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Britomartis-the-Valiant Vice Captain
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 Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 10:50 pm
We tramped up the hillside, our tongues dry, our heads hot. The captain of our band turned to shout an order. His voice was lost to the shimmery veil that hung in our eyes. He motioned us to stop and rest-- the few of us who had survived from the bright city across the plain.
We sat on the dry, gray, rocky ground. The captain, poking at some vegetation, stopped still. His eyes widened. It was then that I heard the faint crackling of a fire. A brief image floated into my eye. Two women stirring up a fire. I shouted aloud. The women were by the fire we had heard, surely they could hear us. The others took my cue and shouted too. They walked in circles, their heads raised to the dull sky, mouths open in silent call.
“Please help us. Oh please,” I begged to the quiet. I could feel a strong feeling of troubledness filling my mind. “We are alive, but trapped in a place elsewhere. We know not what to do. Please help us!”
A voice tore at the veil on my eyes. “Then you are no voice in my head.”
“No.”
“Come here”
“Where?”
“Forward, one more step.”
Sunlight split my world. I blinked its shaft as I faced the two women. One dropped her pack and stared; the other turned to her. Their voices murmured low. The small breeze rustled the leaves of the trees and shook the patterns of shade on the grassy hillside. The picture blew out like a candle.
I stared at my companions.
“I know,” the voice said, “Come with me and bring the rest. Tell them to step only in your footprints.”
I stepped forward and pointed to my footprint, then gestured to my feet. I looked at the rest, desperately hoping they understood. Then I began to walk where the woman's voice directed me. A breeze had picked up at my back and it blew my hair about my face as I looked back.
They followed.
Soon, the lady hesitated. “All right,” she said at last. “Walk in a line as straight as you can, putting one foot in front of another.”
I supposed we must have looked strange to anyone who might be watching. We tread in a narrow path. The grass in that line was crushed and muddy from our feet, when the whole valley was wide and even for walking. But I walked as the lady had told me, even though I met her only once. And the others followed.
“Forward a little more, and then, you can rest easy.”
One by one, we all stepped into strong sunlight. I looked back and saw a chasm in the earth, crossed by two bridges. One was wide and even with planks evenly fitted and a high railing. And the other, the one we crossed, was narrow. It had pegs in it, as if it had been a ladder of sorts once.
I turned back to the two women.
“We didn't choose the wide bridge,” the women whose voice I knew said.
I looked back at the bridge shadowed by brambles. For an unknown reason, it made me uneasy. “You did well,” said I.
Then the lady stretched out her hand and took me by the wrist. She pulled me up, higher on the grassy rise where the sunlight was strongest.
The world about me was no longer shadow. And one by one, my comrades behind me stepped forward, no longer ghostly in the full light.
(Written from a dream I had ages ago)
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:57 pm
Um. Very abrupt. Lots of drops.
I dunno about the first person plural tense. Certés, it is different.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:55 pm
Hostis Humani Generis You wrote that from a dream? Wow. I've only remembered and written down a dream once, and it ended up being a list of disjointed events. Yours has an almost poetic quality.
(You make me hate my inability to write more!) That was good.
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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:58 pm
Ugh. I read it through again. It's so choppy and it makes me hate my writing. emo
Shall I edit it or start on another?
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Britomartis-the-Valiant Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:10 pm
Hostis Humani Generis Ooh! I'd say start another, because it'd be nice to see what else you're capable of. (Curse your omnipotence!)
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 5:37 pm
Host Dunkelheit Hostis Humani Generis Ooh! I'd say start another, because it'd be nice to see what else you're capable of. (Curse your omnipotence!)Stop it. Stop detracting yourself in that way. I know that's what you're doing; I'm the same way. Other people aren't as amazing as you might think, and you are better than you give yourself credit for.
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Britomartis-the-Valiant Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:47 pm
Hostis Humani Generis I've been detracting myself? I hadn't noticed, really.
Besides, the only real "good qualities" I have would be a better than average vocabulary for my age and an interest in certain "scholarly" things (for example, I've an interest in etymology, psychology, foreign languages, and mythology/religions). Unfortunately, inability, a tendency to fall into bouts of depression, and total loss of will leave me unable and unwilling to pursue any of that.
I'm a cynic, a pessimist, and a misanthrope, so I can't help it much. Putting myself down is what I do.
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:13 pm
Host Dunkelheit Hostis Humani Generis I've been detracting myself? I hadn't noticed, really.
Besides, the only real "good qualities" I have would be a better than average vocabulary for my age and an interest in certain "scholarly" things (for example, I've an interest in etymology, psychology, foreign languages, and mythology/religions). Unfortunately, inability, a tendency to fall into bouts of depression, and total loss of will leave me unable and unwilling to pursue any of that.
I'm a cynic, a pessimist, and a misanthrope, so I can't help it much. Putting myself down is what I do.You remind a bit of myself-- or how I would have been had I not changed in my mid-teen years. sweatdrop
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Britomartis-the-Valiant Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 5:10 pm
Hostis Humani Generis Heh, then I'd better hope for a deus ex machina in the next year or so if want to change before becoming a legal adult.
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:53 pm
Host Dunkelheit Hostis Humani Generis Heh, then I'd better hope for a deus ex machina in the next year or so if want to change before becoming a legal adult.Well, actually, yeah. I know the change in me wasn't my own doing; I noticed my emotional problems (which were pretty obvious), but couldn't do anything about them. So I prayed (I'm a Christian). God answered. biggrin
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Britomartis-the-Valiant Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:37 pm
Hostis Humani Generis Ah, that makes sense.
I revoked my faith some years ago, so it's no use for me.
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:49 pm
Host Dunkelheit Hostis Humani Generis Ah, that makes sense.
I revoked my faith some years ago, so it's no use for me.I don't want to ask too personal questions, so you don't have to answer, but why did you revoke your faith?
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Britomartis-the-Valiant Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:57 pm
Hostis Humani Generis You are entitled to ask personal questions, elsewise there would be no conversation.
I revoked my faith some years ago, when my belief had weakened and my contempt for God was higher than it was as a child. I'd first noticed my contempt for him (forgive my lack of reverence by not using "Him", I hardly think it appropriate anymore) when I was in church. When I heard my pastor pray, when I saw that he and the others did it actually expecting it to make a difference, I became upset. Any reverence whatsoever upset me greatly, and if it came up in conversation I would go silent for the rest of the day.
If God existed, if he listened to prayers, why, then, has he ignored my mother's prayers? Though my entire family is Christian, she is the most devout of us. We've always had financial difficulties, and my parents were forced to work excessively for it. It began to take a toll on my mother. She began to have muscle pains, became extremely ill whenever it was cold or raining, and was in nigh constant discomfort (I do not use pain, as I can't say for sure how great this was on her). She could no longer work, and my father had to take up another job. Now, I help in whatever ways I can, as I am unable to get a job for more reasons than one. My father works so much that, excluding his one day off a week, we only see him for an hour or two before he has to go to bed for work the next day.
I grew tired of hearing her cry, for our troubles and her pain, of hearing her apologize to my father for being unable to work. Of course my father tells her not to worry. It's what any normal person would do. I used to pray for it to end, oh yes. Since this was before I had sleeping pills, I had plenty of hours to pray for her. What came of it? Nothing. My mother's condition worsened, financial troubles got worse, and I was granted excessively deep depression and suicidal tendencies. Or urges, rather, because I knew that suicide would mean an even greater suffering for my mother.
How I tired of the words my pastor told me. "Just pray. If they are answered, it is because God granted it; if they are not, it is because it is simply not yet meant to be." Wait and see. Rubbish! I would cast my soul into Hell if it could mean an end to my family's suffering!
And I was desperate enough to try. I decided to sell my soul to Satan in return for my family's happiness. How many attempts I made, I cannot say. I tried as many ways as I could think of. Obviously, nothing came of it. If Satan did make pacts, he wouldn't make one like mine.
Then I considered that suicide would, in fact, help my family. They wouldn't need to pay for anything with me. But I soon realized that funeral services would put them in a worse spot, so suicide was a luxury I could not afford.
After some vexing months, I came to realize that God was too contradictory to exist. He loves us all, yet casts us into Hell without a second thought if we so much as err from his path? And what of those who did not even know of Christianity, or those that die in birth? Sent straight to Hell because he's still upset about his First disobeying him? And what of science? Though I understand that science has it's many flaws, it so easily disproves anything and everything about the Christian faith. Has God lost control of his creation so? I can never even begin to believe that he lets all this happen to the world because he doesn't want to intervene in the affairs of his children!
My contempt for him grew by the day. Everywhere I saw his "work" I grew angry. People, especially, I loathed. What have they done, but spread the idea that "God is good". I harbor a deep hatred of Christians and Christianity. That was the beginning of my misanthropy.
I eventually revoked my faith, as a way to spite God. A few months afterward, I stopped believing in him altogether, though I did not stop hating him.
I apologize if I have offended you, for the length of my reply, and for not giving a simple, superficial answer.
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Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:33 pm
I'm glad you didn't give a superficial answer. I'm glad you were honest and straight forward.
Your story made me cry in parts, and in others, made me mad at the Christian community around your family.
"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well-fed," but does nothing about his physical needs what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is unaccompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:15-17)"
Why wasn't the church helping? What's wrong with them? crying
As for the bit about God being contradictory, loving people yet casting them into hell if they err from his path. Let me try to explain it. People have fallen; because of our heritage, we can't help but sin. And because we are slaves to sin we are not free to belong to God and go to heaven. But God loves His creation so much that He provided a way which I'm sure you know of. He paid the price for us; we can be free to choose Him now. And if we err, His forgiveness is great enough to cover it. Christianity isn't a religion of appearances; we don't have to follow every single law legalistically. Instead, our hearts are changed inside; we are no longer a slave to sin (though, yes, we do still sin; it's a life-long process). And for those people who didn't hear the good news before they died and those that die in birth, I personally believe that they still have a chance to accept the payment.
The tool of science is wonderful for discovering the world around us, but there is one flaw; it can only study the physical world and thus shouldn't and can't be used to study the non-material.
As for God losing control of His creation and letting all kinda of bad things to happen, realize something please. Maybe people use a line of logic:
1. If God were all good, He would destroy evil
2. If God were all powerful, He could destroy evil
3. Evil has not been destroyed
Conclusion: There is no all-good, all-powerful God
There is a problem with this logic. The time issue. Evil hasn't been destroyed yet. It will be. According to Christianity, God is all-good and all-powerful and evil will be completely destroyed.
And actually, studying about other worldviews always depresses me at least a little. One of those things that depresses me is their callous attitude to suffering. The naturalist says that suffering is just bad luck and has no meaning. The transcendentalist says that suffering is an illusion or is due to karmic debt. These worldviews belittle suffering and explain it away.
I don't know why your family went (and is going?) through that suffering, but I can assure you that it isn't an illusion or just bad luck. God suffers through it with you.
Hmm, here's an interesting quote:
"It is the woman who has been raped that understands what rape is, not the rapist. It is the person who has been slandered who understands with slander is, not the slanderer. It is the one who died for our sins who understands what evil is, not the skeptics..."-- Ravi Zacharias
God isn't aloof, looking down at people's suffering from His throne. And you know what? He still loves you even though you turned your back on Him.
May God bless you and your family.
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Britomartis-the-Valiant Vice Captain
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The one that never was Captain
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Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:14 pm
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