook his head. “Sometimes you seem okay. Like now… you laughed just now. I can get you to laugh.”
Gabriel stared off into the dark. He was out of words.
His friend’s usually amiable face was twisted in sorrow. “Can’t blame me for trying, man. Can’t stand knowing you’re off somewhere alone and hating yourself.”
His head did not turn, but suddenly Gabriel was struck. “Marcus… how did you know I was up here?”
He forced a laugh. “Wasn’t hard to figure out. Batman's always brooding on ledges.”
Gabriel regarded him with his golden hunter’s eyes. Marcus couldn’t meet his gaze. At last he sighed. “Rachel told me, okay?”
“Rachel?” The demon tried to keep his expression neutral. “How… how did she know? I haven’t seen her—”
“Gabriel. She always knows where you are.”
He shifted his wings against his back, shaking his head in feigned dismissal. “That makes sense, I guess. I— I don’t read like anyone else. I stand out.”
“Gabe. Come on.” Marcus crossed around to Gabriel’s other side so he could look him in the eye. “She thinks about you a lot.”
Gabriel stared.
“And… I know you think about her.”
“Marcus… don’t.”
He leaned against the wall and tried to smile. “So… what is that?”
“I don’t know.” It was the truth.
“I have a guess.”
“Don’t. Don’t say it.” He shook his head helplessly, fangs grinding as he gnashed them together. “It can’t… it can’t.”
His friend regarded him sadly. “But what if it is?”
“Marcus…” He spread his claws. “Look at me.”
Marcus did, and his expression broke.
Gabriel knew him a mile away. No one could sneak up on him under the best of circumstances, and he heard the heavy tread making its way up the stairs even before the cheerful humming. Gabriel waited there, perfectly still, so still that he might have been a carved gargoyle, but for the ceaseless slow twisting of his tail.
“I swear you do that to freak out the freshmen.”
Gabriel’s head turned over his shoulder. There was Marcus, still half-in his rugby gear, a six-pack of some cheap local beer in one hand and a steaming box of pizza balanced on the other.
“Do what?”
“The whole part-of-the-architecture thing.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “If they’re spotting me, then I must not be doing it right.”
“Don’t stop now, Cameron loves it. He likes to gaslight the kiddies when they talk about seeing some creepy statue coming to life on the battlements.”
Marcus sat beside him on the ledge. Gabriel turned around and watched him dig enthusiastically into the pie. “Why is it always pizza and beer with you?”
“Just properly representing myself as an American. Plus I miss the States. You can’t get a decent pizza in the Irish countryside.”
“You still eat enough of it.”
“Lousy pizza’s better than no pizza at all.” He popped a beer out of the plastic rings and scooped up a steaming slice, then held them out with a tilted head and a raised eyebrow. Gabriel wasn’t much of a drinker, but he accepted the pizza with a nod.
Marcus grinned. “You know, for a hellspawn, you have remarkably few vices.” He cracked open the can and took a long slug. “For my part, I mean to completely undo all the healthful exercise I just got in.”
Gabriel bit carefully into his slice. His teeth were not particularly suited to pizza, but he liked the cheese, and he was glad for the company that came with it. He didn’t even mind the way Marcus teased him, casually throwing around words like creepy and hellspawn as if they were nothing. Quite the contrary, Gabriel was grateful for it. It meant that Marcus was not afraid. That alone made it worth it.
Normal conversation, too, was unusually rare for him, so he was glad to take the opportunity for it when he could. “How was practice?”
Marcus made a face. “Good as it’s going to be. Football’s my game, but they don’t even know what that is here. Rugby’s the closest I’m going to get.”
“I’m surprised they let you play. You have something of an unfair advantage.”
Marcus laughed. “Hey, I never crack that out on the field, okay?”
“How would anyone know?”
“Because I never left anybody a grease spot, that’s how!”
“Didn’t your power first manifest in the middle of a football game?”
Marcus affected an innocent face and tipped his head airily from side to side. “That may have been the case… but that was before I developed my superb level of control. And that kid only spent a month in that body cast, it could have been a lot worse! He was wearing a helmet, you see, so it was okay. You should come to a game sometime.”
“I’m sure Braden would love that.”
“Oh, so perch in some tree and watch me from there. Next one’s Sunday night!”
“Can’t. I go to confession then.”
His friend looked surprised. “You doing that again?”
“Now that there’s somebody to hear it.”
Marcus chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Oh, yeah. Father… Julien, is it?” He swallowed and grinned. “Should have known you’d be all over that.”
Gabriel shrugged. “I like him. He’s kind. He… he tries hard.”
“All priests walk on water to you.” The young man snorted. “Even old Cortes could do no wrong.”
“Have you met him? He’s not like Cortes.”
“There’s something in his favor.” Marcus made a face. “Well, you seem somewhat less miserable than you did coming back from it, so he must be an improvement somehow.”
The fanged jaw tightened. “That wasn’t Cortes’s fault.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re just fine at torturing yourself on your own.”
“It’s not about that.” Marcus had never understood Gabriel’s confessional habit.
“I still think you’re too hard on yourself.”
He cast about for something, some words he could use to explain the thing that had always been. “I… I need it, Marcus,” he said lamely. “I need to do it.” The words sounded so pitifully wrong. But they were easier to say than to describe to a normal person the feeling of hell breathing down his neck.
Marcus grinned in that wry way of his. “As they say, God doesn’t make junk.”
It was a kind thing to say, and Gabriel was grateful for it, but… “It’s not so simple. Not for me.”
He rolled his dark brown eyes. “Whatever you say, Batman.”
There was nothing Gabriel could say. Catholicism amused Marcus. Born and raised in a loving and social church community, his version of the religion was more about picnics and volunteering in soup kitchens on Thanksgiving than the powers of hell and mortal sin, even now that he’d seen such things face to face. Nuns wore funny hats, Christ’s love was complete and uncomplicated, and people got credit for doing the best they could. The rest was all slightly absurd.
Gabriel wished he could take it all so lightly. It was the whole of the world he lived in, and for all the burdens it laid on him it was still the source of the only comfort he’d ever known. He loved it as he loved all the good things in his life, with the sad, hopeless love that lived with the knowledge that he would never be worthy of any of it. He had no choice but to walk the path, but that did not take away the thorns.
Marcus sighed at the abrupt plummeting of Gabriel’s mood, sorry but not surprised. He stretched out one arm to laid across the crenellation and regarded the demon as if considering what he was about to say next.
“Gabe… can I ask you something?”
Gabriel nodded once in silent assent, not looking at him.
“What did you do?”
Now he lifted his gaze, and saw his friend’s expression was uncharacteristically serious. “What?”
Marcus shifted uncomfortably under the weight of those eyes, but still he pressed on. “I’ve seen the way everyone acts around you… the way they treat you. You’re scary, you’re a monster. There’s… something bad about you. I mean, I get it. Hell, I’ve seen you tear things apart when we’re out on missions. Nobody has to tell me that part.”
He took another sip of his beer and licked his lips. “But… you do that to fight monsters. To save people from them. But still. You’re always this bad thing for some reason. And I got to tell you, I don’t really know why. It’s like… everybody else knows it, but nobody talks about it. Nobody told me, and… that’s not the Gabriel I know.”
He pressed those white all-American teeth together and swallowed hard. He looked up and forced himself to return that golden stare.
“So… what bad things did you do? Why do you feel so guilty?”
Gabriel rose from his crouch on the ledge and began to pace. “It’s… it’s what I am.”
Still Marcus didn’t understand. He stood up too and followed after. “What is that? Is it… is it the violence? The-the killing stuff? Like they’re afraid you’ll go off on all of us—?”
“Of course they are!” Gabriel spun around so fast that he drove Marcus a step back. “You said it yourself. You’ve seen.”
He stood his ground. He was a six-foot-one running back, but Gabriel’s massive frame dwarfed even him. “Have you even ever done that?”
“Yes, I have! Braden—”
Marcus threw up his hands at him. “Oh, screw that! Braden’s the most badass telekinetic on the planet! He could nail your ass to the wall tonight, much less when you were half your size!”
Gabriel turned from him again, wanting to escape, before the rage welled up, before the truth broke out of him. But Marcus would not let him go.
"I know you, Gabriel. No matter what you or anybody else thinks about you. How could you be damned if you haven’t done anything worth damning you over!?”
“I don’t know!” he snarled. “I don’t know, all right!?”
He turned back around to see Marcus shocked, staring at him. His head shook back and forth, uncomprehending.
“I do everything I can to keep a hold on the monster in me. I don’t do all the terrible things they all think I’m going to do! I confess and I atone and I am so God damned sorry every minute of my life! And still… I know, in my guts, that no matter what, I’m damned.”
But Marcus didn’t see it, his whole life was built on the wide open arms of grace. “You can’t know—”
“I’m something that in a perfect world never would have come to be!”
Gabriel had so rarely spoken of it aloud. He hated it, wanted to disbelieve it with all of his soul, but again and again, he found himself crushed against that stark truth. The truth for which he would spend the rest of his life atoning.
“And all I can do is keep trying, and keep hoping… and I don’t know if I ever can. I don’t know if I can ever make up for it.”
The words felt empty, inadequate. No, he could not make light of it. It meant everything in the world.
Gabriel’s head bowed low on his long neck. Suddenly it was too much effort to hold it up. He blew out hard through his teeth. “I am demon, Marcus. Whatever else, I’ll never get away from that.”
He sank in a crouch back on the wall, not looking at anything. After a moment Marcus settled in beside him, the strength seeming to have run right out of him. “Jesus, Gabe.”
The hawk-like talons flexed and clenched. “Still think I’m just torturing myself?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Of course you don’t.” How could he ever? How could Gabriel convey to him that he felt it, felt it in his bones, how far off grace was when his very existence was an affront against God? The weight of the shame of that knowledge?
“It’s not always that bad. Right?” Marcus shook his head. “Sometimes you seem okay. Like now… you laughed just now. I can get you to laugh.”
Gabriel stared off into the dark. He was out of words.
His friend’s usually amiable face was twisted in sorrow. “Can’t blame me for trying, man. Can’t stand knowing you’re off somewhere alone and hating yourself.”
His head did not turn, but suddenly Gabriel was struck. “Marcus… how did you know I was up here?”
He forced a laugh. “Wasn’t hard to figure out. Batman's always brooding on ledges.”
Gabriel regarded him with his golden hunter’s eyes. Marcus couldn’t meet his gaze. At last he sighed. “Rachel told me, okay?”
“Rachel?” The demon tried to keep his expression neutral. “How… how did she know? I haven’t seen her—”
“Gabriel. She always knows where you are.”
He shifted his wings against his back, shaking his head in feigned dismissal. “That makes sense, I guess. I— I don’t read like anyone else. I stand out.”
“Gabe. Come on.” Marcus crossed around to Gabriel’s other side so he could look him in the eye. “She thinks about you a lot.”
Gabriel stared.
“And… I know you think about her.”
“Marcus… don’t.”
He leaned against the wall and tried to smile. “So… what is that?”
“I don’t know.” It was the truth.
“I have a guess.”
“Don’t. Don’t say it.” He shook his head helplessly, fangs grinding as he gnashed them together. “It can’t… it can’t.”
His friend regarded him sadly. “But what if it is?”
“Marcus…” He spread his claws. “Look at me.”
Marcus did, and his expression broke.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
From FALLEN - Father confessor
This is another piece of Fallen that I wrote for school. It builds upon this piece, where Julien offers to hear Gabriel's confessions in hopes of helping ease his burden. But he learns that Gabriel's burden is greater than he'd ever guessed, and he has no idea how he's going to find the way to help him.
In a few months Julien had another appointment in the rectory besides the office hours he kept. Sundays were long, busy days for the pastor of St. Michael’s, but even this far into the evening his work wasn’t yet done. Instead he came here for his standing engagement late on Sunday nights.
Julien took his place inside the confessional and waited. It was appropriate to allow the suggestion of anonymity with the divider between them, but this particular penitent never entered through the door as the priest did. Often Julien never saw him at all. Instead he preferred to climb his way down from the ceiling and take his place behind that opaque screen to make his weekly reconciliation.
Quiet and closed-off as he was at most times, the priest found him to be shockingly frank and straightforward in the confessional. It was as if his guilt made it almost a compulsion, one that made him crave the structure of the sacrament. Julien did his best to accommodate this in what ways he could, offering all the strict formalities that Gabriel seemed accustomed to.
When he was sure of the creature’s arrival, he cleared his throat to begin. “Good evening, my son.”
“Good evening, Father.” It was always remarkable to hear him speak from the other side of the screen. Gabriel had a fine voice; that never ceased to strike him. But for some indefinable, alien quality, he could have been confessing a human.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Gabriel went on. “It’s been seven days since my last confession.” It was always seven days; Gabriel came to him once a week, every week, with strict reliability. They had established a routine, the two of them; it was always here, and it was always now.
It had been some time in coming, this arrangement. Julien found he had a great deal to learn about his new penitent before he could minister to him. Cortes already knew him, Gabriel had said. Julien had been resistant to the notion on the grounds that the confessor himself was to be the conduit, not the source, of Christ’s forgiveness. Often the penitent took comfort from the particular priest they spoke to, and of course some were better at counseling than others. But there was no such bond there— instead it was that Cortes had been familiar with Gabriel’s history, had seen the falls and the shadows and the questions that everyone had asked all his life. It was not that Cortes had particular empathy for him. It was that Gabriel would not have to speak of shames that were already understood.
It was all of those things that Julien had to learn. The violence in him, or the potential for it, was terrible, it seemed, and the very idea of it welling up from him left many in frank terror. The incidents of real harm were thankfully few, and not since he’d been quite young, but still they served to prove that when that violence was roused, it was terrible to behold. The Ministers did their best to direct it toward the fight against hell, but the danger always lurked that he might lose himself to it, and if it happened, no one would be able to control him. Gabriel’s own awareness of it was razor-keen, and it did not require Julien’s insight to see how deeply the knowledge cut him.
As for the impression the came from the demon, slowly but surely he was learning to interpret them. They did not come as simple flashes of truth as they frequently did with normal people; instead he had to reach through the thick heaviness that constantly enveloped him. After just a few months at St. Michael’s, Julien was coming to know that feeling very well. It came sheeting off Goran with the fury of rain in a downpour, while in Gabriel’s soul it hung like a heavy, pervasive fog. It had taken some time and study, but he had come to understand that Gabriel’s may have looked different, but it meant the same thing.
Still, at these times he did his best to shut off his perceptions that way. While some things simply came to him, he preferred not to probe in the confessional. It was more right, in such a vulnerable position, to take only what they offered of their own free will. Gabriel in particular he wanted to allow to speak his mind.
And Gariel spoke. “It happened again.”
Julien chose his words carefully. “The… the violent thoughts?”
“Killing thoughts.”
“That is serious.”
“It’s what I am.”
Julien sighed. “Who this time?”
“Amalia Van Doren.”
“Why?”
“She was afraid.”
“I… I’m sorry?”
“She’s terrified of me.”
“That— that isn’t very fair of you—”
Gabriel’s voice grew hard. “She’s never said a word to me. Not in my life. I hate her.”
“She is weak and doesn’t know. You must learn to forgive—”
“I hate her because she’s right!”
“Child—”
“You don’t know what it does. Her pupils dilate. Her heart starts pounding. I can… I can smell it on her. It… it wakes the urge.”
“Child—”
The edge of outrage flattened from his voice, and he sank back into that familiar self-loathing. “I am the monster she thinks I am.”
Julien raked his hair back with his fingers. “Is it growing worse?”
“It’s always like this.”
“I’m sorry,” Julien sighed. “But, child… you have not done it.”
“What?”
“You never hurt Amalia, for all that you wanted to.”
“No,” he concede, his voice almost a growl. “But I would have. If I’d stayed there a little longer.”
“Gabriel, the world is full of things we’re tempted to do.”
“Not like this.”
“When you are overcoming that temptation, you are doing God’s word. What more can any of us do?”
“Most people don’t have this… this thing inside them.”
“What inside them, child?”
“You know, Father.”
“Tell me.” He had to make Gabriel say it.
“The… need for it.”
“There’s violence in everyone. Man is a predator, too.”
“Not like this!” he cried again, snarled it, fiercely enough to make Julien freeze. “Predators are hungry, Father! This is not hunger! I just want to…”
He trailed off, and Julien could hear his teeth gnash, a habit he had often when he was frustrated. Frustrated, or trying to control himself.
The priest swallowed hard. “You haven’t done what you want to do.”
“But I have. Braden still has the scars.”
“You were a child then!”
“Everyone still remembers! If I’d been a dog, they would have put me down.”
“A dog wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.”
Gabriel said nothing, and Julien heaved a sigh, listening to the leathery rustle of his wings. There would be no more discussion through this moment of malaise. They would have to pick this up when Gabriel unburied himself. There was no reaching him now. “Pray with me now.”
He complied, his voice low and tired-sounding. “Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Lamb of God; you take away the sins of the world... Through the grace of the Holy Spirit restore me to friendship with your Father, cleanse me from every stain of sin in the blood you shed for me, and raise me to new life for the glory of your name.”
“Amen,” said Julien. He assigned Gabriel his usual penance, some Bible verses to study and the appropriate passages in the catechesis, with a handful of chores around the grounds that felt spectacularly inadequate to calming a murderous rage. He made the sign of the cross before himself in the air. “The Lord has remembered his mercy, and you are forgiven. Go forth and sin no more.”
“Thank you. Amen.” He heard the deep breath flow through that cavernous chest, hissing through his fangs and growling through his throat. “I wanted to kill you too, Father.”
The young priest’s eyes went wide.
“When I watched you in the rectory. You were afraid of me then, too.”
Before Julien could decide how to respond, he heard the demon climb out of the confessional and begin making his way up the wall. He sat there, listening to the scrape of claws on wood and stone and struggling to think of something to say. Finally he threw open the door and leaped out to catch Gabriel before he disappeared, craning his head back to search the rafters for a glimpse. But it was no use. Julien still had nothing, and he was already gone.
The priest exhaled heavily and pressed his forehead against the dark cool wood of the doorway to the confessional. The sacrament was meant to cleanse and release the penitent, but not so for Gabriel. Despite his best intentions, Julien could not seem to puzzle out what he needed, this tangled tortured spirit, this Gordian knot of a creature. There was no peace to be found in that soul.
Julien collapsed back onto his seat in the confessional. He bowed his head and begged, the heartfelt prayer of a man who knew only heartfelt prayer.
I want to help him, but I don’t know how. Show me the way, Lord, and I will do it.
~~~
In a few months Julien had another appointment in the rectory besides the office hours he kept. Sundays were long, busy days for the pastor of St. Michael’s, but even this far into the evening his work wasn’t yet done. Instead he came here for his standing engagement late on Sunday nights.
Julien took his place inside the confessional and waited. It was appropriate to allow the suggestion of anonymity with the divider between them, but this particular penitent never entered through the door as the priest did. Often Julien never saw him at all. Instead he preferred to climb his way down from the ceiling and take his place behind that opaque screen to make his weekly reconciliation.
Quiet and closed-off as he was at most times, the priest found him to be shockingly frank and straightforward in the confessional. It was as if his guilt made it almost a compulsion, one that made him crave the structure of the sacrament. Julien did his best to accommodate this in what ways he could, offering all the strict formalities that Gabriel seemed accustomed to.
When he was sure of the creature’s arrival, he cleared his throat to begin. “Good evening, my son.”
“Good evening, Father.” It was always remarkable to hear him speak from the other side of the screen. Gabriel had a fine voice; that never ceased to strike him. But for some indefinable, alien quality, he could have been confessing a human.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Gabriel went on. “It’s been seven days since my last confession.” It was always seven days; Gabriel came to him once a week, every week, with strict reliability. They had established a routine, the two of them; it was always here, and it was always now.
It had been some time in coming, this arrangement. Julien found he had a great deal to learn about his new penitent before he could minister to him. Cortes already knew him, Gabriel had said. Julien had been resistant to the notion on the grounds that the confessor himself was to be the conduit, not the source, of Christ’s forgiveness. Often the penitent took comfort from the particular priest they spoke to, and of course some were better at counseling than others. But there was no such bond there— instead it was that Cortes had been familiar with Gabriel’s history, had seen the falls and the shadows and the questions that everyone had asked all his life. It was not that Cortes had particular empathy for him. It was that Gabriel would not have to speak of shames that were already understood.
It was all of those things that Julien had to learn. The violence in him, or the potential for it, was terrible, it seemed, and the very idea of it welling up from him left many in frank terror. The incidents of real harm were thankfully few, and not since he’d been quite young, but still they served to prove that when that violence was roused, it was terrible to behold. The Ministers did their best to direct it toward the fight against hell, but the danger always lurked that he might lose himself to it, and if it happened, no one would be able to control him. Gabriel’s own awareness of it was razor-keen, and it did not require Julien’s insight to see how deeply the knowledge cut him.
As for the impression the came from the demon, slowly but surely he was learning to interpret them. They did not come as simple flashes of truth as they frequently did with normal people; instead he had to reach through the thick heaviness that constantly enveloped him. After just a few months at St. Michael’s, Julien was coming to know that feeling very well. It came sheeting off Goran with the fury of rain in a downpour, while in Gabriel’s soul it hung like a heavy, pervasive fog. It had taken some time and study, but he had come to understand that Gabriel’s may have looked different, but it meant the same thing.
Still, at these times he did his best to shut off his perceptions that way. While some things simply came to him, he preferred not to probe in the confessional. It was more right, in such a vulnerable position, to take only what they offered of their own free will. Gabriel in particular he wanted to allow to speak his mind.
And Gariel spoke. “It happened again.”
Julien chose his words carefully. “The… the violent thoughts?”
“Killing thoughts.”
“That is serious.”
“It’s what I am.”
Julien sighed. “Who this time?”
“Amalia Van Doren.”
“Why?”
“She was afraid.”
“I… I’m sorry?”
“She’s terrified of me.”
“That— that isn’t very fair of you—”
Gabriel’s voice grew hard. “She’s never said a word to me. Not in my life. I hate her.”
“She is weak and doesn’t know. You must learn to forgive—”
“I hate her because she’s right!”
“Child—”
“You don’t know what it does. Her pupils dilate. Her heart starts pounding. I can… I can smell it on her. It… it wakes the urge.”
“Child—”
The edge of outrage flattened from his voice, and he sank back into that familiar self-loathing. “I am the monster she thinks I am.”
Julien raked his hair back with his fingers. “Is it growing worse?”
“It’s always like this.”
“I’m sorry,” Julien sighed. “But, child… you have not done it.”
“What?”
“You never hurt Amalia, for all that you wanted to.”
“No,” he concede, his voice almost a growl. “But I would have. If I’d stayed there a little longer.”
“Gabriel, the world is full of things we’re tempted to do.”
“Not like this.”
“When you are overcoming that temptation, you are doing God’s word. What more can any of us do?”
“Most people don’t have this… this thing inside them.”
“What inside them, child?”
“You know, Father.”
“Tell me.” He had to make Gabriel say it.
“The… need for it.”
“There’s violence in everyone. Man is a predator, too.”
“Not like this!” he cried again, snarled it, fiercely enough to make Julien freeze. “Predators are hungry, Father! This is not hunger! I just want to…”
He trailed off, and Julien could hear his teeth gnash, a habit he had often when he was frustrated. Frustrated, or trying to control himself.
The priest swallowed hard. “You haven’t done what you want to do.”
“But I have. Braden still has the scars.”
“You were a child then!”
“Everyone still remembers! If I’d been a dog, they would have put me down.”
“A dog wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.”
Gabriel said nothing, and Julien heaved a sigh, listening to the leathery rustle of his wings. There would be no more discussion through this moment of malaise. They would have to pick this up when Gabriel unburied himself. There was no reaching him now. “Pray with me now.”
He complied, his voice low and tired-sounding. “Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Lamb of God; you take away the sins of the world... Through the grace of the Holy Spirit restore me to friendship with your Father, cleanse me from every stain of sin in the blood you shed for me, and raise me to new life for the glory of your name.”
“Amen,” said Julien. He assigned Gabriel his usual penance, some Bible verses to study and the appropriate passages in the catechesis, with a handful of chores around the grounds that felt spectacularly inadequate to calming a murderous rage. He made the sign of the cross before himself in the air. “The Lord has remembered his mercy, and you are forgiven. Go forth and sin no more.”
“Thank you. Amen.” He heard the deep breath flow through that cavernous chest, hissing through his fangs and growling through his throat. “I wanted to kill you too, Father.”
The young priest’s eyes went wide.
“When I watched you in the rectory. You were afraid of me then, too.”
Before Julien could decide how to respond, he heard the demon climb out of the confessional and begin making his way up the wall. He sat there, listening to the scrape of claws on wood and stone and struggling to think of something to say. Finally he threw open the door and leaped out to catch Gabriel before he disappeared, craning his head back to search the rafters for a glimpse. But it was no use. Julien still had nothing, and he was already gone.
The priest exhaled heavily and pressed his forehead against the dark cool wood of the doorway to the confessional. The sacrament was meant to cleanse and release the penitent, but not so for Gabriel. Despite his best intentions, Julien could not seem to puzzle out what he needed, this tangled tortured spirit, this Gordian knot of a creature. There was no peace to be found in that soul.
Julien collapsed back onto his seat in the confessional. He bowed his head and begged, the heartfelt prayer of a man who knew only heartfelt prayer.
I want to help him, but I don’t know how. Show me the way, Lord, and I will do it.
Monday, April 16, 2012
From FALLEN - Confession with the new priest
This is part of what I wrote for my most recent science fiction and fantasy submission. This is another part of Fallen, this time from the point of view of a young priest named Father Julien Alencon. He is French and gifted with a power he calls "insight," the ability to receive flashes of truth about the natures of people around him. He was chosen to replace the last chaplain at the school of St. Michael's because of his record and his power. This is the beginning of his relationship with Gabriel.
As the professors held office hours, so did Julien too, working quietly on something or other at a small desk in the rectory until someone would come into to see him. Members of the community could come speak to him there, attending to school business, receiving spiritual counseling, or taking a moment in the confessional for those seeking the delivery of the sacrament. But then, just a few days into this habit, he noticed it again.
It was the presence, the strange tangled presence unlike any he’d ever encountered before. It was Gabriel, unmistakably, and he realized with a start that if he was feeling it now it meant Gabriel was here, somewhere close by but completely unseen. More thrown than he would ever have guessed, he sat stiffly in his chair trying to decide what to do, until after a while the presence receded, and Julien felt he was alone again. He allowed himself a futile glance around the empty hall, casting about for some action to take, and finding none. This went on for quite a few days, the onset of that creeping sensation seizing him up with a fear so base it startled him. He would just keep on with whatever business he was about, assiduously pretending he did not feel like some scurrying prey animal that could sense the eyes of the predator upon him.
That feeling disgusted him. This was not why he was brought here, to cower away from the phenomenon they had enlisted his help to understand. He could not keep avoiding that which he was meant to confront. He had a duty to uphold.
On the fifth day, when he could sense the creature’s approach, Julien laid down his pen and took a deep breath, slowly in and out. He considered a moment, then asked the room at large, “Gabriel? Is that you?”
The silence in response was long enough that Julien began to wonder if he was mistaken, but finally he was answered by that same low, even voice.
“Yes, Father.”
Suddenly he felt profoundly unsure of himself, the fear threatening to freeze him up again. He cleared his throat and clumsily he pressed on. “You know, you’re very welcome to come in. If you’d like.”
The invitation sounded silly even to his ears. Gabriel already was in, for all he knew. He could be anywhere, and the little mouse he was watching would never know it.
Up in the rafters there was a flapping sound, like the whipping of leather. Julien’s gaze snapped to the ceiling. There Gabriel was, emerging from the shadowed high corner of the hall. On all fours he climbed across the broad beam and sprang off on coiled-steel hind legs. With the spreading of his batlike wings he dropped in a controlled fall to touch down gracefully on the floor just to the side of the desk. It took all Julien’s self-possession not to go lurching out of his chair.
Instead, he folded his hands and looked all the way seven feet up to meet Gabriel’s eyes. He did his best to give a pleasant smile. “That’s better, I think.”
The draconian head nodded, once. The slitted golden eyes fixed on him again, as intensely as they had at their first meeting, then turned down to linger on the floor. That small thing softened him somehow, made him seem to Julien suddenly like a shy boy looking at his shoelaces.
Encouraged, Julien went on. “I am glad you came. We haven’t seen one another since our meeting, have we?”
The demon made no answer. The priest struggled to fill the silence. “Is there something I can do for you?”
It seemed at first that Gabriel may not answer again. Finally he said, “I used to come here to make confession.”
“Confession?” Julien’s guts went cold. “Qu’est ce-que— do you, ah… have you something in particular? To confess?” His eyes went to the curved claws, the long muzzle of wicked fangs, and immediately his imagination began to fire. He fought to keep his expression under control; he could not let fear make up his mind for him.
Gabriel’s eyes began to wander around the room, looking anywhere except at the priest. “I used to come every week. Before Father Cortes became too sick.”
That surprised Julien. That was a habit he associated with the little old ladies back in Marseilles. “Ah. I see. Well, I am happy to hear you anytime you wish.”
Again Gabriel had no answer.
“Is… it that all right?”
His face had so little expression it was hard to read, and Julien had not yet learned to parse out what his insight absorbed from this creature. But on impulse he decided to try anyway, casting out and focusing as closely as he could. He could not trace the strands of the tangle, but amid the swirling threads there was an air of something that radiated unmistakably of sorrow. Julien held on to that, that which he could understand, that which could build connection between one soul and another. He knew nothing of demons, but if he knew nothing else, he knew how to reach out to those who were in pain.
“Gabriel? Is something wrong?”
“No, sir. It’s only…” Those golden eyes flicked back briefly, then again away. “Father Cortes knew me already.”
It was an odd thing to say. Julien had not been hearing confession long, but it seemed off somehow, that such a thing should concern him. The sacrament of confession was not to be delivered from a position of personal investment, at least not as far as the confessor was concerned. But he did not want to alienate him now, not when the connection was beginning to form.
The priest leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “Well, then… perhaps I should too.”
Gabriel actually looked at him then, not like a predator for once, almost the way a normal person would, and nodded. He turned abruptly to the wall and seemed ready to scale it to leave the way he came in, but then he paused, and his sinuous neck turned back over his shoulder.
“He knew what I am, I mean. My history. All of it.”
Julien stood. “I can learn.”
Those long fangs ground against each other. “So I’ll have to talk about it.”
~~~
As the professors held office hours, so did Julien too, working quietly on something or other at a small desk in the rectory until someone would come into to see him. Members of the community could come speak to him there, attending to school business, receiving spiritual counseling, or taking a moment in the confessional for those seeking the delivery of the sacrament. But then, just a few days into this habit, he noticed it again.
It was the presence, the strange tangled presence unlike any he’d ever encountered before. It was Gabriel, unmistakably, and he realized with a start that if he was feeling it now it meant Gabriel was here, somewhere close by but completely unseen. More thrown than he would ever have guessed, he sat stiffly in his chair trying to decide what to do, until after a while the presence receded, and Julien felt he was alone again. He allowed himself a futile glance around the empty hall, casting about for some action to take, and finding none. This went on for quite a few days, the onset of that creeping sensation seizing him up with a fear so base it startled him. He would just keep on with whatever business he was about, assiduously pretending he did not feel like some scurrying prey animal that could sense the eyes of the predator upon him.
That feeling disgusted him. This was not why he was brought here, to cower away from the phenomenon they had enlisted his help to understand. He could not keep avoiding that which he was meant to confront. He had a duty to uphold.
On the fifth day, when he could sense the creature’s approach, Julien laid down his pen and took a deep breath, slowly in and out. He considered a moment, then asked the room at large, “Gabriel? Is that you?”
The silence in response was long enough that Julien began to wonder if he was mistaken, but finally he was answered by that same low, even voice.
“Yes, Father.”
Suddenly he felt profoundly unsure of himself, the fear threatening to freeze him up again. He cleared his throat and clumsily he pressed on. “You know, you’re very welcome to come in. If you’d like.”
The invitation sounded silly even to his ears. Gabriel already was in, for all he knew. He could be anywhere, and the little mouse he was watching would never know it.
Up in the rafters there was a flapping sound, like the whipping of leather. Julien’s gaze snapped to the ceiling. There Gabriel was, emerging from the shadowed high corner of the hall. On all fours he climbed across the broad beam and sprang off on coiled-steel hind legs. With the spreading of his batlike wings he dropped in a controlled fall to touch down gracefully on the floor just to the side of the desk. It took all Julien’s self-possession not to go lurching out of his chair.
Instead, he folded his hands and looked all the way seven feet up to meet Gabriel’s eyes. He did his best to give a pleasant smile. “That’s better, I think.”
The draconian head nodded, once. The slitted golden eyes fixed on him again, as intensely as they had at their first meeting, then turned down to linger on the floor. That small thing softened him somehow, made him seem to Julien suddenly like a shy boy looking at his shoelaces.
Encouraged, Julien went on. “I am glad you came. We haven’t seen one another since our meeting, have we?”
The demon made no answer. The priest struggled to fill the silence. “Is there something I can do for you?”
It seemed at first that Gabriel may not answer again. Finally he said, “I used to come here to make confession.”
“Confession?” Julien’s guts went cold. “Qu’est ce-que— do you, ah… have you something in particular? To confess?” His eyes went to the curved claws, the long muzzle of wicked fangs, and immediately his imagination began to fire. He fought to keep his expression under control; he could not let fear make up his mind for him.
Gabriel’s eyes began to wander around the room, looking anywhere except at the priest. “I used to come every week. Before Father Cortes became too sick.”
That surprised Julien. That was a habit he associated with the little old ladies back in Marseilles. “Ah. I see. Well, I am happy to hear you anytime you wish.”
Again Gabriel had no answer.
“Is… it that all right?”
His face had so little expression it was hard to read, and Julien had not yet learned to parse out what his insight absorbed from this creature. But on impulse he decided to try anyway, casting out and focusing as closely as he could. He could not trace the strands of the tangle, but amid the swirling threads there was an air of something that radiated unmistakably of sorrow. Julien held on to that, that which he could understand, that which could build connection between one soul and another. He knew nothing of demons, but if he knew nothing else, he knew how to reach out to those who were in pain.
“Gabriel? Is something wrong?”
“No, sir. It’s only…” Those golden eyes flicked back briefly, then again away. “Father Cortes knew me already.”
It was an odd thing to say. Julien had not been hearing confession long, but it seemed off somehow, that such a thing should concern him. The sacrament of confession was not to be delivered from a position of personal investment, at least not as far as the confessor was concerned. But he did not want to alienate him now, not when the connection was beginning to form.
The priest leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “Well, then… perhaps I should too.”
Gabriel actually looked at him then, not like a predator for once, almost the way a normal person would, and nodded. He turned abruptly to the wall and seemed ready to scale it to leave the way he came in, but then he paused, and his sinuous neck turned back over his shoulder.
“He knew what I am, I mean. My history. All of it.”
Julien stood. “I can learn.”
Those long fangs ground against each other. “So I’ll have to talk about it.”
Saturday, March 17, 2012
From FALLEN - "The Bell"
I wrote this short piece as a submission for my science fiction and fantasy class. This is a scene from a fantasy novel I have been thinking of writing for quite some time. The idea is that after a great battle with the forces of hell, a team of people from a religious university that trains people with special powers find what seems to them to be a baby demon. A nun named Magdalena speaks up for his life, names him Gabriel, and raises him at the university to fight on their side. Still, he is regarded as a monster by many and struggles a great deal with the question of whether or not he really is one, particularly when he is confronted by how holy objects have the power to hurt him.
This part is inspired in large part by the Night on Bald Mountain segment of Fantasia. I do so love my Catholic ceremony, imagery, philosophy, and issues of guilt. ;-)
In his explorations of the buildings of the school, Gabriel had gone many times through the rafters of the bell tower. The time at St. Michael’s was often kept with the ringing of bells, from the beginning of the school day at seven in morning and every hour until the day’s end at nine at night. The bells housed in the tower there were a varied assortment, some new, some relics brought in from across the world, burnished bright or tarnished with age, plainly made or ornately designed. He had examined each of them in turn as climbed. Some were for the keeping of time, some were for occasions based on their histories. But there was one among them more special than any.
She was a grand and ancient bell, French-made and rich brass, so artfully cast and engraved that even in the three hundred years since her making she was still sound and lovely. She had hung in Chartres, in Barcelona, even in Rome, before her gifting to the school had brought her to her place of honor in the tower. He had seen her there, and saw the words etched into her flanged edge. Her name was La Voix de l’Espoir, the Voice of Hope. Beneath her name there was an inscription in Latin, Hear me and do not despair.
She did not sound often; she was too old and precious for that, only on occasions of deep significance. They saved her to celebrate Easter and Christmas. To mourn the loss of the beloved dead. To commemorate moments of importance for the institution of St. Michael’s. Today was one such moment. Today a new priest was arriving to be installed as minister to the school, and that meant the holy bell would ring in honor of the beginning of the new day.
Gabriel had risen early to scale the rooftops this morning, but not the bell tower. He had chosen the steeple over the library instead. It was climbed so rarely that it was sure that no one would be there at this early hour. That was as Gabriel wanted it, somewhere out of the way, somewhere he’d be certain to be alone, within hearing distance of the bell. Of course, it was difficult to move out of hearing distance of this bell.
There was no wind that morning, and there was no place higher than the steeple to glide from, so Gabriel had to climb. He was thankful for how early it was, as no one was likely to see him do it. Braden didn’t like it when he scrambled up the walls like a squirrel when everyone was looking on. He also had to take care not to damage the stone façade; it would have been easier to just punch his talons in as he climbed, but he didn’t want to any more damage than he had to. Braden wouldn’t like that either.
It was only a few minutes to seven when he reached the balcony. It was empty except for a few folding chairs, left there by the occasional student who ascended all those stairs to find a quiet lonely place to study. From here you could see the whole campus, the rooftop of almost every other building of the school. Gabriel liked high places; for a brief while, they allowed him to forget what he was.
It was moments to seven. Carefully, deliberately, he leaned over the parapet and braced his claws on the stone. Head bowed, every cord of muscle in his body tensed, he waited.
The bell tolled, and Gabriel shuddered.
One.
He could not recall just how old he’d been the first time he’d heard it, such things did not keep easily in his head. But he’d been at Saint Michael’s as long as he could remember, surely it had happened since his infancy, some Christmas morning, some Easter day. It had to have come early enough that he learned early what was coming, and what that coming meant.
His whole body burst through with the pain.
Two.
The tolling of bells was a common occurrence at St. Michael's, with a number of small ringers in the tower pealing all day long to mark the passage of time. Every day of his life spent at the academy he had heard them call out hour by hour. At their sounding Gabriel had never felt so much as a twinge. But the keepers of the hours were ordinary secular chimes. La Voix was a bell of the church.
The sound sank into him, the deep resonance of a holy instrument, its sacred nature giving it a power beyond the simple enormity of its voice. Its tone was imbued with all the divine quality of any object bearing the auspice of the church-- beautiful, powerful, and utterly unbearable to the hearing of a demon.
Three.
His claws trembled against the parapet, aching to gouge into the stone, but instead he clenched them into fists, so tightly that his talons sank into the scales of his palms. Sometimes in church they rang special hand bells to mark the consecration of the bread and wine. From the rafters were he lurked during mass he had felt the swift punch of their high sharp voices, like the darting of knives in quick succession. Their blows pierced but were brief as they chimed out a few times and were silenced. Gabriel could endure them with no great struggle. But La Voix was huge, La Voix was resonant, and La Voix had received the Baptism.
It was the Baptism of the Bells that gave it that power. Washed with holy water by the hands of a bishop, anointed without by the oil of the infirm and within by the sacred chrism, filled by smoke of a fuming censor. With these sacraments, the bishop’s prayer conferred upon it the power to protect from storms, call the faithful to prayer, and drive demons to flight.
He would not fly. Nor would he howl; not a cry, not a sound. Only the jags of his ragged breath, and the bell.
Four.
Every peal seized him like a vice, yet twisted the joining of his bones until he thought he might be wrenched apart. He clamped one claw over the ridges of brow, as if to hold his skull together. His serpentine neck curled inward, tucking his head nearly to his chest. There were many things the apocrypha suggested about demons that posed no danger to Gabriel. He could hear mass, say prayers, and without fear enter into a church. Magdalena held it up as evidence that he was no monster beyond redemption. Others like Braden were unconvinced— the workings of Hell were of course not fully understood, and never would be. Besides, there were still so many things that branded him unholy. He was burned by the water in the font, he could enter the church but never stand upon the altar, and the pain that exploded in him at sound of the church bell.
Five.
His whole body curled inward on itself. His tail, usually snaking in constant movement, had twisted itself up in contortions. He went to great lengths to ensure he was always alone when the bell rung, because there was no way he could hide what it did to him.
Once it had happened in front of Magda, the night when Rodrigo Cortez had died. It had been some time in coming; he had elected to stop treatment and come back to his place at the school to meet the end. She had come to his room to speak to him, to tell him the end was near, to speak to him of how felt. But when La Voix rang out to tell the world the priest was dead, she saw for the first time the misery it beat into it him with every clang of its clapper.
He remembered the shock and horror on her face, then look of dawning realization as she understood, transforming swiftly into that horrible gut-wrenching pity that shamed him to his soul, to see her reminded yet again that this was his nature, to be ever wounded by holy things. She had darted for the door, given a burst of frantic energy in her upset, but he managed to throw himself in front of it and desperately shake his head, refusing to let her leave. He could not speak in his agony, but the meaning was clear, that she could not stop the bell, not without letting everyone know why. She had spent more than twenty years trying to make them believe he was not a monster beyond redemption. She could not reveal this without giving them one more to reason to denounce him for what he was. So she had stood there and watched, quietly sobbing behind her hands, unable even to comfort him for fear of his agonized thrashing. She could give out the means to tear him down, or she could let him suffer in silence. But she knew him well enough to know which pain he’d rather bear. And so he did, every time, bracing his battered body and counting the strokes.
Six.
His knees buckled and he collapsed onto all fours. He gasped helplessly through the tight locking of his teeth. He could not bear much more, his jaw would crack, his skull would split, his insides would twist apart. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be dying, if the pain was so great that it would actually kill him.
But then at last, there rang the final toll.
Seven.
He almost screamed. He almost writhed and thrashed and struck heedlessly at the stone. He could have torn the balcony to pieces in his pain. But he tensed his every muscle through the bell’s final peal and let it take one last blow through him.
The tremors stopped as the toll faded into silence.
He sank down against his forearms, pressing his snout into the floor. He held still a moment, his breath evening out, the deep permeating ache slowly melting from his bones. Unsteadily he stood and stretched, shrugging his shoulders and spreading his wings as wide as they could go. It was better this way, better to hide it. There would be no more speculation, no more constant sidelong glances wondering at the true depths of his monstrousness. He was debated and prodded and suspiciously regarded enough.
But it was more than only that. He did not want the bell silenced. This was penance. Penance for the thing that he was.
He blew out hard through his still-clenched teeth. He straightened slowly, releasing by inches the tension in his muscles. Unlike his burns and scars, this left no marks that anyone could see, nothing that remained after the ordeal was ended. The pain had disappeared, gone as completely as if it had never been. There was only that strange lingering weakness, soul-deep, that hung in his limbs like a weight before it too faded into nothingness.
Gabriel stepped out onto the ledge of the balcony and spread his wings to catch the wind. Seven in the morning on the day the new priest was to arrive. There was no sense in him remaining up in the library steeple any longer. It was time for church.
He sprang powerfully off the ledge, as lithe as strong as ever, as if the agony of the last few moments had never happened, as if the bell had never rung except for only the clear, true sound echoing in his thoughts.
God, that bell was beautiful.
This part is inspired in large part by the Night on Bald Mountain segment of Fantasia. I do so love my Catholic ceremony, imagery, philosophy, and issues of guilt. ;-)
~~~
In his explorations of the buildings of the school, Gabriel had gone many times through the rafters of the bell tower. The time at St. Michael’s was often kept with the ringing of bells, from the beginning of the school day at seven in morning and every hour until the day’s end at nine at night. The bells housed in the tower there were a varied assortment, some new, some relics brought in from across the world, burnished bright or tarnished with age, plainly made or ornately designed. He had examined each of them in turn as climbed. Some were for the keeping of time, some were for occasions based on their histories. But there was one among them more special than any.
She was a grand and ancient bell, French-made and rich brass, so artfully cast and engraved that even in the three hundred years since her making she was still sound and lovely. She had hung in Chartres, in Barcelona, even in Rome, before her gifting to the school had brought her to her place of honor in the tower. He had seen her there, and saw the words etched into her flanged edge. Her name was La Voix de l’Espoir, the Voice of Hope. Beneath her name there was an inscription in Latin, Hear me and do not despair.
She did not sound often; she was too old and precious for that, only on occasions of deep significance. They saved her to celebrate Easter and Christmas. To mourn the loss of the beloved dead. To commemorate moments of importance for the institution of St. Michael’s. Today was one such moment. Today a new priest was arriving to be installed as minister to the school, and that meant the holy bell would ring in honor of the beginning of the new day.
Gabriel had risen early to scale the rooftops this morning, but not the bell tower. He had chosen the steeple over the library instead. It was climbed so rarely that it was sure that no one would be there at this early hour. That was as Gabriel wanted it, somewhere out of the way, somewhere he’d be certain to be alone, within hearing distance of the bell. Of course, it was difficult to move out of hearing distance of this bell.
There was no wind that morning, and there was no place higher than the steeple to glide from, so Gabriel had to climb. He was thankful for how early it was, as no one was likely to see him do it. Braden didn’t like it when he scrambled up the walls like a squirrel when everyone was looking on. He also had to take care not to damage the stone façade; it would have been easier to just punch his talons in as he climbed, but he didn’t want to any more damage than he had to. Braden wouldn’t like that either.
It was only a few minutes to seven when he reached the balcony. It was empty except for a few folding chairs, left there by the occasional student who ascended all those stairs to find a quiet lonely place to study. From here you could see the whole campus, the rooftop of almost every other building of the school. Gabriel liked high places; for a brief while, they allowed him to forget what he was.
It was moments to seven. Carefully, deliberately, he leaned over the parapet and braced his claws on the stone. Head bowed, every cord of muscle in his body tensed, he waited.
The bell tolled, and Gabriel shuddered.
One.
He could not recall just how old he’d been the first time he’d heard it, such things did not keep easily in his head. But he’d been at Saint Michael’s as long as he could remember, surely it had happened since his infancy, some Christmas morning, some Easter day. It had to have come early enough that he learned early what was coming, and what that coming meant.
His whole body burst through with the pain.
Two.
The tolling of bells was a common occurrence at St. Michael's, with a number of small ringers in the tower pealing all day long to mark the passage of time. Every day of his life spent at the academy he had heard them call out hour by hour. At their sounding Gabriel had never felt so much as a twinge. But the keepers of the hours were ordinary secular chimes. La Voix was a bell of the church.
The sound sank into him, the deep resonance of a holy instrument, its sacred nature giving it a power beyond the simple enormity of its voice. Its tone was imbued with all the divine quality of any object bearing the auspice of the church-- beautiful, powerful, and utterly unbearable to the hearing of a demon.
Three.
His claws trembled against the parapet, aching to gouge into the stone, but instead he clenched them into fists, so tightly that his talons sank into the scales of his palms. Sometimes in church they rang special hand bells to mark the consecration of the bread and wine. From the rafters were he lurked during mass he had felt the swift punch of their high sharp voices, like the darting of knives in quick succession. Their blows pierced but were brief as they chimed out a few times and were silenced. Gabriel could endure them with no great struggle. But La Voix was huge, La Voix was resonant, and La Voix had received the Baptism.
It was the Baptism of the Bells that gave it that power. Washed with holy water by the hands of a bishop, anointed without by the oil of the infirm and within by the sacred chrism, filled by smoke of a fuming censor. With these sacraments, the bishop’s prayer conferred upon it the power to protect from storms, call the faithful to prayer, and drive demons to flight.
He would not fly. Nor would he howl; not a cry, not a sound. Only the jags of his ragged breath, and the bell.
Four.
Every peal seized him like a vice, yet twisted the joining of his bones until he thought he might be wrenched apart. He clamped one claw over the ridges of brow, as if to hold his skull together. His serpentine neck curled inward, tucking his head nearly to his chest. There were many things the apocrypha suggested about demons that posed no danger to Gabriel. He could hear mass, say prayers, and without fear enter into a church. Magdalena held it up as evidence that he was no monster beyond redemption. Others like Braden were unconvinced— the workings of Hell were of course not fully understood, and never would be. Besides, there were still so many things that branded him unholy. He was burned by the water in the font, he could enter the church but never stand upon the altar, and the pain that exploded in him at sound of the church bell.
Five.
His whole body curled inward on itself. His tail, usually snaking in constant movement, had twisted itself up in contortions. He went to great lengths to ensure he was always alone when the bell rung, because there was no way he could hide what it did to him.
Once it had happened in front of Magda, the night when Rodrigo Cortez had died. It had been some time in coming; he had elected to stop treatment and come back to his place at the school to meet the end. She had come to his room to speak to him, to tell him the end was near, to speak to him of how felt. But when La Voix rang out to tell the world the priest was dead, she saw for the first time the misery it beat into it him with every clang of its clapper.
He remembered the shock and horror on her face, then look of dawning realization as she understood, transforming swiftly into that horrible gut-wrenching pity that shamed him to his soul, to see her reminded yet again that this was his nature, to be ever wounded by holy things. She had darted for the door, given a burst of frantic energy in her upset, but he managed to throw himself in front of it and desperately shake his head, refusing to let her leave. He could not speak in his agony, but the meaning was clear, that she could not stop the bell, not without letting everyone know why. She had spent more than twenty years trying to make them believe he was not a monster beyond redemption. She could not reveal this without giving them one more to reason to denounce him for what he was. So she had stood there and watched, quietly sobbing behind her hands, unable even to comfort him for fear of his agonized thrashing. She could give out the means to tear him down, or she could let him suffer in silence. But she knew him well enough to know which pain he’d rather bear. And so he did, every time, bracing his battered body and counting the strokes.
Six.
His knees buckled and he collapsed onto all fours. He gasped helplessly through the tight locking of his teeth. He could not bear much more, his jaw would crack, his skull would split, his insides would twist apart. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be dying, if the pain was so great that it would actually kill him.
But then at last, there rang the final toll.
Seven.
He almost screamed. He almost writhed and thrashed and struck heedlessly at the stone. He could have torn the balcony to pieces in his pain. But he tensed his every muscle through the bell’s final peal and let it take one last blow through him.
The tremors stopped as the toll faded into silence.
He sank down against his forearms, pressing his snout into the floor. He held still a moment, his breath evening out, the deep permeating ache slowly melting from his bones. Unsteadily he stood and stretched, shrugging his shoulders and spreading his wings as wide as they could go. It was better this way, better to hide it. There would be no more speculation, no more constant sidelong glances wondering at the true depths of his monstrousness. He was debated and prodded and suspiciously regarded enough.
But it was more than only that. He did not want the bell silenced. This was penance. Penance for the thing that he was.
He blew out hard through his still-clenched teeth. He straightened slowly, releasing by inches the tension in his muscles. Unlike his burns and scars, this left no marks that anyone could see, nothing that remained after the ordeal was ended. The pain had disappeared, gone as completely as if it had never been. There was only that strange lingering weakness, soul-deep, that hung in his limbs like a weight before it too faded into nothingness.
Gabriel stepped out onto the ledge of the balcony and spread his wings to catch the wind. Seven in the morning on the day the new priest was to arrive. There was no sense in him remaining up in the library steeple any longer. It was time for church.
He sprang powerfully off the ledge, as lithe as strong as ever, as if the agony of the last few moments had never happened, as if the bell had never rung except for only the clear, true sound echoing in his thoughts.
God, that bell was beautiful.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Health for Lent
My equilibrium is so fragile these days. My frustration tolerance is practically nil, which just throws everything off. But yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the day we remember our mortality and the human struggle. We are but dust and to dust we shall return. So I am doing what I can to let it all go.
For Lent this year I am not going to take my usual approach of just giving something up. I am going to frame it in terms of sacrificing indulgence in the form of wasting time and energy on useless actions and unhealthy negativity. I want to give myself some assignments to stick to in order to improve my physical and emotional health. I haven't been taking very good care of myself lately-- not my body, not my mind, not anything. So I am going to impose a healthier routine on myself to see if it doesn't improve how I feel, and therefore how I am as a person. This will include:
- no junk food of any kind
- exercise at least three times a week, preferably five
- drinking more water
- scheduling time for activities (writing, sewing, etc) to make sure I actually do them
- letting things roll off my back rather than get upset and ruin my whole mood and outlook
- checking myself when I get unkind or excessively judgmental
- getting in the habit of saying daily prayers
I have a very good track record of sticking to the resolution I make for the period, so maybe if I resolve to better habits I will actually stick to it. That's kind of a tall order, but it never hurts to try. I could use a little better balance. I'm tired of feeling so off all the time. My reasoning is that if I feel stronger and more serene, I will be able to be a better human being to other people. Which I would hope is in the spirit of Lent.
For Lent this year I am not going to take my usual approach of just giving something up. I am going to frame it in terms of sacrificing indulgence in the form of wasting time and energy on useless actions and unhealthy negativity. I want to give myself some assignments to stick to in order to improve my physical and emotional health. I haven't been taking very good care of myself lately-- not my body, not my mind, not anything. So I am going to impose a healthier routine on myself to see if it doesn't improve how I feel, and therefore how I am as a person. This will include:
- no junk food of any kind
- exercise at least three times a week, preferably five
- drinking more water
- scheduling time for activities (writing, sewing, etc) to make sure I actually do them
- letting things roll off my back rather than get upset and ruin my whole mood and outlook
- checking myself when I get unkind or excessively judgmental
- getting in the habit of saying daily prayers
I have a very good track record of sticking to the resolution I make for the period, so maybe if I resolve to better habits I will actually stick to it. That's kind of a tall order, but it never hurts to try. I could use a little better balance. I'm tired of feeling so off all the time. My reasoning is that if I feel stronger and more serene, I will be able to be a better human being to other people. Which I would hope is in the spirit of Lent.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Bizarre sewing whim - authentic priest's cassock
I have always been a fan of cassocks, the long, severe coats worn by priests outside of liturgical dress. I like how many different vibes they can give off; authoritative, modest, powerful, reliable, separated, even scary. If anyone ever saw that lame comic book adaptation Ghost Rider from a few years back, you may remember the way Peter Fonda playing Mephistopheles. My mom pointed out to me, "They have him dressed like a bishop." So they did, and I thought it looked incredibly creepy and cool.
Ever since seeing Andy Kirschbaum in his awesome black cassock at Venezia I have had a bee in my bonnet about having one. I'm not really sure why. Women don't really wear them, and it's not like I don't have enough coats, or an abundance of opportunities where it would be appropriate to dress like a priest. But I like the idea nonetheless.
I bought this pattern on eBay as a compromise, so I could eventually make my own one day that would fit me if I really really wanted. It came in the mail yesterday along with the costuming I ordered. Looking at it, the front is pretty simple but the back looks complicated, with lots of tailored placed and pleats in the folds, so it's probably too difficult for my current skill level. It also doesn't have the capelet like higher-ranking priests wear either, though that would be easy enough to draft. I don't know what I'd do with it if I did make it, maybe just take lots of weird pictures of myself as a girl priest or something, but now I have the option if it bugs me enough.
Ever since seeing Andy Kirschbaum in his awesome black cassock at Venezia I have had a bee in my bonnet about having one. I'm not really sure why. Women don't really wear them, and it's not like I don't have enough coats, or an abundance of opportunities where it would be appropriate to dress like a priest. But I like the idea nonetheless.
I bought this pattern on eBay as a compromise, so I could eventually make my own one day that would fit me if I really really wanted. It came in the mail yesterday along with the costuming I ordered. Looking at it, the front is pretty simple but the back looks complicated, with lots of tailored placed and pleats in the folds, so it's probably too difficult for my current skill level. It also doesn't have the capelet like higher-ranking priests wear either, though that would be easy enough to draft. I don't know what I'd do with it if I did make it, maybe just take lots of weird pictures of myself as a girl priest or something, but now I have the option if it bugs me enough.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
First larp castings of 2012
Recently got my castings for two larps that are coming up in the near and nearish future. Still waiting on character sheets, but I at least know who I am. The first was for the test run of Venezia, which will be on January 28th, and the second for An Evening Aboard the HMS Eden, a steampunk literary pastiche at Intercon.
I confess I was a bit disappointed at first with my Venezia casting. In a game basically designed for high-class intrigue as pretty pretty princesses in Renaissance frockery, I will be playing Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar who was a lifelong enemy of Rodrigo Borgia, the detestable Pope Alexander VI. Cross cast as a monk among noble ladies, ah, well. But after the initial reaction I decided this could be a lot of fun. I certainly have the ability to work myself up into a froth of righteous Catholic rage, and I sure as heck don't get much of a chance to really plunge into that sort of mindset. My faith expresses itself usually in a very private, internal way, so it might be cathartic to blow it into the most intense proportions possible. I've got some vague ideas for a costume, too; I don't want to lurch around in a big sacklike robe, so I'm envisioning a long vest sort of thing, belted at the waist, with a hood that I can stare creepily at people from within its shadows. I think I could handle making such a thing, once I have the time.
For HMS Eden, apparently in a game where everyone requested to be Irene Adler, I actually got cast as her. As a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, I like the Irene Adler character a lot-- especially how Doyle actually portrayed her, rather than countless corruptions by other interpreters --so this should be a lot of fun. I have no idea what to wear as her. I would love to do myself up like the classic steampunk adventuress, if I can find the right pieces. Hmm, maybe I should model my look on what Charlotte wore as the Duchess in Othello; that was a pretty slick look, one of my favorites of all the cool costumes in that play. Again, once I finish my more immediate projects, costuming will be the next thing I focus on.
I confess I was a bit disappointed at first with my Venezia casting. In a game basically designed for high-class intrigue as pretty pretty princesses in Renaissance frockery, I will be playing Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar who was a lifelong enemy of Rodrigo Borgia, the detestable Pope Alexander VI. Cross cast as a monk among noble ladies, ah, well. But after the initial reaction I decided this could be a lot of fun. I certainly have the ability to work myself up into a froth of righteous Catholic rage, and I sure as heck don't get much of a chance to really plunge into that sort of mindset. My faith expresses itself usually in a very private, internal way, so it might be cathartic to blow it into the most intense proportions possible. I've got some vague ideas for a costume, too; I don't want to lurch around in a big sacklike robe, so I'm envisioning a long vest sort of thing, belted at the waist, with a hood that I can stare creepily at people from within its shadows. I think I could handle making such a thing, once I have the time.
For HMS Eden, apparently in a game where everyone requested to be Irene Adler, I actually got cast as her. As a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, I like the Irene Adler character a lot-- especially how Doyle actually portrayed her, rather than countless corruptions by other interpreters --so this should be a lot of fun. I have no idea what to wear as her. I would love to do myself up like the classic steampunk adventuress, if I can find the right pieces. Hmm, maybe I should model my look on what Charlotte wore as the Duchess in Othello; that was a pretty slick look, one of my favorites of all the cool costumes in that play. Again, once I finish my more immediate projects, costuming will be the next thing I focus on.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Lewis Shapes Me Still
Back in those days, before I tried to examine the appeal, I knew only that the stories felt so right to me. It was as if Lewis plugged the brain of someone else directly into mine, and all the visceral feelings that could not be described poured through me as if the book’s experiences were my own. He had an uncanny way of capturing so much of what was so important to an imaginative, idealistic child— wanting to do the right thing even if you don’t know what the right thing is, the guilt you feel when you act small and petty because you’re hurting and exhausted, and the true nature of bravery that isn’t so much about being unafraid as it is pressing on despite your fear. The way I felt through all of those things, all the good things I wanted to be and do, and all the bad things I hoped someone would forgive, Lewis seemed to understand, and so capably put into words.
As I ventured into writing myself, more than anything else I’d ever read I wanted to emulate this ability of Lewis’s— that of conveying how people really felt. Observing the way he did it, I endeavored to learn how to take all the unvoiced gut feelings of my internal self and translate them into words. As I grew, I wondered if there was anything else that could speak to me in the way Narnia did, more to feed the fires of my growing desire for writer’s knowledge. When I learned how much else Lewis had written, I had to read more.
In the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis used the phrase “for the first time” as an expression of the experience of the numinous. To this day, I cannot hear the phrase without the same associations. In reading more and more of Lewis’s work, I discovered many new things that gave meaning to that phrase for me. Through him, “for the first time,” I met many things that were numinous to me. I read his other fantastical fiction, the Space Trilogy and Till We Have Faces. I read his satire, The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. I read his Christian apology, Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles. I read Surprised by Joy and A Grief Observed, his autobiographical works. Though I loved some better than others, every one of them touched me in a unique way, and each one taught me more about how the written word can touch you.
His Christian apology helped me with the questions in my own soul. I am a religious Catholic, but for me it manifests very much internally— a system of belief and values that informs the way I live more than something I often display obviously. I cannot usually connect with religiosity that is expressed more in form than in philosophy. But here was Lewis, for whom faith was not a collection of dos and don’ts, nor empty rituals, nor a lot of pedagogical Bible stories. As was the Deeper Magic from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it was simply the truth of the universe, inbuilt within the bones of the world. It needed to be examined and understood as much as chemistry and physics. Even when I did not agree with his point of view, the method by which he worked it out always made sense to me. For the first time, I had a framework with which to examine and codify my own beliefs.
Though his autobiographical works, I learned more about the life he’d led and the kind of man he was. His existence had often been a hard one— a lonely, difficult childhood, endless family tragedy, and a fraught struggle to come to peace with the nature of God. It was interesting to contrast his person with that of J.R.R. Tolkien, a contemporary of his and another author I’d grown up on. Tolkien was so certain of himself, of his identity and of the things he believed, and had been all his life. Lewis, by contrast, had none of the comfort of easy truths. Every truth he’d ever come to he had suffered dearly for, deconstructing, tearing his own guts apart so that he could examine every hidden piece. And for the first time I saw from where his grasp of humanity came. He knew himself at all costs, from the totality of his strengths to the depths of his weaknesses, that knowledge coming to him only by the stark, merciless self-judgment he enforced on his struggle to attain it. And from his self-knowledge came knowledge of man, by the same uncompromising process. He was so ruthlessly fair, clear-eyed enough to regard the complicated nature of humanity with just the right measure of judgment and compassion. He articulated both “Who am I, that it is so wrong that I should suffer?” and “I am such that my suffering does signify.” He was so full of that burning contradiction, so strange and yet so critical, of the everything and the nothing of our state, unafraid to at once accept the burden and claim the significance.
In seeing his own weakness, he learned what human weakness was. In seeing his own strength, he grasped the nature of human strength. He kept cutting, no matter how painful, until he exposed truth. And when he wrote, he had all the glory of that knowledge giving fire to everything he said.
And, for the first time, I understood. His work hit me in the gut because his work encompassed the truth of mankind. This was it, I realized. This was why I loved his writing above all others. There were points of style, of course. I always have admired the way he manages to cap his paragraphs with the punchiest, most spot-on sentences that just perfectly conclude the point. But by and large his writing is unadorned, without flourish. He is not a writer of poetical device. He tells you exactly, straightforwardly, what he means to tell you. And in that, his plainspoken words were given gravitas and elegance by the perfection with which he reflected the human condition. That was the power, that was the beauty of all of Lewis’s varied work. His understanding of the human soul felt more real to me than that of any writer I’d ever read. I felt its realness in my bones, and my own view grew and changed through its influence.
That, I believe, is the key— to communicate the truth of such ethereal things, you must do the hard work of coming to grips with them. Perhaps no one can teach understanding of the self, or of humanity. But Lewis taught me how to go about seeking them. And the more I develop it, the more real, the more true, and the more powerful my work will become. By pouring it into my writing, perhaps my work will be able to touch others the way Lewis’s work touched me.
More than any other author, Lewis has shaped the writer, the Christian, and the person I am. Someday I hope I will write with the same significance, the same power to move as his did, and encourage someone else to try and capture their truth.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Easter is here!
I just ate a fantastic piece of white chocolate almond bark to celebrate the end of Lent. It's not the chocolate-covered roast suckling pig I've been longing for, but it'll do.
How is it that the month I give up sugar and butter in everything is the month I get fat?
Oh, also, Christ is risen. He is truly risen. :-)
Kept Jared and Bernie up way too late last night finishing the casting for Alice and Oz. It took several hours, but I think we did a good job. At this point I've only sent out costuming hints. The only copies of the sheet I have access to at home are the ones on Google docs, and I'm not a hundred percent sure they're the most recent ones, so I didn't want to send out whole sheets without checking them first. Hopefully I will get them out by the end of today.
The parents and I will be going out to a late Easter brunch today. In the time I'm home from that in which I am not sleeping off the massive quantity of fantastically trayf pork products I intend to consume, I will finish checking over those sheets. God, I missed pig.
Happy Easter, my lovelies.
How is it that the month I give up sugar and butter in everything is the month I get fat?
Oh, also, Christ is risen. He is truly risen. :-)
Kept Jared and Bernie up way too late last night finishing the casting for Alice and Oz. It took several hours, but I think we did a good job. At this point I've only sent out costuming hints. The only copies of the sheet I have access to at home are the ones on Google docs, and I'm not a hundred percent sure they're the most recent ones, so I didn't want to send out whole sheets without checking them first. Hopefully I will get them out by the end of today.
The parents and I will be going out to a late Easter brunch today. In the time I'm home from that in which I am not sleeping off the massive quantity of fantastically trayf pork products I intend to consume, I will finish checking over those sheets. God, I missed pig.
Happy Easter, my lovelies.
Monday, March 1, 2010
My other theater pieces
God help me, but now that I've finished the show I found myself looking back over my other original pieces of theater. To Think of Nothing is not the only play I've ever written. There are only two that I ever finished, but I actually kind of like both of them. I've always wanted to expand the universe in which To Think of Nothing takes place. I like to think there's lots of different artists of all kinds whose stories can be explored. But the only other piece I've actually written in the setting is a very brief little play called Fountain Thoughts, about the actress who eventually plays Selene in Cassander's play, confronted by her imperious director when she is afraid to go onstage. It takes place in the basin of a fountain, where the two characters pace and splash, overlooked by a statue of a handsome man. It is very quick, as I said, but I always liked it, and I liked the step it takes into the future of the world when Cassander's play is finally finished. Interestingly, in my first draft the director character was originally supposed to be Palamon, but I decided the director made things more dramatic.
I have written a second one act, somewhat longer, a realistic piece I did for my playwrighting class junior year. I am always slightly hesitant to show it to people because they sometimes read too much into it-- it concerns the reconciling of the different religions in a marriage of a Christian woman and a Jewish man, and I am uncomfortable with the assumption sometimes made that it is meant to reflect my own situation in any way --but I actually think it's kind of good. It is tentatively titled Paschal Moon, as it that time period that covers both Easter and Pesach is important to the story, but I've never quite been happy with that, so I'm trying to figure out what else to call it. There's a lot I like about this piece. I feel like I did a good job of setting up a situation where there's a significant, interesting conflict but nobody's the bad guy. I'm proud of how natural the I got the dialogue to sound, since that is something that tends to be very hard for me. Hilariously, I find I have a much easier time writing believable pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue than believable-sounding modern dialogue. I am amused furthermore to note that my protagonist in this play is named Cassandra, chosen completely without thought for the fact that the hero of my only other play is Cassander. I guess I like that name.
Great. Now I'm thinking things I shouldn't with all the other stuff I have ahead of me. But the hunger, it is never really sated. :-) Now I'm fantasizing about painting a kiddie pool, covering someone in body paint for them to be the statue, and then sticking a couple of actors in the pool to splash at each other. I think I need an intervention.
I have written a second one act, somewhat longer, a realistic piece I did for my playwrighting class junior year. I am always slightly hesitant to show it to people because they sometimes read too much into it-- it concerns the reconciling of the different religions in a marriage of a Christian woman and a Jewish man, and I am uncomfortable with the assumption sometimes made that it is meant to reflect my own situation in any way --but I actually think it's kind of good. It is tentatively titled Paschal Moon, as it that time period that covers both Easter and Pesach is important to the story, but I've never quite been happy with that, so I'm trying to figure out what else to call it. There's a lot I like about this piece. I feel like I did a good job of setting up a situation where there's a significant, interesting conflict but nobody's the bad guy. I'm proud of how natural the I got the dialogue to sound, since that is something that tends to be very hard for me. Hilariously, I find I have a much easier time writing believable pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue than believable-sounding modern dialogue. I am amused furthermore to note that my protagonist in this play is named Cassandra, chosen completely without thought for the fact that the hero of my only other play is Cassander. I guess I like that name.
Great. Now I'm thinking things I shouldn't with all the other stuff I have ahead of me. But the hunger, it is never really sated. :-) Now I'm fantasizing about painting a kiddie pool, covering someone in body paint for them to be the statue, and then sticking a couple of actors in the pool to splash at each other. I think I need an intervention.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Mardi Gras already?
Whoa. Looking at my calendar, it appears that Mardi Gras has crept up on me and falls this year on... today. I haven't really given any thought as to what I should give up for Lent yet, which means I don't know what I should indulge now before I am without it for the next forty days.
My typical Lenten sacrifice is processed sugar. It's good for my health and for my weight. I think I did that for something like eight years in a row. Last year, however, I elected to keep kosher to see what it was like. I must confess, kashrut is one of the Jewish concepts that means the least to me. It was an interesting experiment, but frankly one that did little to recommend the practice to me. It wasn't so bad, I guess, but I didn't really feel there was anything positive about it that outweighed what it demanded giving up. Pork is a food, not a sin, and a delicious one at that. But still, it's something that means an awful lot to certain very important people in my life. So I guess it's a gesture of respect to them if I decide to do it again, which does matter to me. Processed sugar, but contrast, is a personal sacrifice, but there's no expression of love involved, only the self-denial for Lent.
My typical Lenten sacrifice is processed sugar. It's good for my health and for my weight. I think I did that for something like eight years in a row. Last year, however, I elected to keep kosher to see what it was like. I must confess, kashrut is one of the Jewish concepts that means the least to me. It was an interesting experiment, but frankly one that did little to recommend the practice to me. It wasn't so bad, I guess, but I didn't really feel there was anything positive about it that outweighed what it demanded giving up. Pork is a food, not a sin, and a delicious one at that. But still, it's something that means an awful lot to certain very important people in my life. So I guess it's a gesture of respect to them if I decide to do it again, which does matter to me. Processed sugar, but contrast, is a personal sacrifice, but there's no expression of love involved, only the self-denial for Lent.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Rather cook kosher than Jewish
Made an artichoke pie for Jared to have for lunch today; it is now sitting in the microwave waiting for him to come back from services. I think it came out very nicely, so I am pleased with myself. Especially after last night's Rosh Hashanah dinner, which unfortunately consisted mostly of dishes I couldn't eat.
I must confess, I'm coming to realize I am not really a fan of traditional Jewish cooking. There are really only four food items I am extremely unwilling to eat-- potatoes, noodles, bread, and straight milk --and three out of those four consistently tend to be staples of high holiday meals. Last night was mostly potato kugel and challah, to give you an example. As much as I want to be able to cook for my dear ones who keep kosher, I think I'd rather just figure out ways to kasher dishes of other styles than learn to cook authentic Jewish food.
I must confess, I'm coming to realize I am not really a fan of traditional Jewish cooking. There are really only four food items I am extremely unwilling to eat-- potatoes, noodles, bread, and straight milk --and three out of those four consistently tend to be staples of high holiday meals. Last night was mostly potato kugel and challah, to give you an example. As much as I want to be able to cook for my dear ones who keep kosher, I think I'd rather just figure out ways to kasher dishes of other styles than learn to cook authentic Jewish food.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Last Thursday and Friday
Gah, busy last several days, and I am beat. A quick recap of where I have been and what I have been doing that has interrupted my normal stream of self-involved ramblings, larp-related babbling, and occasional cooking reports. Posted in bursts due to length and variety of subject.
Thursday I went with Bernie to the wedding of one of his cousins in New York. Their respective parts of the family are not very close, and he wanted me to come along as somebody to talk to. It was an Orthodox Jewish wedding, which meant Phoebe had to put her midriff away and study up a little on the customs so as to not appear quite as much the ignorant heathen she is. As a matter of fact, I was a lot more comfortable than I expected to be-- between my research and the knowledge I absorbed through living at Brandeis, I could more or less follow everything that was happening around me. It was actually pretty interesting and fun. Honestly due to the mechitza I probably spent less time with Bernie than with his mother, but as I said their family didn't really know anyone else, so I was glad I could be a friend for her. I even danced the hora. :-) That was fun, though the bride didn't go up in the chair. Also, I saw some of the ugliest dresses I've ever seen in my life. Picture nineteenth century gowns crossed with prom dresses. There's Orthodox modesty gone formal for you. I felt like a stylish panther lurking among dowdy sheep. ;-) Oh! I almost forgot the best part. A lady at the table at the reception struck up a conversation with me, asking me about the Jewish community back in my hometown. I knew the answers, so I told her-- Allentown has quite a few Jews, but most of them are more cultural than religious. Chabad is somewhere, but not all that much of a presence. She said, "Oh, so you didn't grow up with much religion, then?" I smiled and told her, "Actually, I'm Catholic." She was taken slightly aback. "Oh!" she said. "You don't look Catholic." Heehee. Was it the lack of stigmata that fooled her? Maybe that I put my plaid miniskirt away. Or perhaps she would have expected a Roman among the Chosen to be an ignorant shiksa. I'm sure what she meant is "You don't sound Catholic," but I am delighted to have disabused that notion, if that's the case. I am quite proud of myself for passing, seeing as typically they know me on sight. I am still not sure what gave me away at the kosher butcher shop, where the older Jewish lady snappishly told her husband to "Ask the shiksa to move!" I really did not want to be the screamingly obvious ignorant outsider, and I'm proud to say mission accomplished.
After we got back after a long drive through the rain, we rushed to the freshmen orientation event where Hold Thy Peace had been asked to perform some scenes and monologues. I was really proud of Jared, Elana, and Steph for getting it all together, and all the acts that went up looked and sounded great. It was too loud and unstructured a venue for this sort of thing, but they made the best of things and I was very impressed. Jared is so talented, I hope he gets a little more confidence in himself soon. He has a tendency to assume the worst in a lot of situations, but he always comes through in the end-- his performance was everything I hoped it would be.
Next-- a dinner, a party, and auditions for Romeo and Juliet.
Thursday I went with Bernie to the wedding of one of his cousins in New York. Their respective parts of the family are not very close, and he wanted me to come along as somebody to talk to. It was an Orthodox Jewish wedding, which meant Phoebe had to put her midriff away and study up a little on the customs so as to not appear quite as much the ignorant heathen she is. As a matter of fact, I was a lot more comfortable than I expected to be-- between my research and the knowledge I absorbed through living at Brandeis, I could more or less follow everything that was happening around me. It was actually pretty interesting and fun. Honestly due to the mechitza I probably spent less time with Bernie than with his mother, but as I said their family didn't really know anyone else, so I was glad I could be a friend for her. I even danced the hora. :-) That was fun, though the bride didn't go up in the chair. Also, I saw some of the ugliest dresses I've ever seen in my life. Picture nineteenth century gowns crossed with prom dresses. There's Orthodox modesty gone formal for you. I felt like a stylish panther lurking among dowdy sheep. ;-) Oh! I almost forgot the best part. A lady at the table at the reception struck up a conversation with me, asking me about the Jewish community back in my hometown. I knew the answers, so I told her-- Allentown has quite a few Jews, but most of them are more cultural than religious. Chabad is somewhere, but not all that much of a presence. She said, "Oh, so you didn't grow up with much religion, then?" I smiled and told her, "Actually, I'm Catholic." She was taken slightly aback. "Oh!" she said. "You don't look Catholic." Heehee. Was it the lack of stigmata that fooled her? Maybe that I put my plaid miniskirt away. Or perhaps she would have expected a Roman among the Chosen to be an ignorant shiksa. I'm sure what she meant is "You don't sound Catholic," but I am delighted to have disabused that notion, if that's the case. I am quite proud of myself for passing, seeing as typically they know me on sight. I am still not sure what gave me away at the kosher butcher shop, where the older Jewish lady snappishly told her husband to "Ask the shiksa to move!" I really did not want to be the screamingly obvious ignorant outsider, and I'm proud to say mission accomplished.
After we got back after a long drive through the rain, we rushed to the freshmen orientation event where Hold Thy Peace had been asked to perform some scenes and monologues. I was really proud of Jared, Elana, and Steph for getting it all together, and all the acts that went up looked and sounded great. It was too loud and unstructured a venue for this sort of thing, but they made the best of things and I was very impressed. Jared is so talented, I hope he gets a little more confidence in himself soon. He has a tendency to assume the worst in a lot of situations, but he always comes through in the end-- his performance was everything I hoped it would be.
Next-- a dinner, a party, and auditions for Romeo and Juliet.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Note II on Lewis
One incredibly amusing thing in Surprised by Joy. I have met a number of people who say that they can't fully enjoy a lot of Lewis's work because they were distracted and annoyed by the Christian overtones. Apparently, before his conversion, Lewis was a fan of a lot of Christian authors who at the same time irritated him because he was distracted and annoyed by the Christian overtones. :-)
On a related note, despite being raised Christian and having been exposed to the Narnia books from a very young age, I did not detect the religious significance until it was pointed out to me by a book of commentary on the series. Didn't notice it at all, even in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where it is the most overt. Maybe I was a remarkably slow child. That is possible. In fact, I went to a week-long church camp once with an extremely heavy Narnia theme, and I was completely perplexed as to why it was present at all-- the connection escaped me that completely. The fact that they never bothered to EXPLAIN the connection, probably just taking for granted that it existed and that we quite small children were aware of it, may not have been the best way to deal with the matter for us kiddies. ;-)
On a related note, despite being raised Christian and having been exposed to the Narnia books from a very young age, I did not detect the religious significance until it was pointed out to me by a book of commentary on the series. Didn't notice it at all, even in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where it is the most overt. Maybe I was a remarkably slow child. That is possible. In fact, I went to a week-long church camp once with an extremely heavy Narnia theme, and I was completely perplexed as to why it was present at all-- the connection escaped me that completely. The fact that they never bothered to EXPLAIN the connection, probably just taking for granted that it existed and that we quite small children were aware of it, may not have been the best way to deal with the matter for us kiddies. ;-)
Friday, April 10, 2009
"Who cares? Jesus died."
Apparently a lot of people think it's kind of strange that I don't care to make a big deal out of my birthday. Maybe it's because of how given the timing it tends to fall so close to Easter time.
I mean, hey, this year it's the same day as Good Friday. Compared to that, what's my birthday? It's like, "Hey, I was born today." "Who cares? Jesus died." Way to make a girl feel insignificant.
;-)
I mean, hey, this year it's the same day as Good Friday. Compared to that, what's my birthday? It's like, "Hey, I was born today." "Who cares? Jesus died." Way to make a girl feel insignificant.
;-)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Kosher for Lent
In about a half hour, Mardi Gras will be over and Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, will begin. For several years now I gave up processed sugar, which was tough but good for my health and weight, and I always managed to make it. This year, however, I'm trying something different. Very different, in fact-- I'm going to keep kosher.
Now, I'm not the biggest fan of kashrut; I have enough issues about demonizing food without doing it for reasons that are even more arbitary. But since it's part of the lives of some of the people who are most important to me, I'd like to know what it's like to live with. I expect it will be a pain at times-- I do love me some pork, shellfish, and butter in pretty much everything --but I actually don't think it will be that hard. Cooking for and eating with Jared as much as I do means I usually stick to kosher food anyway so we can share. I can't remember the last time I cooked a dish that wasn't kosher except at home with my parents, so it's not like I don't know how to manage without resorting to the trayf.
As to the rules I'm going to stick to, I'm planning on going with what I gather is a fairly mainstream standard of kosher. I won't mix meat and milk, and I'll wait at least a half hour after eating one before I eat the other. While I will abstain from pork, rabbit, shellfish, and all other trayf animals, I will not worry about whether or not it's certified kosher meat. I am also not kashering my kitchen. I do know how to keep a kosher kitchen, as I help Jared to do so in his own kitchen at grad, but at Elsinore it's not practical and we don't have enough dishes for that. This roughly the standard that Jared keeps, so it's the one I am most familiar with.
It's certainly a sacrifice, but that's in the spirit of Lent. And hey-- Jesus most certainly kept kosher; he was the best Jew of all time. :-D
Now, I'm not the biggest fan of kashrut; I have enough issues about demonizing food without doing it for reasons that are even more arbitary. But since it's part of the lives of some of the people who are most important to me, I'd like to know what it's like to live with. I expect it will be a pain at times-- I do love me some pork, shellfish, and butter in pretty much everything --but I actually don't think it will be that hard. Cooking for and eating with Jared as much as I do means I usually stick to kosher food anyway so we can share. I can't remember the last time I cooked a dish that wasn't kosher except at home with my parents, so it's not like I don't know how to manage without resorting to the trayf.
As to the rules I'm going to stick to, I'm planning on going with what I gather is a fairly mainstream standard of kosher. I won't mix meat and milk, and I'll wait at least a half hour after eating one before I eat the other. While I will abstain from pork, rabbit, shellfish, and all other trayf animals, I will not worry about whether or not it's certified kosher meat. I am also not kashering my kitchen. I do know how to keep a kosher kitchen, as I help Jared to do so in his own kitchen at grad, but at Elsinore it's not practical and we don't have enough dishes for that. This roughly the standard that Jared keeps, so it's the one I am most familiar with.
It's certainly a sacrifice, but that's in the spirit of Lent. And hey-- Jesus most certainly kept kosher; he was the best Jew of all time. :-D
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