Atheists: As comforting as Hell

Atheists seem to find it insulting that when something bad happens to someone, the Christian response is that “it was God’s will.” The extrapolation of this statement is that it is God’s will, designed to bring glory to himself and good to his children. That is comforting to me, but perhaps I’m weird.

As usual with atheists, they deride our beliefs and offer little to no substitute. This time, the substitute for God orchestrating all things to his glory would be replaced by all things being meaningless and random. If not random, bad things may happen for the betterment of the species, in which case “bad” things may not actually be bad. It’s all a matter of perspective. An ethnic purist (depending on his definition of purity) would consider the Holocaust a good thing.

...And they think we are insensitive for believing in Hell?

After sleeping through the election results...

Dear America,

You did what???

Biblical? Womanhood?

I’ve seen several articles lately on the new book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood. The author, Rachel Held Evans, decided to abide by unpopular teachings based on the Bible, write about her experiences, and make money off them. In her own words:

I started a yearlong journey in which I found myself growing out my hair, making my own clothes, covering my head whenever I prayed, caring for a computerized baby, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, calling my husband "master," and even camping out in my front yard during my period to observe the Levitical purity laws (even though such laws are generally understood by Christians to no longer apply).
Taken from her article “‘Too Bad You’re a Girl’: Testing the Biblical Teachings I Grew Up With”

This “journey” was a reaction to her confusion on conflicts in teaching about and treatment of women in evangelical circles. In the title of her article, the “Too bad you’re a girl” comment was based on 1 Timothy 2:12, which says “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet,” implying that despite her gift for public speaking, her options of serving in church would be limited. Evans didn’t understand why this is taken literally, while comments on headcoverings and calling one’s husband “master” are not.

When faced with confusion about the Bible, one may react in several ways: 1, ignore one’s concerns, 2, take the Bible less seriously, 3, leave the faith, 4, research the source of the confusion to have better understanding.

The last two options are legitimate, with #4 being the best option, but #4 could lead to #3. Ignoring ones concerns ranges from laziness to foolishness, both of which lead you to conflicts with the Bible as bad as your original concern. Option #2 is a popular reaction to confusion about the Bible, and Evans seems to be putting herself forward as a leader of it.

Despite claiming to take the comments about women in the Bible more seriously than other churchgoers, she really just decides to take peoples’ comments about comments in the Bible literally, thereby mocking both them and the Bible. If she had taken the Bible seriously, she would have noticed that there is no command to call one’s husband “lord,” there is just the example of Sarah honoring Abraham by doing so. Any cultural connotations of lordship are ignored, despite this title being foreign to Americans, who associate it with oppression. Evans decides to add a few Levitical laws to her list of “Biblical womanhood” but ignores the rest, thereby cheapening her mission and joining the chauvinists in separating women from the rest of society. She sleeps out in a tent while on her period, inane kudos for that, but why does she not abstain from pork? Make fruit sacrifices to God? Slaughter a pigeon or two? (As she made her own clothes) only use kind of material for garments?* Stand up whenever an old person walks in the room? Order her steaks well done? Make friendship bread for people at the French consulate? Instead of taking care of her computerized baby, show dedication to her cause and honor her husband by having a real baby? **

Evans claims she didn’t pick and choose which commands she would keep, but obviously did. I accuse her of joining the chauvinists in treating women differently from the rest of society, because a real Levitical woman would have followed the gender neutral rules plus the rules for females. This doesn’t matter to Evan’s cause, however, since her point in living a year of “Biblical womanhood” was not to follow all the rules, it was to mock those who might follow them.

Now, I don’t want to ignore Evans’ concerns with churchgoers who have frightening opinions about what a Christian woman can or can’t do. She is accurate when talking about the option women are given in some churches: to marry and bear children, or to be a failure at life. This, I believe, is a dreadful confusion about the purpose and abilities of women. There have been amazing women of faith whom God used to glorify himself (think Amy Carmichael or Elizabeth Eliot). God did not use them despite a "defect" of not being married, but because they were his servants. God uses people wherever they are in life or situation, and if you think your ability to serve him is “on hold” for any reason (marriage status, illness or otherwise), that’s your personal misunderstanding and you shouldn’t blame God for it.

The role of women in church can be confusing, probably because humans do a lot to confuse it. I believe that it is a lot more flexible than we make it out to be, but I’m still working through this. Ask me in five years.

My biggest problem with Evans’ book is that she has used Christianity to make others feel better for not being a part of it. I understand having personal searches and struggles, but if you look at the comments she has received from her book reviews, she has encouraged non-believers to think the Bible is a string of antiquated rules with a few stories and nice truisms mixed in. She embraces the idea that you need to pick the parts you like out of the Bible, and mocks those who dare to struggle with the whole of it. Her “journey” seems less like growth, and more like hopping from one philosophy to another.

*To accomplish this in modern times, you’d have to buy polyester fabrics, unless you, by some fortune, found thread that wasn’t polyester.
**Most of these laws were taken from Lev. 19.
***All quotations from the Bible are taken from the ESV.

The Gestation of Tadpoles; and other such nonsense

I spoke with a coworker this week who listed to me her troubles, including the woe of not being able to drink away said troubles because she's carrying a human, i.e., she is in the family way.

"And actually it's not even a human yet!" she added.

"What is it? A tadpole?" I asked.

She laughed.

It is incongruous. You can "hang out" all weekend (which never involves hanging), "do stuff" to keep busy, and "mess around" (which probably involves watching television), but when you reach certain topics, people adopt Sheldon Cooper's penchant for precision.

So first one bears a zygote, which at some point turned into a fetus, and only the careless or a fundamentalist* would assume to call someone else's child a baby before it's born. It may not be considered a baby yet, based on the parents' inclinations.

This reminds me of one of Dr. Michael Bauman's rants lectures about the importance of language to ideology. If it is wrong to kill humans, and a baby is a tiny human, it would be wrong to kill it at any stage. If it's just a fetus, well, bring on the advanced coat hangers.** If God isn't a man (human), can't we call God a she? If two people love each other and want to live together forever, isn't that a marriage?

If you try to substitute one word for another, you lose the connotations of the original word. Words in themselves are just sounds, and one sound may be just as good as the other. You cannot swap meanings so easily; it is dangerous to try.

~Reese


*The fundamentalists are coming!!! Run away!!!
**Does it bother anyone else that liberals are more offended by the method of using coat hangers in abortions than the actual abortions?

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, Part 8 (final installment)

Sissy was unhappy to find the mess Jaine made in the cell. After she had thrown a pile of rags over the vomit, she looked as ill as Jaine felt. Jaine murmured her thanks when Sissy gave her bread and drink, but when the girl left, she closed the door so quickly the sound sent waves of pain through Jaine’s head. The stone wall was cool, so Jaine leaned her head against it and closed her eyes.

“It is so sad to see someone suffering and be able to do nothing for them but lend
them a comforting voice,” Joel continued from across the cell. “It’s always my goal
to bring a little sunshine in everyone’s life, to make them smile even though life
may not be all they want it to be.”

“If I smile, would you stop talking?” Jaine begged.

Joel’s response sounded hurt. “Well, I’m not meaning to bother anyone, it’s just
that humans all need some form of companionship whether they realize it or not.
Especially in a place like this where we need to cling to every bit of joy and good
feeling that we can muster. When you think of all the good things that can happen, a
place like this isn’t so bad, don’t you feel like it? Especially when you remember
that this place was empty when I came here – so anyone here before must have gotten
out somehow.”

“Probably in a dustpan.”

“One trick I’ve heard before in captivity is to imagine all the wonderful things
that are going on outside. You know, birds are singing, the sun is shining, flowers
are peaking their heads out of the ground…”

“It is autumn. Winter is coming.”

“….Snow is going to fall, all frosty and white, with the king’s deer running through
it, holiday feasts will happen with roaring fires and people gathered around them…”

Joel continued his list of wonderful things they would not experience because of
their imprisonment. This torment lingered. Jaine had no way of marking the passing
of time until she noticed the gap of a window made to ventilate the cell left a
strip of sunlight above her. It moved across the stones, which could be used as
units of time. Jaine decided to call the units of time “Jaine Lifetimes.” Seven
Jaine Lifetimes passed while Joel babbled.

There was a clang of steel below. Joel talked on, so Jaine shushed him. Yes, she
heard fighting below, along with shouts and the roar of the ogress. Jaine listened
intently.

“Well,” Joel drawled, “I wonder what is going on down there.”

The fighting lasted half a Jaine Lifetime. Then there was silence.

“Hullo?” a man’s voice called from down the hall.

“Help! Heeeeelp!” Jaine raved. “I’m up here! Help me!”

The door opened. A man stood in the doorway wearing silvery armor, a dark goatee,
and a pose. He was gorgeous.

“I am Garrestotle, here to rescue you. I have slain the ogress who so wrongfully
imprisoned you, and now offer my arms to carry you off to your new destiny.”
Garrestotle smiled, evidently pleased with his speech.

Jaine blinked. “I am Lady Jaine.”

“I am Joel! And glory be, now we can all get out of here!”

Garrestotle looked at Joel, confused. “I was only told to rescue the Lady. Maybe
there was a mistake…”

“There’s no mistake!” Jaine insisted.


“Well, I have a key…” Garrestotle went to unlock Joel’s chains. Jaine gritted her
teeth and shuffled her feet impatiently. The shackle, still very attached to Jaine’s
ankle, rattled furiously.

“It doesn’t work,” Garrestotle finally decided.

“Well that’s what you get when you carry around that artless piece of
craftsmanship!” spat Joel. He corrected himself. “What I mean is, apparently it is
still my duty to bring hope and light to this prison. Go ahead, see if it works on
the Lady’s bonds.”

Garrestotle bent dramatically over the shackle. The key worked. Joel pouted.

“Oh thank everything that is good,” Jaine exclaimed. She tried hugging her rescuer
and nearly strangled him with his breastplate. “Now, get me out of here.”

They left Joel and descended the stairs. Leaving the tower where Jaine had been
imprisoned, they found a brook with a stone bench nearby. The trees leaned away so
as not to eavesdrop, letting moonlight fall on the couple. The man and lady revealed
their stories and troubles, leaning toward one another in earnestness.

“…and so,” finished Garrestotle as he stroked Lady’s Jaine’s hand, “that is why they cannot, or should not, use terms like “progress” and “good,” because those are
directional terms. If there is good there must be better, and they have established
no paragon. They cannot use progress because that implies a progression toward
something, assuming something good, but that may just as easily be a regression. You
can’t make an honest attempt at progress if you have no defined goal. Progress
cannot be a destination in and of itself – that makes it meaningless.”

“That’s brilliant,” Jaine assured him.

“Thank you.” Garrestotle smiled.

Garrestotle’s arm encircled her and Jaine rested her head upon his shoulder.

“And so,” Jaine asked, “when are we going to get married?”

Garrestotle stiffened. “Well, that’s a… I mean… that’s a question.”

“Yes, it is.” Her head came off his shoulder and she turned to face him. “What is
the answer? You did come to rescue me. It is expected.”

“I’m not sure. I hadn’t really… well, I had thought you would come with me on my
mission. I would like you to, and I kind of need you for part of it.”

“Which is more, your need or your want?”

“Umm… the one you want me to answer.”

“Well, as you picked the correct one, I’ll consider coming, but you have to marry me
first,” Jaine insisted.

He looked even more uncomfortable.


Jaine glared. “What! You expected me to go off with you without marrying me first?”

“No…”

“You expected me to refuse you?”

“No…”

With a huff, she shifted away from him and crossed her arms. “As I see it, you have
three options. First, you can leave me here, never to return. Second, you could leave me here to my own devices, risking that someone more decisive will come and
marry me before you come back. Third, you can marry me, and then we shall resume
your mission.”

“But I am decisive! I just hadn’t thought of this yet.”

“You came here without thinking about-”

“Shh!” he held up his hand. “I’m thinking.” He stood and paced in front of her. He
had taken off the most cumbersome pieces of his armor already, but still clanked as
he walked. “Okay. We can get married.”

"Oh good. When?”

“Now.”

“By whom?”

“Why, a priest, of course.”

“Where?”

“I’m still thinking. Okay, let’s just go, into the town, find a priest, and we’ll be
on our way.”

“Okay.”

Jaine returned to the tower to fetch her belongings and don a clean gown while Garrestotle located his horse. He had Lady Jaine ride it while he carried his armor, though halfway to town, she talked him into letting the horse carry the armor while she walked beside him and held his hand.

They found a chapel just as dawn broke, but decided to wait for the priest to wake up of his own volition. Meanwhile, they talked, and Jaine gathered flowers that grew near the churchyard.

The first beams of sunrise shone through the church windows as they said their wedding vows. A bright morning met them when they emerged, and Garrestotle kissed Jaine and set her back on his horse.

“To where do we go now, my dear?” asked Jaine.

“To the east. Though I warn you, there will be many dragons to fight and people to argue.”

“It sounds pluperfect.”

And so they strode toward the rising sun, toward their adventures.

THE END

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, Part 7

Sorry it has been so long - this is the second to last part of this story. Thanks to any who have kept reading it (Jody).

The floor was hard and cold like stone, Jaine noted as she regained consciousness.
No, she corrected, it was stone. She opened her eyes but could not see anything for
many seconds. As her vision sharpened, the first thing she noted was a wide grin
full of painfully white teeth. Was it Bedlam? No, the face was too angular, the nose
too sharp. Jaine sat up as her panic subsided. Her head had been resting on her
dictionary, and she pulled it close to her.

“Well, good mornin’, sunshine!” The man said loudly.

Jaine was shackled by one ankle, and the chain grated across the floor when she
moved. Her head pounded as she stared at the man across from her.

“Who are you?” she asked dully.

“I am just a messenger of light sent into this world to bring a bit of hope into it.
The name is Joel – I would shake your hand right now, but it’s a bit occupied at the
moment.” Joel’s hands were shackled at his sides. “What about you, missy, what are
your hopes and dreams?”

Jaine stared at him. “Where are we?”

“We are in a sad state of affairs, yes ma’am. But with some good old fashioned hope,
we may just get out of this place okie-dokie okay.”

Jaine still stared. The only door opened, creaking on its hinges. Sissy came through
it holding a large tray.


“Sissy!” Jaine exclaimed in her surprise, injuring her mental balance.

“Oh Jaine!” Sissy tried to smile simultaneously at Joel and Jaine, who were chained
to opposite walls. “I wondered when you would wake up. You’ve been asleep two days since you broke curfew. The ogress found you miles away, near some sacrifice alter.
She was very pleased that you ruined… what was it… a blue moon sacrifice? That was
it. Anyway, she gave us extra bread the next day.” Sissy’s voice was high and soft,
and she quipped like a nervous bird.

“The ogress knew about the sacrifice?” Jaine asked.

“Oh, yes. She…she said she sends girls out to some horrible, horrible monster, and I
wasn’t sure how this worked, but last time the monster cheated her on her price? Or
maybe the monsters master? But, oh Jaine!” Sissy began to turn red and her voice
choked. “To think if she had sent me out this time! I couldn’t have borne it!”

“There, there,” said Joel. “If you can be bold enough to believe in yourself, you
could be bold enough to face your monsters.”

“That’s right.” Sissy wiped her eyes on her sleeve, balancing the tray with her
knee. “Jaine, you are so lucky to be locked up with Mister Joel. He is so
encouraging.”

Joel smiled at Jaine. “I believe that the measure of a day is how many people I’ve
encouraged in it. Sissy just needed a little encouragement in her life, and now she
is being equipped to share that encouragement with the rest of the world.”

“Starting with our stomachs?” Jaine asked hopefully.

Sissy gasped. “Oh! Mister Joel, this is for you!” She kneeled beside Joel while
trying to hold the tray upright. She failed. “Oh, I’m sorry about your bread! It
doesn’t look too dirty, does it? There, I’ve brushed it off. Your drink is fine – I
didn’t spill a drop!”

Jaine watched as Sissy began feeding Joel his meal in jerky movements.

“Is the ogress not allowing me to be fed?” she asked hungrily.

“Oh no – you can eat as soon as you wake up. Well, you are awake now, but I didn’t
know that, so after Mister Joel eats I’ll fetch you your supper.”

“Ah… and how long must I remain locked in this chamber?”

“I’m not sure…” Sissy considered. “I didn’t think to ask.”

“Did you ask why I’m locked in this chamber?”

“No…but the ogress did tell me. She said you had to be punished since you were out
passed your curfew.”

“But had she not expected me never to return?”

“Yes, but you were still late.”

“Good point.”

Not wishing for nausea to interrupt her hunger, Jaine tried not to watch through the
rest of Joel’s feeding.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Joel called to Sissy as she tripped out the door. “She is
such a nice girl. She’ll have lots of nice things happen to her, I’m sure.”

“Why?”

“Well, miss Lady Jaine, because life is what you make of it. Haven’t you heard the
saying, what you get out of life is what you’ve put in?”

“Only in reference to privies.”

“Now miss Lady Jaine, that is a very cynical view on life. If you just change your
way of thinking, I think things will start looking up for you. You may have made some mistakes before, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. The good thing is that with every new day, you get a new chance at life. You may need to start your day with a good look at yourself, and think, ‘I’m Lady Jaine, and my life is going to be what I make it. I was made for great things, and no one can stop me from having them.’”

“So what did you do that you were sent here?” inquired Jaine.

“This? I don’t consider being here a problem – no, every problem I see, I see as an
opportunity. I may have some ups and downs, but I don’t let any of my
disappointments hold me back. In fact, I expect good things to happen shortly in my
future. If you go into life thinking of all the things that could go wrong in it,
then they probably will, but that is a problem with your attitude, not your life. If
I were hired to build a cathedral, but I spent all my time thinking of how this task
is too large for me, or I don’t have all the right tools, then I’m going the wrong
way about it. I need to prepare for great things to happen, otherwise they won’t.
When I woke up this morning, I pushed away all of my negativity and thought of all
the great things that may happen. What about you? What was your first thought when
you woke up?”

Jaine considered this. “My first thoughts upon awaking were: ‘I’m cold and uncomfortable,
thus I am probably not dead; unless I have misperceived death by excluding the possible continuance of characteristics of life, especially in concern over coldness and discomfort.’”

“See, there you go,” said Joel. Jaine suspected him of smugness. “You go assuming that things will be bad, and because of that, you may cause them to end up like you expected.”

Jaine’s eyes narrowed on him. “Are you saying that my own perceptions can change reality?”

“It depends on the type of reality, but yes.”

“Type of reality – that sounds interesting, please explain.”

“Well, I am not the author on this – though I do intend to write a book on this
topic – but I just follow the things that I understand out of my book.”

For the first time, Jaine noticed the book that waited in Joel’s shadow. It rested
just at his fingertips, but Jaine did not see how he could open it with his wrists
being shackled as they were.

“It is my dictionary,” Joel explained.

“You carry a dictionary? But, so do I!” Jaine felt unnerved by this revelation. Her
head pounded harder.

“See, and there you were on the right path all along!”

“Brilliant! Do you mind if I look up the word death and see if my negative or
positive opinion on it changes its state?”

Joel gave her a look of pity. “You would have to use your own. Mine doesn’t contain
any negativity.”

This befuddled Jaine. “You have a special edition?”

“It’s my own. Go ahead, look, if you are interested.”

Jaine was. She dragged her chain to its full length, and was able to read Joel’s
dictionary. As he had said, the word was not contained there; more accurately, the
entire entry had been marked through. Continuing to look through the book, Jaine saw
that many other words were obliterated, including obliterate. Flipping to the front,
she noted the following words missing: abandoned, alone, argue, assault, and avoid.
Near the middle she could not find limit, lonely, mistake, or the obvious, negative.
Additionally, positive words were circled, with the especially happy ones poorly
illuminated. Great had stars around it, friend had a symbol of holding hands.

“You have ruined it!” Jaine exclaimed.

“Ruin isn’t in there, you’ll find. I’ve improved it, actually.”

Jaine threw the book toward him. “You’ve made it worthless. What good is a dictionary with only the words you like? How are you going to know what I mean if I
call you a nescient philistine?”

“I don’t need to know any negative words, because I’m so busy thinking about the
positive ones.”

“But what does positive mean if you take away negative?”

A scolding look fell on Jaine. “My little Lady, you seem to be clinging to your
negativity, possibly because it is all you know. You can let it go, though, and let the positive energy flow inside of you, heal those broken feelings and desires, and
then maybe your life will take a new turn.”

“I don’t want a new turn! I liked the old turn!” Jaine was beginning to panic. The
room felt smaller than before, and her head felt larger.

“Now, I’m not here to judge you, because that’s not my job. No, my job it to help
guide you to a better place and let you know that it is okay to let go of all that
negative energy and accept what is good in life. Can you do that? Can you let go of
what is holding you back and filling places that were meant for good things? Just
let it out, and just toss all that negativity away from you. Can you do that today, Jaine?”

Jaine nodded. Then she vomited.

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, part 6 - VOTING EDITION!

Hello! Sorry that I missed a week posting, but I've had a quandary. I wrote two versions of this scene, and can't decide which I like better. I favor Belligerence, while Garrett likes Aftermath, so it is up to you, faithful reader (if you are there) to decide.

Please comment and let me know which version you like better. Thanks!

************

Jaine felt the minutes crawl passed her as she remained tied to the pole. Soon she would break her curfew, after which time she did not know what would happen. Jaine had always obeyed her curfew. Actually she had followed all of the Ogress’ rules, but that one most stringently, as she deeply respected punctuality.

(Beginning of Option A)

A sound like a wild beast tearing through the woods came near her. “Truth! Truth!” the beast called.

“I’m right here!” Jaine called. Her heart quickened as she said the words,
especially when the noise stopped, as if someone had heard her.

“Hello?” replied the beast.

“Greetings!”

“Hi?”

“Yes… hi. Are you in such a physical state as to help me?” Jaine asked the woods in
general, not knowing the location of the beast.

“Umm…” the woods pondered. “I have no state… other than as a person. Am I a person?
What is a person?”

“Ah, a person,” Jaine sighed. “How comforting.”

A woman stumbled into the clearing where Jaine was tied. The moonlight highlighting
her long dark hair and pale face, which seemed to match the white shift she wore.
She fell once, adding to the mud and marks on her clothing.

“Hi,” said Jaine, now that she could see her rescuer. “I am Lady Jaine.”

“I am Aftermath.”

“It is nice to meet you. Would you please untie me?”

“Untie? Is there an untie? Is this what you imagine?”

“Well, I would prefer to be untied physically.”

“Physically… I see…” muttered Aftermath.

The woman jumped up onto the alter, and began clawing at the ropes which bound
Jaine. Jaine felt the woman’s nails were long and probably broken, and so for each
misplaced slash Jaine had to ignore her urge to cry out.

“Tell me,” Jaine tried to distract herself, “what are you doing in these woods?”

“I’m searching for truth,” the woman replied, not looking up from her task. “It
doesn’t exist though. Still, I find purpose in the pursuit of it.”

“Are you from the university?” Jaine asked.

“No!” This came as a snarl. “I was, but I am no longer. They are all fools there.”

“I agree in general, though I haven’t met all of them.”

“I have! And they are! All fools, I mean. I am almost finished.”

"Good – thank you.” Jaine decided not to say anything so as not to trouble Aftermath,
and also because her head hurt from the excitement of the day.

The last strand loosened, and Jaine slowly pulled her arms to her front and began
rubbing her wrists. Rocks shifted as Aftermath bounded off the alter and resumed her trek through the woods.

“Thank you!” Jaine called after her. There was no reply.

(End of Option A)

(Beginning of Option B)

A voice sounded above the woods. “Hello? Hello?” it called.

“Hello!” Jaine called. Her heart quickened as she said the words, especially when
the noise stopped, as if someone had heard her.

“Hello?”

“Greetings!”

“Hi?”

“Yes… hi. Are you in such a physical state as to help me?” Jaine asked the woods in
general, not knowing the location of the beast.

“Yes! But I’m busy! But, I’m a nice person… so I suppose…”

“Ah, a person,” Jaine sighed. “How comforting.”

A woman marched into the clearing where Jaine was tied.

“Hi,” said Jaine, now that she could see her rescuer. “I am Lady Jaine.”

“I am Belligerence. What are you doing here?”

“I was left here as a virgin sacrifice.”

“Virgin sacrifice? Are you joking? What fools run this world! Bloody chauvinists, as
if I don’t deserve to be tied up as much as any virgin.”

“Yes…which, coming to that, would you please untie me?”

The woman glared at her. “That’s why I came over here, wasn’t it? Do you think I’m a
bad person? Well, I’ll tell you! I don’t believe in good or bad, but I’m nice, and
nice people do nice things! I’ll even help you, a stranger, just because I’m nice!
See if I don’t!”

The woman jumped up onto the alter, and began yanking at the ropes which bound
Jaine. The ropes kept tightening and loosening, so Jaine struggled to control her
grimaces.

“Tell me,” Jaine tried to distract herself, “what are you doing in these woods?”

“That is none of your business. Why do people bother with other people’s business?
People are so rude. I almost have this untied.” She yanked the ropes again, which
made Jaine’s eyes water.

“Good – thank you.” Jaine decided not to say anything so as not to cause
Belligerence to descend into not-niceness, and also because her head hurt from the
excitement of the day.

The last strand loosened, and Jaine slowly pulled her arms to her front and began
rubbing her wrists.

“Thank you!” Jaine exclaimed. Belligerence smiled saccharinely at her.

“Oh, it was nothing, really.” As she marched back to the woods, Jaine could hear her
muttering about that “worthless tripe” who “probably was not a virgin anyway.”

(End of Option B)

Gingerly retrieving her dictionary from the foot of the alter, Jaine began plodding down the road by which Bedlam had brought her. Soon she lost the moon in the trees, and at several points could not discern the correct path from the trails that ran through it. Stumbling on sore legs, Jaine stifled a sob and continued. She tripped over a tree root in the dark, her head hitting something hard and cold. Jaine lay still.

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, part 5

The sun set, pulling its light behind itself. Jaine tried to monitor the shadows creeping over the trees, but they seemed to only move when she blinked. Darkness fell, and Jaine waited. Crickets had come out for their nightly orchestra, always tuning but never playing. They did not bother Jaine, but the self-absorbed croaking of the tree frogs did. The crickets seemed to hum to amuse themselves, but frogs were determined to steal attention. Hmmm sang the crickets. Grooooock! interrupted the frogs.

Crunch, went the leaves to Jaine’s left. Jaine looked for her monster, seeing only a little man with silver curls that swirled around his head. He wore a gray suit and red tie, and had nothing peculiar about his appearance but overly bushy eyebrows, which splayed outward as if they were wings. Jaine felt strengthened by the ridiculousness of his eyebrows.

“Hello,” she greeted the stranger. “Who are you?”

“Greetings, Lady Jaine,” replied the stranger. “Have you been comfortable?”

“I have been comfortable, sir, but I am not presently.” Jaine adjusted against her ropes. “Are you here to let me down?”

“Oh, heavens, no. You’re a hazard.” The man sat at the edge of her alter and looked up at her.

“Are you the reason I’m here?” Jaine asked.

“No, you are the reason you are here.”

“But you caused me to be here.”

“Yes.”

Jaine thought. “So I suppose that virgin sacrifice was a bit of nonsense?”

“Oh, no. That is an important factor. You see, you are here because you perform as
you believe, and considering the beliefs you have talked about in the village today,
you are very dangerous.”

“…So you don’t fulfill your beliefs, thus you are safe to society? Is that what you
are saying? If you believe I am dangerous and should be tied to a post, but that
acting on your beliefs is dangerous, you should let me go free for fear of being
dangerous yourself.”

“No, no,” the man shook his head. “I’m not dangerous, because I believe true things.
You believe false things and spread your malicious gospel, thus you are dangerous.”

“Wait, what?” Jaine blinked rapidly. The tree frogs croaked loudly at that moment,
further stupefying her.

“You are promoting the spread of your dogmatism through brutal and demeaning
methods. I disagree with your underdeveloped, biased worldview, but must oppose you
when you attempt foisting your beliefs on others. There is no beast in these hills
to devour you except in your imagination, but I wish there were one to dispose of
you and all your kind.”

“Good…sir…” Jaine sputtered. “I don’t understand your defamation of my beliefs and
actions, and while apparently your worldview is different from mine, I don’t see how
differing with your beliefs makes mine incorrect. What is your worldview?”

The man straightened his tie. “My worldview is based on scientific studies of the
moon, its orbital patterns, surface structure, volcanic eruptions, eclipses, and
atmosphere. You bludgeon my students with talk of ultimate standards and theories on
right and wrong, which cannot be scientifically proven.”

“I don’t see your point. And what do you mean by your students? You are a professor
at the university?”

The man sat straighter. “No. I am the president of the university.”

“Ah.” Jaine felt her thoughts align. “That makes sense; so Bedlam is under your
command, and apparently your tutelage. Yes, I see the correlation – his drivel was
too rote to be original, so I assumed he had learned it. So his half-applied
trumpery about tolerance and cultures deciding their own standards came from you?”

“Half-applied?”

“Yes – lectures on tolerance seem to only be applied to the listener. Let us resume
my point. How can you claim to disprove my philosophies by studying the moon?”

“Your theories are not measurable. I can explain everything I want to know by
applying science to them – measuring and testing my results. You cannot prove your
theories, thus they are meaningless. You breathe empty hypotheses into empty minds.”

“I didn’t know I had such influence!” Jaine felt complimented. “Tell me, though –
you say you can explain everything you want to know by science and your studies of
the moon, but can you explain what I want to know?”

“What is it?

“Why is the moon pretty?”

The president looked at her sourly. “It isn’t, innately. Beauty isn’t something that
exists independently of human perception.”

“Then what is it that I feel when I see something I call beautiful?”

“When you see something that you call beautiful, it releases positive hormones in
your brain - what little you have of one.”

“But why?”

“I suppose you like the moon.”

“Why do I like it? I don’t have any biological associations with it – it doesn’t
remind me of a good meal, or a handsome face, and it isn’t as useful as a candle
when I read after dark.”

“I don’t know what positive associations you have made with the moon,” insisted the
president.

“So according to you,” Jaine pressed, “beauty is a name for a reaction to biological
preference or positive association?”

“Yes.” The president looked more intently at her. “It is a shame – you are not as I expected. I could have done something with your mind at my university, if it were not so riddled with inherited myths.”

“My mind or my brain?” smiled Jaine. “Wouldn’t my mind be an abstraction created by my brain out of a desire to exist independently from a fleshly body reliant on electrical impulses?”

The president sighed. “You nearly make me regret my decision to leave you here. You seem intelligent – perhaps you are not incorrigible?”

“I assure you, I am,” beamed Jaine, “if by incorrigible you mean I refuse to believe that truth and beauty are fictions, and that morality varies by location. What is more, I cannot accept your beliefs as you have yet to disprove mine – mine are still perfectly functional. I believe that something can be true even if it cannot be scientifically proven, so you can’t tell me that I am errant because I can’t prove scientifically that not everything needs to be proven scientifically. You, however, seem to ignore ideas that you don’t want to believe. How is that intellectually honest?”

“My dear,” the president said as he stood, “you are stupid.”

“Is disagreeing with you the test for that? That doesn’t seem very scientific.”

The president left. Jaine was still tied to the pole.

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, part 4

The door opened. Jaine felt arms slip under hers and drag her into damp darkness.
She saw the flash of fire and felt the heat of Tolerance’s last attempt at charring her before the door closed and blocked the light. From behind the door, she could hear Tolerance’s frustrated coughs.

Realized she had not breathed during these last long seconds, Jaine gasped and felt the floor for her dictionary. The stones of the floor were rough from limited use.

“Hel- *cough* -lo?” she sputtered. “Thank you?” Victoriously, Jaine’s fingertips brushed the leather of her dictionary, which she reclaimed and clutched to her chest.

She heard a match strike and smelled sulfur. A dim light which grew as flame caught onto torch.

“My Lady Jaine,” a voice said. Jaine didn’t recognize the voice until she saw Bedlam’s teeth gleam into a smile.

“Oh…good gracious…”

“…loveliness and vivacity. I am so lucky to find you here, my lady, for though I knew we would meet again, I had only hoped it would be so soon.”

Jaine stood shakily. “Yes, how adventitious it was that you wander university dungeons.”

“Oh, it wasn’t lucky at all.” Bedlam smiled wider. “I was looking for you.”

“You are right – that is decidedly unlucky.”

The light had grown so Jaine could view her surroundings. They were at the
end of a hall, with crude etchings decorating stone walls. Moisture seeped through
the mortar.

Bedlam made a disapproving sound. “Here I save your life, and yet you act
repulsed by me. Should you not thank your savior?”

“I should, though I am. Thank you, Bedlam.” She curtseyed.

“You are welcome. Now, follow me.”

Jaine followed. She was glad to know the right direction out of the dungeon,
especially considering that she needed to return to the ogress’ tower before her
freedom expired.

Bedlam led her down one hall and through another, up one set of stairs, and, to Jaine’s concern, back down another set.

“I didn’t know the university is so large,” Jaine said.

“It isn’t. There are several underground tunnels which lead away from the
university. I know them all.”

“How clever of you. Where does this way take us?”

“Where you want to go.”

Silence pervaded. “But,” began Jaine, “I haven’t told you where I want to
go, and you certainly can’t decipher my mind as you haven’t bothered understanding
my words. How do you know where I want to go?”

Bedlam turned to her and smiled. “I lied. This is actually where I want to
go, but people go farther with me when they think that I’m taking them where they
want. The odd thing is, they usually have no preconceived desired direction.
We have come quite far already, and you’ve just assumed I was taking you where you wanted. It wasn’t until you asked that you thought I might take you a different way.
People are so trusting.”

Jaine had paused during this speech, aghast at her own naiveté. Then she ran in direction they had come.

Bedlam caught her quickly, but suffered several blows from her dictionary
before he was able to bind her wrists. Jaine was carried several paces before she
submitted to walking behind her captor.

“Beguiling sycophant,” Jaine muttered. “Bilkering, fraudulent, prevaricating
fabricator.” Synonyms always made Jaine feel better. “But they are inaccurate, and
far too complimentary,” she sighed. “Witless, naïf, gullible, credulous, artless to the ostensible…”

“You’re not talking about me anymore, are you?” asked Bedlam.

“No,” replied Jaine mournfully.

“Too bad. I liked it.”

They walked in silence through the rest of the tunnels. Eventually they
reached a door with light peaking though the crevices, and when Bedlam opened it, Jaine had to blink many times for her eyes to adjust to the abundance of nature. They were in the woods, or a forest, and though she spun around to look, Jaine could not see a clearing. There were only trees, rocks, and shadows to guide her, and Jaine could not make a map from any of them. Contrary to popular belief, the sun did not always set in West. The window in the ogress’ cave faced West, and a pine tree grew on the horizon, directly in the middle of the view. Jaine was sure she had noticed the sun sometimes setting to the right and sometimes the left of that tree, and she knew that it often changed times of setting and rising. Who could possibly navigate by such a fickle celestial body?

Thus abandoned, Jaine postponed her escape.

They strode through the forest until they reached a path. Following a path encouraged Jaine, until she realized the path inclined, and they were climbing a large hill. Jaine’s foot slipped on loose rocks and she fell painfully on one knee.

“You must be tired,” Bedlam consoled. “After all, you’ve been running through my mind all day. Shall I help – no? No need to glare, my lady; It isn’t becoming. We have almost reached our destination, though. I would let you rest, but it is almost sundown.”

When they reached the top of the hill, Bedlam led Jaine to an arrangement of stones, set up like an alter. A post stood out from the middle of the stones, and Bedlam tied her to it.

Curiosity burst forth from Jaine. “Where are we? And why did you bring me here?”

“Who is to say?” he responded.

“You, as you brought me here.”

“Well, I’m not actually supposed to tell you.” Bedlam considered. “But since you won’t be around much longer…”

“You’re leaving me here to die?”

“Who knows…”

“You, again. However, if you have a change of decision, or at last construct
a decision out of your bog of irresolution, you could untie me and take me home. Then you don’t have to reveal any confidence, or bother about who is or isn’t saying, knowing, or vacillating on essentials.”

“I could, but that jeopardizes my ambiguity. Think of what could happen to
my career if I upheld something!”

“Truth and justice would indeed stand shocked,” agreed Jaine. She adjusted her bonds against the post, but could not loosen them. “Would you concede on revealing the purpose of my presence here, though?”
Bedlam considered. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now that you are already here. My superiors commissioned me to leave a virgin sacrifice on the Mount of Enlightenment, and you were the only one I knew.”

“What!”

“…Which, that is your own fault, by the way. I offered you freedom from such
conservatism earlier, but you clung to your inhibitions. How outdated of you.”

“Outdated? You’re the one sacrificing me to a monster!” Jaine’s voice rose and her face flushed.

“Sacrifice sounds so like you are going to be eaten or mangled,” worried
Bedlam. “Don’t panic so much.”

“Are you saying I’m not going to be eaten?”

“Well… you probably are. I’m not sure. Who’s to say.”

“Oh!” Jaine fought tears, and felt as though she had something stuck in her
throat.

“Oh?”

“Go away.”

“Really? Some company might be nice for you in your last few hours.”

“Hours? I have hours?”

“Who knows.”

“Go away!”

“But I could-”

“Get-get-get out! Ah! No one should see me decend to stultiloquence. Leave
me in peace!” Jaine turned her face away from him.

“If you wish. Don’t take it too hard, though. I’m just following orders.”

“Your willing subordination to malevolence does not comfort me.”

“Well, it does me. Who knows. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Who knows…” whispered Jaine.

Bedlam left her.

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, Part 3

Finding the hall deserted, Jaine realized she did not remember which way she had come. She chose a direction, and a short way down the hall, found a stair case. As she started down it, she noticed that at the beginning it was well carved and seemed sturdy, but the descent showed a decline in craftsmanship. Whereas she started on a wide stone staircase, she found herself creaking down old wooden planks. There had been no landing, no access to other floors from this staircase, and when she thought about it, Jaine could not remember at exactly which points the stairs
declined in quality.

“How strange,” she thought. “I usually consider myself observant.”

The stairs had led her to a basement, or perhaps a dungeon, whichever is fouler smelling. Though it did not appear the stairs had taken her anywhere useful, Jaine saw that they were well lit with torches.

“Hello,” said a voice from a shadow. “Who are you?”

“I am Lady Jaine,” she replied. “Who are you, what is your purpose, and how did you get here? And, where are you?”
Jaine peered into the darkness. The last torch left a quivering pool of light at the bottom of the staircase. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the reflection of cat-eyes in a corner.

“You may call me Tolerance.” The eyes moved closer, and a head appeared in the circle of light.

“Why! You’re a dragon!” Jaine gasped.

Tolerance sighed, exhaling a wisp of fire. “Yes, I am a dragon. And you are a human. Is that a reason why we cannot trust each other?”

“Yes - because dragons eat humans.”

“That is only in actuality. Theoretically I believe in the inherent worth of every creature, its right to live and prosper and speak freely about its belief system, and its choice of diet.”

“Oh.” Jaine eased her grip on the staircase banister, where she had clung since first seeing the dragon. “That makes me feel better. Please, tell me more about what you believe.”

Tolerance settled himself cat-like in the darkness, shuffling his hind-quarters as he lay down, and wrapping his
tail as far as it would go around his body. The end flicked back and forth restlessly. “I shall tell you of my hopes and desires for this world: I desire for everyone to treat each other as equals, to celebrate one another’s diversity, to have freedom of speech, and be tolerant of everyone else’s beliefs. I am old, very old, and have seen many wars. People fight one another, not agreeing, not respecting anyone but themselves. And everyone should respect himself, but everyone should respect everyone else, too.”

“What happens when people disagree?” Jaine asked. She positioned herself at the opposite edge of light, facing the dragon. She clutched her dictionary behind her back.

“They should disagree respectfully.”

Jaine considered this. “What happens when two persons disagree over something that concerns them both?”

“They should settle it in a way that that harms neither of them.”

“Interesting… I have a slight problem with this though. Actually, it’s mainly with you. I think dragons are parasitic worms that deserve the sword on all occasions, and I also long for the day when a string of St. Georges come and smite the lot of you. You see,” she continued, “I believe that I am morally and innately superior to you. I also despise dragons for their lust for gold and jewels, especially since they do not create these possessions themselves, but steal them. What do you think of that?”

The dragon thought about this. “I acknowledge your opinions, and choose to tolerate them.”

“What if I act on them? What if I believe I am morally bound to kill any dragon I see?”

“That isn’t very tolerant of you,” Tolerance scolded.

“Yes, but tolerance isn’t a part of my belief system, but killing dragons is. What are going to do about that?”

“Well, I can’t tolerate that.”

“Isn’t that intolerant of you?”

“But it was intolerant of you not to tolerate me in the first place, so the greater intolerance yours… perhaps?” Tolerance considered this.

Jaine continued her argument. “How would this putting down of intolerance occur? By a higher authority? Are they also the ones deciding what is tolerable and what isn’t? I think your measure of tolerability is insufficient, by the way. Some think it is acceptable to injure persons. Others think just hurting another’s feelings is unacceptable. By whose standards are you going to judge the world?”

“The good ones,” Tolerance answered confidently.

“And which are those? The ones that align with…?”

“Tolerance.”

“…Ah,” said Jaine.

The two sat in silence.

“Tolerance?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe we can ignore for the moment the vital issue of whose morality decides the level of acceptable intolerability. How are you going to moderate intolerance?”

“Hmmm…” Tolerance grumbled. “Well, first, I shall make the intolerant very unpopular.”

“An obvious move. What if they don’t care about popularity?”

“Then I would make laws about the intolerant, not letting them do or say intolerant things.”

“And if they do and say them anyway?”

“Then I shall fine them and take their gold for their intolerance.”

“Oh, but people are so stubbornly intolerant!” Jaine insisted. “What if they decide their opinions are more
important than their gold?”

“More important than…! Well, then I shall lock them away in a dungeon, like this.”

“Send them to the dungeon until they become more tolerant or die? That sounds counterproductive. Sending people to
jail for being intolerant may only increase the indignation against those whom they were not tolerating.”

“Quite true,” the dragon agreed. “That is very bad for me. Intolerant people give me such indigestion – they are too
tough and stringy. I much prefer the tolerant. They usually have an extra bit of fat on them. They are delicious
when seared.”

Silence filled the dungeon. The silence was shortly replaced by Tolerance’s flames, which blew out of his nostrils
and cackled as it consumed spiderwebs and dust around the stair landing. He started the flame where it did not touch
her, but it was near enough she felt shocked by the heat. She jumped back from the stair landing and stumbled into
the dungeon. The light hurt Lady Jaine’s eyes, though in the moment before her vision went white, she saw that just
beyond the landing where her sight was previously limited were piles of bones of those whom the dragon had
previously tolerated.

Jaine tripped over bones and fell against a door she had not seen.

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, Part 2

Note to readers - if you see any mistakes (spelling, grammar, logic, or otherwise) in this prose, please let me know. Unlike Lady Jaine, I am fallible.

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Lady Jaine never before had time to explore the university, but with 6.5 hours left for her leisure, she determined to tour. Architects built the university in the day when Great King Logic reigned, but before his marriage to Queen Aesthetics. Had she aided in the design, there might have been winding gardens and windows full of stained glass, but as it was, the university was built in practicality. Most professors did not regret the lack of “frippery” in the university’s design, thinking bleakness might inspire students to graduate.

Worldly and Ignorance led her through a series of corridors. They whispered and chuckled for a bit, then paused by a window.

“Just wait here a minute,” instructed Worldly. The students disappeared down the hall. Eventually they retrieved her, and she noticed as they glanced and smiled at one another.
Ignorance knocked on a door at the end of a corridor. A deep “Come in,” replied through the door, and Worldly put his arm around Lady Jaine’s waist, appearing to escort her in just far enough that he could shove her into the room and slam the door behind her. Lady Jaine twirled to reopen the door, but the boys held it. She heard their muffled gaffing.

“My Lady,” said a voice behind her. Lady Jaine spun again and faced professor Bedlam. While the boys had taken her to the right man, she found herself not in his office, but his bedchamber. The professor’s dark hood was cast back from his head, revealing white, smiling teeth, a set of blue eyes, and scalp full of curly brown hair. He was as handsome as the hare, who raises his noble head to survey his path and options, questing to fulfill his instincts.

“Good sir,” she faced him in an authoritarian air, “I have come to discuss with you your statements on equality based on promotion of the self.” Bedlam approached her slowly, so Lady Jaine accelerated her words. “Individualism has many benefits when considered to temper the whole, but you insinuate a fantasy individualism that behaves in unsynchronized, inexplicable generosity towards others. It seems your individualism is more of a padded isolationism that ignores the existence of others rather than acknowledging differences in –”

“My good lady,” Bedlam interrupted, taking her hand. “I’m afraid we have not met. I am professor Bedlam, and you, are gorgeous.”

Lady Jaine blinked. “I am the Lady Jaine. As I was saying –”

“Do you always carry a dictionary with you?”

“Why, yes… ‘tis my weapon of choice, usually.”

“That is sad, since it is so pitifully out of order.”

“…It is?”

“Yes. If it were properly arranged, the U and I would be together.” He smiled dazzlingly at her.

Lady Jaine’s forehead wrinkled, and she held her dictionary closer. “Only if you wish to deny centuries of
traditional arrangement. As it is, I have a great appreciation for words, even spellings, though they are vexing, for deep understanding of words facilitates learning. I knew one man, even, who believed that one could not study philosophy or theology without including philology, and I agree entirely. One cannot explore the revelations of God nor the learnings of man without a well developed medium of communication.”

Professor Bedlam smiled at her again. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow you – I keep getting lost in your eyes. Would you like to sit down?” There were no chairs in the professor’s room, just a bed, a small table, and a wardrobe. She would not sit on his bed.

Lady Jaine snapped. “Professor Bedlam, I came to discuss your expressions of isolationist worldview, as you told your students outside earlier.”

Bedlam sighed and sat on his bed. “Well,” he adopted a placating face, “it is viewed by many philosophers, including myself, that many of the problems in this world are caused by irrational devotion to personal values, to the extent that one person, country, or power, tries to force its opinions on others. This causes fights, as it might have outside, but on a larger scales, causes war and death. Does that make sense?”

“No. You’ve explained a disconnected problem and conclusion. How will focusing on oneself prevent wars?”

“If each man concentrates on living as he sees right, and he resolves to live at peace with his neighbor by not imposing what is right for himself on his neighbor, then the world can avoid useless contention.”

“But humans cannot avoid imposition. If there is a limited supply of something, and I take something that you want, then you would consider that imposition. Or if I believed that all blue eyed-persons are evil, that might offend you, as a blue eyed person. Even if I didn’t try to spread my blue-eyed loathing, my hatred offends your humanity.”

“Which is why you should be more tolerant. That is the key to this line of thinking – the only way this would work is if everyone either became tolerant of each other, or laws enforced toleration.”
This frustrated Lady Jaine. “But then according to your views, why shouldn’t laws be tolerant? What if a criminal sees that it is in his best interest to steal your purse. Why should the law impose its view of right on someone?”

“Because there have to be some standards. Not everyone will comply with the rule of tolerance, so the law removes
those who refuse to be tolerant.”

“Who decides what the laws are?”

“The people, each culture,” said Professor Bedlam, proudly. “Cultures should implement rules for themselves, but not other cultures. Each culture is its own king, creating rules for itself, allowing its inhabitants to live in homogenous peacefulness, but not extending its opinions to other cultures. I can't judge someone else, or judge one time or culture against another. Do you understand it now? If you got closer I’m sure I could teach you much more…”

“What about murder, or genocide?” Jaine edged away from him. “If one culture is purposely killing part of its population, shouldn’t another culture step in and protect the population despite cultural authority? What if our King decided to commit genocide on all university professors?”

“That would be wrong.”

“But if something is wrong, it appeals to a higher authority than yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to make any universal statements of right and wrong. You could say ‘I enjoy not being killed,’ and nothing else.”
Bedlam pursed his lips and looked concerned. “You do not understand the concept I’m trying to convey.”

“You’re not conveying it clearly. This isn’t a personal insult, since your topic seems to lack the possibility of clarity.”

“If you wanted my personal tutelage so that we could explore these concepts together, I would happily offer myself.” Bedlam caught her hand and pulled her toward him, but Lady Jaine snatched it away. She marched the two steps it took to get back to the door, and finding it no longer barred, stepped halfway into the hall before turning back to the professor.

“If there is no higher authority, that means an individual could do anything he wished as long as he got the culture to agree with it as normality. That includes murdering babies, drinking blood, and wandering about unclothed, as some cultures practice. I’m not saying our culture will shift rapidly to such degradation, but it could if we don’t affix our moral values to something higher than majority opinion. Humans are capable of inexplicable evil, and it would take more faith than I have to expect an inward-seeking population to find such good overflowing out of their feelings that the good of the society increases and peace and happiness reign.”

“I don’t think it a bad thing if the population of, say, this chamber, found clothing more inhibiting than not,” suggested the professor.

Lady Jaine slammed the door.

The Adventures of Lady Jaine, Part 1

Dear friend(s),

I've been working on this story for a while, and have been too cowardly to finish it. If I write it in installments and post it for the "world" to see, I think I'll be more likely to finish. And so, here you go: The Adventures of Lady Jaine.

*********

After wars of steel and shield arose and fell, and good kings took the western Isles, there still arose in mighty times the seeping sins that struck them all. Kingdoms fell and rose, some shades darker than before, in this time still those who fought and fight and will have sought for the good and pure and right. One such fighter, not the best, but striving, improved by words and soon by deeds, her story, I shall tell.

It was a fair morning when a red-haired maid leaned far out the window, shielding her eyes from the winter wind which whipped about her tresses like a plaything. She hummed and sighed, stamping her foot a bit against the floor.

“Ahh, my love, where art thou? My heart counts the seconds of thy lingering,” sighed she, pulling herself from the window and pinching her cheeks, if chance the wind had not reddened them sufficiently.

“Histrionic,” declared girl from the corner. Her finger marked the word on her parchment, her bright eyes danced, and her dark braid swung back so that the end brushed the ground behind her chair. “’Deliberately assumed affectation.’ And why don’t you close the shutters? I already can’t get closer to the fire without my dress igniting.”

The ginger slammed the blinds closed. “Perhaps if someone loved you, you might understand.”

The brunette shrugged, and resumed her reading.

The chamber door flew open, and a girl followed it, tripping over her skirt and hiding her face in the brunette’s lap.

“Lady Jaine,” she sobbed, “we’ll never get out of here alive! The ogre looked like she was going to eat me again!”

“Sissy, really,” Lady Jaine patted the girl’s hair, “she is an ogress, not an ogre, and I’m sure she will not eat any of us.”

“Sissy, you don’t have enough meat on you for her fancy,” sneered the ginger, Lady Narcissa. “And she won’t eat Jaine since she sweetens her up all the time. That’s why I need to get out of here.”

“I protest any accusation of sycophancy,” protested Lady Jaine. “And Sissy, don’t worry. I shall speak with her.”

“While you’re at it,” called Narcissa, “see if she’ll give us something better to eat. I can’t have my love seeing me so thin.”

Lady Jaine circled down the tower stairs, until she reached the guard room where the ogress waited.

“Good morning, foul creature of the underworld,” greeted Lady Jaine. The ogress liked her mainly because Lady Jaine cared little for political correctness.

“Mornin’, human wench. You sniffing for freedom today?”

Lady Jaine had not thought of that yet. “Perhaps. I came to negotiate a favor.”

“Eh?” Lady Jaine could not see the ogress, but for her red eyes glowing from a shadow. “What be the favor?

“Little Sissy, the milkmaid. I wish to bargain for mental comfort. You frighten her excessively, so I thought to
trade you a word for her peace.”

“Eh! I give her more peace than me mates would down below. But here, where’s your word?”

“‘Ataraxy,’ meaning perfect peace or calm state of mind.”

“Ahh… ‘tis a good one. And one for your leave?”
Lady Jaine squinted her eyes in thought. “And why is it you so eagerly wish for my departure?” She saw the ogress’ eyes bounce in glee.

“Nah reason. But I’ll do you a bargain. One hour a syllable.”

The lady shrugged nonchalantly. Underneath her composure, she felt simmering curiosity. “Spelling or definition?”

“Spelling.”

“Word: Eleutheromania. Meaning: zeal for freedom, including mania or frantic desire. Although it seems your eleutheromania applies to my freedom more than your own.”

“Why, that be a tail of a word. Give us a different one!” The ogress obviously did not expect that length. Seven syllables, seven hours.

“That’s the word,” prodded Lady Jaine.

“Fine then! ‘E…L…U…’”

“Incorrect. ‘E-L-E-U-thero-mania.’ Shown here,” Lady Jaine displayed her dictionary. The ogress glared, but the door opened. The ogress evaded the flooding light, and Lady Jaine slipped outside. She inhaled the fresh air, sighed, and began walking toward the village. Trouble usually settled in the masses of the ignorant, so Lady Jaine could think of no better place for evil to infect than in the village university.

A group of black robed university students sat outside the university gate laughing loudly. Lady Jaine watched them as one team sling a mugful of ale toward the opposing team, who had their mouths opened to catch the liquid. When the slinging stopped, the drinking side began singing. Lady Jaine had heard of this game before – it was called “ale song,” where the sole goal was to make one’s opponents so intoxicated that they could no longer sing in harmony.

Lady Jaine would have passed them, but one lad called to her. “Come, Lady Jaine, here’s a game you can partake of!”

“I have no desire to, Loafer, but in the meantime, you should say: ‘Of which you can partake.’”

“Of which thee thou can’st thee partooketh ofeth!”

“‘Of which thou canst partake’”

“Of canst…” Loafer would have replied, but his innards then hastened him to the bushes.

“There!” cried an opponent. “He sings no longer!”

“He’ll be back!”

“I can’t hear singing!” taunted the opponent.

“You don’t hear singing, not that you can’t unless you are as deaf as you are stupid,” muttered Lady Jaine. Normally she, as a lady, would not mutter, but as it was, she was the only person interested in her opinions, and she heard herself perfectly.

A black-clad figure emerged from the gate. “Gentlemen, please.” The lads quieted in respect. “We are all winners here. Please, let us not suggest one team or individual’s superiority over another, but let us be equals in our own sight. Truly there is no such thing as winner or loser, right or wrong, but the way the individual sees it. I see you all as right. Now, please, let us go in to study.”

The students followed their teacher, and even Loafer crawled behind them. Two remained, however, they being sober enough to recognize Lady Jaine’s bountiful beauty.

“Greetings, fair one.” The first swept off his cap. “My name is Worldly.”

“And I am Ignorant.”
They bowed low before her, and Worldly took her hand. “And though wonder we what lonesome lady might wander into our premises so alluringly unaccompanied, we thought we might befriend her.”

“I am Lady Jaine, and I warn you, in such an allegorical world as this I choose my friends by the dictionary.” She snatched her hand away before Worldly might kiss it. “I have equal wonder at the words of that man. Who is he?”

“He? That man is Bedlam, our professor,” offered Ignorant.

“I would like to meet him.”

Worldly glared at Ignorant. “His words are wise, yes, lady, but I’m sure his charms are shallow.”

“Why, we see maidens leaving his chambers frequently, and how charming could he be if they keep leaving?”
Lady Jaine denied intimidation. “I would like to meet him, and discuss his words. Do you approve of the manner of his dismissal? Surely it is a ridiculous game and rightly dismissed, but the application of his said principles undermines hierarchy and by nature devalues his own claims of authority in being in the position of teacher. Rightly should he be called Bedlam, but I would add to him the name ‘Contradictory.’”

“By St. Pan, she knows him already!” exclaimed Ignorant. “That’s it, lad, we’ll have no chance with her.”

“But do you agree with his philosophy?” asked Lady Jaine.

Ignorance shrugged.

“It is a nice, friendly way to look at the world,” said Worldly.

“But it does not work in the realm of logic.”

“That’s okay. Didn’t King Logic die years ago?” asked Ignorance.

“Just take me to Bedlam.”

Grammar Rage

I have grammar rage. I should not write in any state of rage, as I believe that words on pages are the most effective types of voodoo dolls, but here I go.

I am not your English teacher. I shouldn’t have to tell you the difference between your and you’re. Or their and there. I shouldn’t have to tell you that capitalizing the first letter in every noun isn’t formal, and furthermore doesn’t make you write like Thomas Jefferson. It makes me want to cry.

So go, English teachers! Beat the rules of grammar into your (not you’re) students’ (not student’s) heads! Smite their (not there) malformed sentences and guide them to comprehensible sentence structure. Small minds wane when uncorrected, and woe comes to those who rely on others to sound coherent in their native tongue.

Rage over.

Eat Good Books

I’ve always been around health nuts. Lately, it seems, I’ve experienced a concentration of them (AHHH! Concentrates! Stay away! Oh, we’re not talking about juice), and may, in fact, be turning into one.

Organic all the way, baby! When it is on sale...

Lately I recognized a similarity in eating and reading. Both are necessities to life, but our selection of food should compare to our selection of books. There are many “candy” books around, and while I think it is okay to indulge in these once in a while, some readers devote their appetites only to these. This seems unhealthy. Shouldn’t something more substantial be introduced?

For example, I try to read three books at a time: one theological, one informational, and one fun. This should represent a main course, a side, and a dessert. Eight-year-olds may dream of being adults and eating only dessert for every meal, but most grow up and find this is not a good reality. It seems to be the true for some readers, though. If you skip from reading Harry Potter to Twilight to some trashy romance novel (sorry, I mentioned Twilight then trashy romance novel – that was redundant), you are only stretching your mind to wondering how awesome it would be to have magical powers, to having a rich/handsome/immortal boyfriend, to having a rich/handsome/immortal boyfriend. Do any of these challenge your beliefs, or make you develop them where they need growing? Did you learn anything?

The three books I am reading now coincidentally relate. I’m reading Mere Christianity (theological), Bonhoffer (informational – though it could fit well into theological), and The Hunger Games (fun). All of them talk about war, governments, and right and wrong. Bonhoffer seems the clearest link between the others so far, for Lewis and Bonhoffer were fighting for the same cause on different sides of WWII, and Bonhoffer and The Hunger Games relate in that they concern just rebellion. I didn’t intend to read them together, it just happened to be a fitting three course meal, but these coincidences keep happening. If I only had Twilight to compare to Harry Potter, I may notice the similarities of them dealing with the abnormal, maybe a note on the value of life if I paid attention.

Instead of trying to squeeze meaning out of books that are mainly meant for entertainment, why not try a balanced diet of books? You may find that some of them taste better when taken together.

~Reese

P.S. I liked Harry Potter, and think it could have been great if the author hadn’t pandered so much to her audience.

P.P.S. Sorry if I offended you about Twilight. If I did, I pity you.

Hero-less Hollywood

We turned off the television. The show we tried to watch looked interesting, and advertised intertwining church and British history. Instead it highlighted the illicit intertwining of human bodies, centering on incest, rape, and premarital sex. The respite from these scenes included torture, murder, plots for murder, dismemberment, brutality, self-flagellation, the exposing of infants and the execution of fathers. Politicians were rife with evil, churchmen bartered with the name of God, and peasants were as selfish as they were stupid.

The fact that this is “entertainment” gives me extra reason to despair for the human condition.

Why couldn’t the show have one good character? Someone who refused political plots and resisted depravity? I had no one to admire in the show, and thus felt lost. Where were all the good people?

There is a Chinese proverb intended to depress single women: “There are two good men: one dead, the other unborn.” Neither were in my television show.

In church, our pastor preached on John 3, where Nicodemus went to Jesus at night. Why were people so attracted to Jesus that they followed him en masse and sneaked around gardens to find him? Why does he fascinate us now? It is because he fulfilled the Chinese proverb, as well as the Hebrew prophesies. He was the perfect man who died (for others), he is yet to come again to earth, and, one-upping the proverb, he still is alive.

In Jesus we find a rebel against sin, a vice-less hero, a good king, a prophet, a savior, a doctor, a priest, a humble man in a sea of the selfish. He should be in every story.

P.S. I thought this was appropriate: Holding Out for a Hero

The Manhood of Object A

This is an old story which I had posted here once, so I thought I would put it up again.

- - - - - - - -


I shivered, my back up against the back of the observation box. I pulled my knees up to try to cover my naked body, but it did not matter, for everyone looked at the judge. The men who had been near me quieted their talk and found seats as the judge’s hammer demanded their attention.
“Here!” the judge called out in his baritone. “This case is brought up by Lawyer Raymond against Lawyer Carey Madison, claiming that he committed a crime against Object A.” The eyes slid from the judge and over to my glass cage. I hid my face. “The crime,” continued the Judge, “is one known in some cultures as rape. Mr. Madison, how do you plead?”
Madison stood, his arms relaxed against the sides of his flawless suit. “Not guilty, your Honor,” he said clearly, then sat again. Hardly anyone murmured – in fact, when I peeked out from behind my knees, I saw them nodding and rolling their eyes. I knew then that this trial was futile; they had decided the judgment before the judge had lifted his hammer. I hid my face again, resolving to observe without looking at anyone’s eyes.
“Mr. Raymond, it is your floor.” The judge swept a black sleeve toward the area my defender was to occupy.
Mr. Raymond fidgeted with his jacket and stood in front of the judge’s podium. No, a dull protest came from my head, he is too young, too inexperienced. “Gentlemen,” he began, “it is my belief, and duty, to show you all that the crime in question is a true crime, that Mr. Madison is guilty of this crime and propagating the idea that it is not one, and, most importantly, that the creature in this observation box,” he leaned a hand on my prison without looking at me, “is a man.”
The men, silent before, now roared up, and it took several minutes and threats for the judge to quiet them. Still, Raymond had to raise his voice to be heard over their mutterings. “My first questioning will be of Mr. Madison.”
Madison did not look at me as he entered the witness box. I could not look at him, either, but I knew he had not looked because I would have felt it.
“Mr. Madison,” Raymond began.
“Yes, my young friend?” Madison raised his voice to enunciate the irony.
“Mr. Madison, on the 10th of Thermidor, it is reported that you were walking alone one evening, when you found this Object A sitting alone in an alley. Is this true so far?”
“It is.”
“At which time – I shall use the judge’s word to avoid graphics – you raped Object A, despite it’s struggle against you.”
“I reject the implications your and the judge’s terminology, (pardon me, your Honor), of the word rape, since it indicates a crime occurred when none did. Therefore I request it be stricken from the record. I do admit, however, to having forced the creature despite it’s struggle.”
“Request granted,” said the judge.
“There were witnesses to this event,” pressed Raymond, “who said that once you were finished with the individual, you left it, seemingly with no further intentions for it.”
“That is true,” Raymond acknowledged.
“And is it also true that had those witnesses, (who prefer to remain unnamed), had they not brought the matter before the police, you would not have bothered with the incident ever after? That you had no further care nor thought to this creature whom you had just so ill used?”
“Quite true,” admitted the man in the witness box. Then he leaned forward so only Raymond to hear, but I overheard as well: “But watch your professionalism, and check your temper. Remember the Doe case?” I heard a huff release from Raymond.
“Gentlemen.”
“My apologies, judge,” offered Madison. “Is the Accuser finished with his questioning?”
“For now.” Raymond retreated to his seat.
Madison swept out from the box and onto his stage. “Gentlemen, I wish to show you how ridiculous this questioning is, based on the participants against this alleged crime. I am a lawyer, and a competent one. I know the law. Our government has provided that with the prohibition of ex post facto law, I cannot be convicted of a crime that was not a crime when I committed it. My relations with Object A were perfectly legal, and Mr. Raymond knows that. It is my inclination, then,” Madison began pacing, and I knew the eyes were following him, “that Mr. Raymond is confused about his own purposes in bringing me to court. He cannot convict me of a crime that is not a crime, and he cannot create a crime out of something that is unworthy of the title. Gentlemen, if this creature is a man, then surely it deserves all of the rights and privileges of one. But who is willing to make a man out of this?”
He looked at me. I felt his gaze burn my skin, and heard the scraping of chairs as the other men in the room leaned forward to inspect me. I hugged my knees so tightly that my legs beginning to lose feeling.
He brought to witness a professor of Biology, who assured the crowd that while I had some basic features shared with men, I was not one of them. I was too soft to be a man, too small, I was deformed, I could not speak, and according to them, I could not feel.
Madison’s next witness was a psychologist. He told them that I was inferior to men in intellect and maturity. Supposedly I would only ever achieve the level of one of their five-year-olds in either.
When the last witness stood, I closed my eyes so tightly that my face distorted, and I tried to hide myself in the corner of my cage. It is silly to try to hide in a glass cage, but I so wished that the trial were already over and my extermination performed that I could did not think clearly. It was the Doctor. I had not seen him since I had escaped the clinic, and I had prayed (to whom I did not know) to never see him again.
He stepped softly passed me, softly into the witness box. Madison asked how long he had run his clinic.
“I have been helping men solve their problems for the last… twenty-five years, I believe.” His voice could not have been gentler, calmer, or more loathsome to me.
“And that helping includes what?”
“I run a safe, clean clinic that provides relief to men, without having them forced to seek back-alley relief. I’m not suggesting your experience wasn’t legal, sir, just that, perhaps you should have come to see me, first?” He was smiling. I could hear it.
“And what are your reasons for keeping such a clinic?” Madison leaned against the witness stand, so close to my box that I cringed.
“I believe the freedom men have to make their own choices, and to do what they wish with their own bodies.”
“Here here!” came a chorus from the audience. Men started clapping and cheering, and I saw Raymond in his chair looking paler than ever. Madison offered the questioning to him, and Raymond took it.
Raymond cleared his throat. “Doctor. You have said that you believe in the rights a man has to his body… but what about the rights this creature should have to it’s body?”
“Mr. Raymond, that creature barely knows it even has a body. If I may ask a question, what are you trying to do? Create laws that protect these creatures, while causing suffering to your fellow man? If the government bans comfort clinics like mine, men will be forced to seek less safe methods, and we will see a rise in disease and death. As I said, my clinic is clean, comfortable, and undergoes a health inspection regularly.”
“Your clinic? You mean your whorehouse!”
More shouting, more banging of the hammer.
“Mr. Raymond, I’ll have no more outbursts from you,” the judge warned. The Doctor was dismissed, and Mr. Madison jumped up to join a very flustered Mr. Raymond. Madison began talking of an initiative to increase education about diseases and risks, especially in schools. The judge was stopping him so that he could go through with his sentence and move on to the next case, when Raymond grew animated again.
“Wait!” he shouted, “I have one more witness!” Grumbles of protest came from the audience, and even the judge sighed. However, he allowed him the last witness. Raymond gulped. “My witness is… Object A.”
Everything stopped. After the initial shock passed, the audience began grumbling again.
“Please?” Raymond begged before the noise grew too loud. I did not hear an answer, but then Raymond was undoing the latch at the side of my prison. He stood there at the opening and began speaking to me – the first words a man had ever spoken to me before. He wanted me to come out. I sat motionless, but I let my eyes meet his. The murmuring faded for the second that he took off his jacket, then it exploded when he handed the clothing to me.
I examined the jacket. The noise did not bother me, but I saw it bothered Raymond, so I tried to hurry. I had never put on a jacket before, but I did it well enough, and crawled out of my box and up to the witness box. I pulled the jacket tight around me, enjoying the covering.
Raymond stared me in the eyes, and I stared back at him.
“Mr. Raymond,” the judge interrupted, “Are you going to question your witness?”
The courtroom was so noisy I could barely hear Raymond’s muttered reply, but the room quieted to hear his question.
“So… yes. You are… are you man?”
I stared at him. He had green eyes, a lively green I had never seen before, so odd a find in a room full of black, white, and gray. Glancing over the crowd, I saw how same they looked, all in their suits, still for that moment only until something else interested them. They might have liked a spectacle, one where I stood and proclaimed my manhood despite my disfigurement, my inferiority. But no, as much as they would have enjoyed a spectacle, that is not what they really wanted. They wanted me to be mute, so they could keep doing what they wanted to do without the trouble of me being a man. People judged based on what they want to believe, and I had no hope as long as they clung to those wants.
Besides, I could not speak.
They soon snatched my opportunity. Shouts arose, and the judge hammered while he looked pityingly on Raymond. Raymond stared me long in the eyes again, then before slumping back to his seat, mouthed the words: “I’m sorry.”
“Quiet! Quiet!” the judge shouted. The room quieted. “Raymond had a good try for such a young lawyer, but the law still holds. Mr. Madison, would you rise? Mr. Madison, the charges against you are faulty. You are hereby cleared by this court, and innocent in the eyes of your country and fellow men. Case closed.”
Innocent, was the last word that crossed my mind before the police came to lead me away. Innocent.

The Stonemason

I haven't written anything in a long, looong time. And it shows. After deciding to and writing a story again, I compared it to my old works and was devastated at the comparison. Well, my old stories weren't great either, so you see how terrible this one is. The point is that I want to start writing again, and this is my feeble first step.

The Stonemason

John dropped his carving tools with an angry clatter. He turned around and kicked the side of his last letter, “H,” scuffing purposely. “Of all the worthless…” He set his jaw, and a vein bulged in the creases on his forehead. As he passed the beginning of his work - a youthful attempt at a “T” - he steeled his eyes away from it. He walked with the determination that he would either calm himself with walking, or march over the edge of the page.
“ Good morning, John!” called out a woman who considered herself friendly. “How are you today?”
John kept walking. Why were people so spitefully cheerful? What does “how are you?” mean anyway? Did his neighbors truly want to know the state of his physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing?
“I’m doing well, too!” the lady called after him. “Have a nice day!” The social rite of greeting must make some people feel accomplished.
John wandered in between some old letters where he thought no one else would bother him. Stumbling over a loose stone enraged John, and he picked up a rock and threw it in the direction he had come. John sat against the side of a “G” and place his head on his knees. In an instant his head felt clearer, and he noticed his heart pounding fiercely.
Was he really that bad of a stone mason? Why did God relegate him to such a miniscule task? John had previously prided himself on not thinking of himself too loftily, but perhaps he had still overestimated.
He picked up a rock the size of his fist and ground it on the stone floor. The stones growled satisfyingly. John threw that rock away as well. As he raised his face again, John blinked against the brightness and found a twig nearby. John traced out his life’s work in the sand at his left. “T-H-E.” He stared at it discontentedly. As a young man he had been excited to receive a commission, carving a great “T” out of stone, masonry tools, and ambition. That first letter took the longest, for he wanted it to be perfect – a good start to a solid career. The day he ended the “T” he received his next letter: “H.” John neared middle-aged by the time he received this, and though he finished the “H” in half the time he spent on the “T,” he realized that his life’s purpose could not be very long.
“But maybe it could be.” Unnatural optimism sparked in him. “There are lots of words that start with “THE” that have great meaning… such as… theology. And…theo…well, I don’t even have to know the word, as I’m given the letters. I’m just a stone mason.”
“Hello, John.”
John flinched. His old friend, Faithful, edged along the curve of the “G” as he approached him.
“May I sit with you, friend?” Faithful asked.
John shrugged. Faithful leaned against the “G” and slid his body partway down, frequently adjusting his cane for balance, one time planting it on John’s let.
“Sorry, my boy.” Faithful’s knees creaked as he lowered himself the rest of the way to the ground. “I hear you have received your last letter,” he said when he was finally settled.
John nodded again. “Yes. I had hoped for more, but… it’s my last. I’m getting old, Faithful.”
Faithful laughed. “You’re not near my age, and you still have much hewing to do. I’ve finished my word, or so I thought. Apparently God wants me to keep chipping at it to make the edges clearer. I’m not sure, exactly.”
The friends sat in silence.
“I have thought, too, about the words others were given,” Faithful commented between the silence.
John blinked.
“…Well, there were the names, those are important. And then there are some great words, ‘BELIEVE,’ for example, or ‘JUDGE.’ They give a mason something to think about while he is carving. But you can’t choose your word, John. It’s a honor that you’re given one, really. The point may be that it’s not the word that is important, but the way you’ve done it. With a joyful spirit, see.”
“Joyful spirit…” John muttered.
“Why, yes, joyful spirit! Even if your task is meaningless, it’s always good to throw in a little joyful spirit to make the whole process better!”
“Thank you, Faithful.” John stood and shook the dust off his trousers. “I think I’ll go back to my letters now.”
“It’s always my pleasure to talk to you, my boy.” Faithful tried to pick himself off the ground. John helped him, to save himself the exertion of watching Faithful strain.
John began walking away.
“John!” Faithful called after him. John stopped. Faithful hobbled near. “John. You don’t know how your work influences the bigger poem of life. See? One day we’ll get to heaven, and we’ll say ‘Oh, look! How nicely that “THE” is formed from up here. Look at that one thing I did, and how it impacts everything else.’ Then the Lord may even thank you for your work. You just have to have faith, my boy, that God works things out like that.”
John thought. “Thank you, Faithful.”
Faithful smiled. “You’re welcome, my boy, always.”
John walked away slowly, picking his way through the letters as he contemplated. When he got back to his “TH,” he gathered his tools back into his work bag, and took out his marker. He turned it in his hand. Slowly, carefully, he began to measure the length of his “E.”
~ ~ ~
Years later, when John was almost as old as Faithful (though Faithful had been gone long since), John chipped off the final imperfections on his “E.” He thought about the beginning of his last letter, and how foolish he had been over it. “Troubling over the glory of his letters, how sensitive,” he thought. John felt satisfied with them now, and even grateful that he wasn’t given those long words such as “ASCENDED,” “FORGIVENESS,” or “EVERLASTING,” which usually took a whole family to build. Instead, he was satisfied with what God had given him, and at peace with the outcome.
After eating a plain meal, John lay himself on his cot and fell asleep.
“Wake up, John.”
John opened his eyes. He saw a man he knew, and was filled with joy. “Hello, Lord.”
“John, I have something to show you.”
They went to the edge of Heaven and peered down to the page below. There, John saw the whole poem:
“I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY,
MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH,
AND IN JESUS CHRIST
HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OUR LORD.
HE WAS CONCEIVED OF THE HOLY SPIRIT,
BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY,
SUFFERED UNDER PONTIOUS PILATE,
WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED.
HE DECENDED INTO THE GRAVE,
AND ON THE THIRD DAY,
HE ROSE AGAIN, ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES.
HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN,
WHERE HE SITS AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY.
FROM THERE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.
I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT,
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH,
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS,
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS,
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY,
AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING,
AMEN.

“What do you think, John?” the Lord asked.
John stared. On the page he had thought that Heaven would loosen his tongue, but instead it staggered it further. “I think… of how beautiful and large everything is. Look at everything you did, and how it works together like that.” John smiled. “Thank you for letting me be a part of it.”

Bierochs

I'm trying to post brilliant things here, and Garrett said these were brilliant. These are German hamburger rolls, and/or, hamburgers disguised as rolls. The point is, they are good, and freeze well, and Garrett loves them, so I end up making them semi-frequently. Recipe follows.

Bieroch Recipe

Dough portion:

2 C Scalded Milk
1 C warm water
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 C Shortening
2 eggs
2 Tbs yeast
8-10 C flour

(This recipe was given to me by my grandmother and doesn't have instructions, but this is how I made them).

Scald milk while proofing yeast in the warm water and sugar. Mix the flour, salt, and shortening in a separate bowl; add the scalded milk to the flour mixture. Mix. Add eggs and yeast mixture to floury goo, mix until incorporated, then knead. Knead until dough is elastic, then cover and let rise until doubled. Prepare meat filling.

Meat Filling:

1 lb ground beef
1 onion (chopped)
4 oz shredded cheese (we prefer swiss)

Brown meat with chopped onion in frying pan. Let cool until it wouldn't burn you if you accidentally touched it.

When dough has risen, you can punch it down and let it rise again, or you can start pinching off tennis-ball sized lumps. Flatten the lumps with a rolling pin. Make a small pile of shredded cheese in the middle of the flattened dough, and put ground beef/onion mixture on top. Bring up the sides of the dough-disk and pinch together, so it makes a roll. Do this until you run out of meat or dough (unless you are lucky or scientific and have exactly the right amount).

Bake bierochs at 350 degrees until browning on top. They should be a nice golden color.

Das ist es! (Garrett translated "Voila!" for me)

I hope you enjoy them.