Pinpricks

In the wilds of New Mexico you step outside at night, feel the cool dry swirling round you, and stare up at a heaven filled with tiny dots of glorious white light. But this year I’ve moved to the big city. I knew that nightly experience was one of the things I would have to give up; what star can shine through the din and lights of seven million busy people all conglomerated in a clump in the middle of Texas? But in a large way, I was wrong. When I step outside my door at night now, a warm blanket enfolds me, and there is something shining through the dark veil of the heavens. Always, there is something. It may only be two or three planets peeking through the clouds, but they are there, breaking past the blackness. Last night when we took our four dogs walking, the moon stared at us just like the Cheshire Cat’s grin the entire time. It was so bright it was almost disconcerting, I kept expecting it to start singing nonsensical songs and fading into a striped, fat cat. Sometimes, the lights are even manmade here, and nearly as beautiful as the glories set forever in the heavens. There is a certain awesome beauty in watching a ball of light cross your sky, and knowing there are souls up there, people headed somewhere in their planes and helicopters, busy with their own lives and likely looking down on our own pinpricks of light shining up from the darkness on the ground. The dark isn’t nearly so dark as I expected.

Sometimes the soul can make a move like that. Even those of us with the Son shining in our lives have moments of darkness. It can be true darkness, such as depression, or mourning for a loved one that seems to shade over all of life. Or, it can be the daily grind and monotony clouding over the joys and lights without our even noticing it. The wear and tear of every day spent in this broken world can begin to tell on us. It is too easy to fall into the trap of thinking this place is all that is, to forget where we actually belong. To forget there is a better land, and even this world will be renewed. To stop along the path, forgetting for a moment as the darkness closes in, that we were even headed to higher ground and a Celestial City. Pilgrim, you need to remember.

Stars can rekindle your joy in the quest. The lights sprinkling the darkness are nightly, visual guides to a better, truer thing. They stay there, unwinking, slowly rotating as our globe moves, telling us plainly that the darkness cannot last. That there is more out there. More to come.

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach[1].”

There is an awe-inspiring wonder in staring up at the heavens. Our age isn’t the only one to feel it.

“When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him[2]?”

But there are moments when even the stars have no ability to kindle our hearts back to the light. When our souls are so deadened, so used to what they see around them, that the head never even lifts to the heavens. Night comes and we close the blinds, and shortly after head to bed, to get the rest needed for yet another day. Is there a method to reaching such a tired, blackened, bewildered soul as this poor pilgrim? God has many ways, dear friends, and no despair is too dark for Him to penetrate. But there is one method I would mention, that perhaps you should be cultivating as a habit in your life, just in case such a situation arises, and you need that pinprick of light to awaken your soul back to the realities of the deeper realities than what the blackness whispers to you exists.

Read books. Make it a habit to pick up a book and read a bit every day. Not only blog posts and articles, but an actual book. It might be a history book, filled with stories of peoples in past eras and deadly and heroic deeds. It might be a theology work, extolling the glory of the thrice holy God. It might be poetry, lines of alliteration lilting off the page to burst into song in your heart. It might be a simple work of fiction, just a good story you pick up for fun. But I’ll tell you something, dear readers.

Words have light.

They can act as pinpricks in the dark, just like a star. A book is one soul pouring their thoughts onto a page in printed words, words that your soul responds to. We recognize the acts, emotions, cares, and truths contained in the books we read, because we are all fundamentally the same. We are souls created in the likeness of God, vessels made either for honor or dishonor, every one of us with the sacred and the earthly stamped upon us. And in an amazing stroke of awe-inspiring wonder, we are all a little different too. Books have a way of sparking into us partially because of that sameness, and that differentness. The author of the book on your shelf knew many of the same truths as you. But they have a different way of stating it. Sometimes a truth stated in a different way can spark through every black cloud and shine a white light straight into your soul.

Reading a book is a perilous business. It is opening a door to hear someone else’s thoughts, to let in their light. Or their dark. Be careful which books you choose, be very careful. There are some works out there that spread the dark of their authors, not the light of any sort of truth. But there are other books that have beauty and joy that wrenches you free, that startles you into remembering the world is more than the black cloud, that make you leap out of bed and step outside to breathe the air and stare up at the Cheshire Cat moon.

Words can awaken you. They can inspire and spark and sizzle till you simply have to do something, if only laugh at all the world’s black despair.

The darkness is only a passing thing, after all. The war is already won. Yes, we have many skirmishes still to fight, and the miles to the Celestial City can seem very daunting some days. But there is always a light along the way, guiding our steps.

“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts[3]:”

There is one book in particular you must make a habit of reading on your way. God has given you a sword that pierces through anything the devil may throw. When the darkness presses and life itself seems to be smothering you, remember the one book that God has given us as a weapon, that He has promised will always be here, till the end of time. Never neglect the Bible. Always study the Word. Never let the habit drop, no matter how busy life gets, or how dull you may feel. God will use that weapon mightily if you let Him.

               

And while the Bible is like a searchlight suddenly searing through every cloud wrack and dissipating the darkness as if it never was, other books can be pinpricks that help the searchlight sputter into life. Keep reading. Let the words tell you the colors of the gates leading to heaven[4], of the real world that only keeps getting bigger the farther you go into it[5], of the Mended Wood[6], of the laughter and freedom in creating the lights right here on earth even if that creation starts as nothing but a chalk dragon[7].

Words have power. Cultivate the right power inside you, and let the light in. Once the light is in you, and in you firmly, that is when it can start to shine out and prick the souls of those you come in contact with. Everyday isn’t a grind, not really. It is an opportunity. An opportunity to brush up against another soul and maybe kindle a spark through their darkness with a word of your own.

But that’s a whole different post for another day. Right now, remember to look up. Hold your head high, pilgrim, and keep watching the stars, like the dreamers and poets. And when you come inside, let your hand stray to that dusty book. Keep reading.

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[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Return of the King (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993, page 957)

[2] Psalm 8:3-4 (KJV)

[3] 2 Peter 1:19(KVJ)

[4] “He stood a moment with erected brows,

In silence, as a creature might, who gazed:

Stood calm, and fed his blind, majestic eyes

Upon the thought of perfect noon. And when

I saw his soul saw, - ‘Jaspur first,’ I said,

‘And second sapphire; third, chalcedony;

The rest in order,…last amethyst.’” –,Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the last lines of Aurora Leigh (Academy Chicago Limited, 1979, page 351)

[5] “But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” –C.S. Lewis, from The Last Battle (Harper Collins, 1984, page 211)

[6] “The song had gone on for a while, lamenting verses, offset by the hopeful refrain ‘It will not be so in the Mended Wood.’ She thought of all the times she had heard rabbits in this community counter a despairing word with this phrase. She had thought it was only a word of encouragement. She hadn’t realized they were singing to each other a song of hope.” –S.D. Smith, from The Green Ember (Story Warren Books, 2016, page 313)

[7] “Henry, let your imagination be as wild as the spinning universe. Let it be beautiful and adventurous and even terrifying. Let it go free. Don’t be afraid. But remember that art does things you don’t expect. Remember that it can hurt people, but remember that it can make them happy as well. Remember that it can break things and stomp on things sometimes, and that’s where chivalry comes in…” –Jennifer Trafton, from Henry and the Chalk Dragon (Rabbit Room Press, 2017, kindle location 1645)

A Perilous Gift

It is a dangerous thing to be free.

Freedom is a beautiful thing, to be sure, that I wish for everyone on this broken globe; a chance to make your own decisions, to go where you will, to worship as you wish. But there is a strong element of danger to those who have the opportunity to go their own way. The slave never has to wonder what to do from day to day. Someone else tells them, and they must do it. There is a kind of security in that, a bit of laziness that will likely settle on a man, till they are content or even pleased to shuffle along under someone else’s orders. It means you never have to think for yourself. You never have the regret of wondering if you should have done something differently. It isn’t up to you, after all.

The freeman has a different scenario. Peter lays it out for us beautifully in his first epistle:

“For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.” (1Pe 2:15-17)

Just in passing, let me comment, Peter has a great deal to say leading up to this statement. I encourage you to go read the whole of the book to get a better understanding of how he reaches this conclusion. But I would rather not write a treatise, only a blog post, so I am focusing on these few verses.

You are free now, Christian. You are set at liberty from your sins, from the carnality of the flesh which used to bind you fast. Back then, before Christ sought us out, we didn’t think much about who we served or what we did. We thought we were free. Probably, if we thought of it at all, we thought we were freer than the Christian. But read through scripture, and look back on your own life, and you will know better. There is no ability to truly serve God without the change He brings in our hearts. "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Rom 8:18) And if we cannot serve God, we must serve another.

“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Rom 6:16)

Don’t kid yourself. If you cannot serve one, you are a slave to the other. Sin held us in thrall before Christ. But now…now we have freedom. Liberty has come on our souls. We see clearly what is right and wrong, and we have a desire fueled by the Spirit of God within us to follow the right, in order to please our merciful Lord. But here is the crux.

Now that we are free, we are no longer slaves. Seems an obvious statement, I know, but let me take it a step farther. If we are no longer slaves, we have the opportunity to choose. Oh dear. We have to actually make decisions for ourselves. Thank God we are not left entirely up to ourselves, we have the Spirit’s guidance, and God’s words always to hand. But still, we suddenly find ourselves in a position we have never actually been in. Freedom means we suddenly have to think for ourselves. We have options and questions now. We are faced with choices every day. Usually they are small enough. Will I yell at the noisy kid to shut up so I can rest, or will I lovingly tell them to take the noise elsewhere? Will I sing over the opportunity to serve my family by doing the dishes, or by going to work every morning, or will I do it with a grumble and grump? The choices seem small. But they add up quickly.

Freedom brings responsibility, as well as blessings.

Peter points out the obvious weakness of every human heart. “You’re free now,” says he, “but watch it so you don’t use that liberty to hide malicious sins behind a cloak of God’s love for you.” The verse just before the Romans 6 verse quoted above, Paul does the same thing. “By the way, some of you are asking, should we sin because we are not under the law anymore but under God’s grace? God forbid!” concludes Paul, and it is the best outbreak of righteous indignation we can give on the subject. But don’t you think there is a reason both these apostles have to add in those little clauses? Every human heart is wired for duplicity after the fall. We all want the easy way out, we don’t want to fight it when urges suddenly pop into our hearts. Sometimes it is plain maliciousness. Wanting to do the evil, likely in order to hurt someone else; maybe God Himself. Sometimes it’s selfishness that strikes in and makes us whine for what we want like two-year-olds. More often, at least with me, it’s plain laziness.

It takes work to be good, people. It’s a constant job to stand up in front of the world, with the lion raging at us every second, and do what we’re supposed to. But that is what freedom calls us to. Now we are free. Now that we can do good, we are to do good; because we have the choice. We are able to choose between right and wrong. God has renewed our hearts and minds, given us His own Spirit, pointed us in the right direction, and even taken our hands to walk beside us on this pilgrimage. But just because it’s good, doesn’t mean the walk is easy. It doesn’t mean the everyday choices are easy. But now that we are free, we have the obligation to choose what’s right.

It’s a bit like voting in America. If we don’t get out and do it, voting for the right people to lead our country the right way, then we are deliberately allowing the wrong people in. By exercising our freedom in not voting, we condone the evil by pure laziness.

When we choose not to do what’s right in our own lives, we take a step back into the chains that held us before Christ, and we do it to spite Him. It is a choice, all our own. We now have that freedom. Don’t use it. Use your freedom to be a shining light for the Lord Who has made you new and walks beside you. The world is watching. They know you are a Christian, and Who you’re supposed to be serving. Don’t give your Father a bad name, adopted child. You have the freedom to be a little stinker. Don’t use that freedom. Instead, use your liberty to take solid step after solid step toward the end of the race. Keep on your way up the path, Christian. You never know who is watching. Satan was watching Job, so was God, and all of heaven. Obviously his friends were too. You are hardly unobserved as you go through this life. You are a freeman, with the dangerous opportunity to live as you want to. Take care, Christian! Live for the King who granted you your freedom.

“Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.”

What Ever Happened to Charlie?

“God brings beautiful treasures even out of smoke and ashes!” – Corinth

“Duty may not be all there is, Turner. But doing thy duty, doing right, according to God’s rulings, bids thee draw closer to Him, and that draws thee closer to the source of all true joys.” – Arvi

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I know certain that I ain’t handing the prince over to this crazed lady with a knife. I’s scared silly she means what she says. But I’s promised Arvi, and God says a man’s gotta protect those as can’t protect themselves, and Aston needs me now like he ain’t never needed no one, and there ain’t no chance I’s gonna just hand over this baby.”
– Turner

“What of thee, sir? What would thou wish for thy son?”

“A heart devoted to the Savior of all life,” I answered immediately. “A servant’s heart, willing to do his duty well. I would like to wish him whatever trade he chooses in life, but I fear he is doomed to follow my footsteps.” – Charlie

“Bak!” – Aston

The fourth volume of the Dreaded King saga, the penultimate book, has taken an abominably long time getting to you. In my own defense, I actually wrote it twice because I wasn’t satisfied with my first version; I also got married in the interim, and am expecting our first child, which, you know, tends to cut down on time a bit.

But finally! Mark your calendars, people, Heir Raising is coming out September 1^st.

I know, I left you hanging a bit, with Charlie and Corinth, and Arvi and Turner, all crammed into a derelict little house in Hartsom while the country tears itself apart and hunts everywhere for the king. Now it’s time to finish a little more of the story. You finally get to learn if Jornas finds the ring he’s been obsessed with tracking down, and what anonymous and deadly figure holds that sacred heirloom. And what did Charlie find to do while the nobles ranted and raved up at the castle? Corinth certainly has plenty to occupy herself with, what with the new heir, and trying to keep Turner Hitchley from accidentally burning the place down or teaching the prince how to pick a lock. Not that it much matters what they found to do. All of it is swallowed in the sudden desperate quest to stop a madman from unearthing a legendary danger threatening to wipe out everyone on their little globe. Arvi merely has to keep them alive, whatever his companions are doing. But as day follow day, Arvi’s task begins to be difficult, until the morning it becomes plainly impossible. Then Arvi finds himself faced with a choice; do his duty, take the Hartsoms to safety and lose every soul he has ever come to love, or look the other way and keep trying to protect and serve on his own. Either choice leads to a bleak existence. Unless of course he winds up dead from an assassin's bolt before he has to make the choice.

Twists and turns follow the characters you’ve come to know through this series, and the twists begin to writhe into knots by the end of the book, knots that will bring death to someone, and maybe to all. But in the midst of a rocking world, with ancient legends failing, and ancient legends rising, and reality itself seeming to shift under their feet, the Son remains unshaken. God never changes, no matter what planet you may be on, whether you are poisoned, dying of plague, or in deep mourning for a son lost to you.

September 1^st, step back into their world, and follow Charlie and his friends through the laughter and despair of their penultimate volume! My prayer, as I wrote this book and spent countless hours working to make it right, is that you find more than just the characters and the story enthralling. I want you to find the Weaver of the tale, the One weaving your own tapestry of life, thread by thread, and learn to know our Savior a little better than you do now. And perhaps, serve Him with a little more purpose, and a little more heart.

Duty is a precious tool, and deep, abiding love of the proper things can change a world.

About the Culture

An introduction to a fantasy/sci-fi book does not usually turn into a philosophical treatise about biblical truths. But this one did, and it fits as no other introduction would have. There is such a thing as a high duty, and it is beautiful to behold. But is duty the best we can strive for?

As most of you doubtless know by now, I have been working on Dreaded King: Heir Raising (the fourth volume) for what seems like an age. I wrote it, I edited it, in fact I edited it quite a bit. I was never really satisfied with it. So, I decided to scrap that version, and write an entirely different Heir Raising, and see if I like it better. The sad news is that obviously I did not finish my series last year, as I had hoped to do. The good news is that I do like this version better. Quite a bit better, actually. I have one more scene to write, and then I can say officially that the new, real version of volume four is FINALLY written, and in the editing stage!

One of the last things I do with a Dreaded King book is to write the Arthur A. Simpson parts, the translator of the texts. Today, I wrote his introduction for him. It did not turn out like the other three introductions. It seems Simpson is on a bit of a thoughtful bent in this book. It suits the work, and though it is still in its pretty rough form (having just been written) I thought I would let you get a sneak peak of some of the oddities coming up in this new and penultimate volume of Dreaded King, and allow you to peruse the whole of his rambling introduction. You might find it introduces more than just a book.

Introduction

I despise writing introductions. I know most of you won’t even bother to read it. But it really must be done, so here I sit at my typewriter with my study door locked, pounding away at my old keyboard and praying none of the keys decide to stick.

This introduction isn’t like the other three (which I hope you read, as this is now the fourth volume of the Dreaded King saga). By now, you know how these remarkable documents came into my hands from another place, and how much skill and care I have taken in translating them, and even about the two different glossaries in the back of the work. I will not bother to repeat myself again. If you wish to know more of all that, go and read my first introduction, to Dreaded King: A Son Rises. (Barry, my friend who writes speeches for various government officials, is yelling through my locked door that I shouldn’t be “tooting my own horn” like that, and oughtn’t to mention any of the other books. I think perhaps I should stop talking to myself while I type.) Unlike those first three, this introduction is here to explain something about Planistah’s culture, something that you may or may not have noticed as you read through the texts, but which I am betting you missed entirely.

We in American Western Culture are not particularly familiar with duty. Oh, we do our duty alright, and we recognize that each individual person doing his part, for his own purpose, is what keeps the country and economy up and running. I think we recognize that more than most nations round the world. But, we tend to call it things such as “a hard work ethic,” or even go into technicalities such as the free market. Duty, as a virtue by itself, is not extolled or even remembered.

In Ǽselthŵeś, duty and virtue are the highest elevations a man can reach for. For over a thousand years, since Yatsig the Mighty first created his world-wide empire, and even before in the lives of the Aytenmars, duty and virtue are the two things that fill the books and songs with loudest praise, and are exalted and esteemed. Duty is drilled into a child from the day they are born, duty to God, king, and family, a deep sense that one must do what one must do, no matter what may try to hinder you. The most beloved of the old songs and stories are all about characters who had a task given to them, and how they quested to see the task accomplished, despite wars, peril, and distress of every sort. It doesn’t matter how small the duty might be. One ancient tale deals with a young knight who happens to be in the bedchamber of his king when a fly lands on his sovereign’s nose and wakes him from sleep. The king petulantly comments to the young knight, “I would have you slay that fly!” The rest of the massive work is taken up by the knight going throughout the world questing to find that particular fly and slay it. He meets up with a great many perils on the way, and when he finally does make it back, he’s missing several fingers, half a foot, and one eye. The beauty of the tale, for an Ǽselthŵeśian, is found in the unwavering and indomitable will of the young knight to do his duty by his king, no matter how difficult it might be to find one particular fly. To us in America, such a story sounds almost like a satire, something written to belittle a petulant king and show how silly you can be if you take them seriously; why, you might spend half your life searching for a fly! In Ǽselthŵeś, it is a tale of indomitable courage and beauty, and many a young boy is named after that young knight.

Really, I think I prefer the Ǽselthŵeś take on the matter. We are too cynical in this day and age. Everything must have a purpose, and if that purpose doesn’t have something to do with making something, or driving the economy forward, or exalting our own head above our fellows, than really it is silly and dull. Things such as goodness, humbleness, courage, duty for duty’s sake, honor, they are given a passing nod if they appear in our Western culture. But they are not talked about, because they are not tangibly useful, not solid. In Charlie’s culture, they are as solid as the ground people walk on. That is a healthier way to live, in my opinion. If the world really is more than we can see, if there is a God who cares how we walk from day to day, and a life that continues forever after the life we see around us now has dissipated, in the end it is duty and virtue that will matter more than any sort of price tag or fame we can place on our lives.

I should mention, to avoid confusion as I go on, virtue is esteemed right alongside duty. Indeed, the two are nigh inseparable in Ǽselthŵeś culture. You do not merely do a duty. You do your duty according to goodness, to the right founded in the Hurfin* God, the Source from which the code of honor and goodness springs. A good man, who can be absolutely trusted to do what he knows must be done, is the epitome of the hero on Ǽselthŵeś.

At least up till this time in their culture.

It is really in this book that things begin to shift. That is why I am writing this introduction, because something subtle and interesting happens as the last two books go along, and I knew you would miss it unless I pointed it out. Anyone who reads the Battle of Maldon, or Beowulf, is liable to miss the great Saxon tradition of a lordling esteeming honor and courage above even his own life, unless they know something of the culture. They drive forward screaming things like “Death and glory!” and their contemporaries laud them for it, while we of a less bloody culture blink in confusion and quietly quote, “Better to live to fight another day than to die senselessly like that. What on earth were they thinking?” I will not go into which is the better sentiment, the old Saxon or the quiet life of the Western American, I merely bring it up to help you understand why I am bothering to write this introduction. I am trying to help you understand the thinking of the average person in Ǽselthŵeś who would be reading this work, because otherwise you will simply not understand it. It would be a shame to miss the main shift of the day, and what I predict will be the best inheritance Charlie leaves to his children. In Ǽselthŵeś, duty couched in a righteous fervor has been everything good and commendable to the people. They even have a name for this lifestyle, for someone who places a virtuous duty as their daily goal, and keeps to it no matter what. When found in a hero on Ǽselthŵeś, it is called high duty. I could not have named it better myself. This is the goal of every child, to grow into that type of person, and it is certainly not a bad goal. I surmise this great love of duty and virtue is one reason why Ǽselthŵeś has lasted for over a thousand years.

But in this book, in Charlie and Arvi’s time, things begin to subtly shift. If you have read the proceeding volume, KnightDuty, you have doubtless been thinking of Arvi throughout this whole introduction, and you would have hit it on the nose (if you can pardon the expression). He is the perfect Ǽselthŵeś hero. A young man who daily places duty above his own happiness, and virtue above anything in the world. His whole focus is on doing what is right and what is required of him, and doing it well. He is very good at it. But, you may have noticed another part to Arvi’s character. Almost despite himself, he has what one might call an ulterior motive to his high duty. Later in the texts, Meagan suggests that Arvi is a new type of Aytenmar, mixed with Hartsom, due to his mother’s blood. Whatever the cause, Arvi’s driving force behind his high duty can be found (at least partially) couched in love. We see his longing to please his family, his ache to make his father proud, and the deepest well he delves into for his strength in battle is the love of his good mother. This is not normal in a story of high duty written on Ǽselthŵeś. When I came across it in the third volume, I put it down to a sort of fluke of Arvi’s character, even a admirable fluke, and one that he recorded merely to be perfectly honest with his readers. In this fourth volume, things begin to take a dramatic switch.

Arvi mentions duty less and less. Charlie never does. However, the virtue found in the main characters grows and blossoms, into self-sacrifice that is beautiful to behold, and tragic in its outcomes. But it is not couched primarily in duty. Instead we see friendships and family bonds developing and strengthening, and it is something new to the stories of Ǽselthŵeś that drives the characters on to their inevitable end. We have always seen this “something else” in Charlie, and it is part of what makes him so utterly alien to all those he meets in his culture, and also so well-liked (even adored) once he is known. He is a man who does what is right, partially for duty’s sake, certainly, that is what mostly drives him in the first book. But there is more to Charlie. We saw it when he sat sick and miserable on the high seat in the Granges, meditating on his motives while the council deliberated whether to back him or not, in volume two, and in all his dealings with the individual people he comes across. When Charlie meets a person, he wants to know their first name, not what they do for a living. Do you see the subtle shift? Here, in book four, that “something else” begins to define itself.

Love has come into play.

Now, I can almost promise some of you are wrinkling your nose and uttering noises such as “eeewwwww.” May I just point out, if you have read the previous volumes, you know very well that romantic love has little to do with it. That is there, but that is not what I mean, and you can put your annoyance back away, thank you very much. I mean Christian love, the type that looks on a random stranger in the street and sees a soul very like his own. It is the kind of love that looks upward to heaven’s throne and sees a God that loved despite all the imperfections and disasters inside, and then looks outward, and puts that grateful, burning love into action, pouring it out on the world around them. It begins in humbleness, moves into gratefulness, spills on to a desire to please the One Who loves even a sinner, which leads in turn to high virtue, and that spills into actions that play out in a tender and beautiful service to mankind. It is a deeper, more firmly rooted thing than a duty that has to be cultivated and nursed to a high point. That deep humble love is what has marked Charlie from the beginning of the volumes. In this fourth volume, it begins to creep forward, and make itself known, spreading from Charlie to the other characters, until it begins, in the fifth volume, to even overshadow bare duty.

Watch for it. Now that you know what to look for, I don’t think I really have to point out examples. I will only say, it culminates in two things: one is Charlie’s response to the kneeling baron at the end of book four, as everyone gapes at him as an unexpected but beautiful oddity; the other is Arvi’s response to Turner’s weeping plea as he kneels with Aston on the ship, near the beginning of volume five. These are alien matters to Ǽselthŵeśians. It is challenging the culture to look at their lives, examine why they do what they do, and decide if it really is the best method.

Duty is placed in sharp relief against love in these final volumes. Duty does not go away, by any means. In fact, duty is a part of every virtue. If you do not have a settled determination to do your duty, no matter what you might feel when you wake up in the morning, you’re sunk before you even roll out of bed. But it is challenged in its place of ruling over everything else. Duty is shown to be a hard master. If that is all you strive for, you are likely to end up hurting those you ought to be protecting, and your training methods may very well end in bitterness and disaster. At the end of this volume, duty crumbles. But virtue does not, and it has a new champion. I took the time to write this introduction because I knew you would miss the point if I didn’t tell you it was there. You are, after all, not a part of Ǽselthŵeś culture. A new kind of king has taken the throne, and by now everyone has recognized he is a…different sort of ruler. These last two volumes are bringing his differentness into sharp relief, and shoving them in the faces of all those who would oppose the Dreaded King of Ǽselthŵeś. Is high duty the ultimate goal and all that it is best to strive for? Is it better, the texts are subtly asking their readers, to do your duty for duty’s sake; or, is it a higher, better thing to do your duty because you hold high a burning love for your Lord and His people?

It is something each of us ought to be asking. Duty can be a bitter taskmaster. Fail but once, and it might haunt you for the rest of your life, if that is your only goal. Duty standing alone is a sapper, something that pulls enjoyment from a person’s bones. It is a hardening thing, a dull lifeless creature if found by itself. It can even quickly develop into a mere grudging will-power, where a person grumbles, but does his duty nonetheless. It can make a man virtuous. But can it really make him good? Doesn’t goodness have another facet to it, a certain softening of the edges, one might say, that comes from mercy, gentleness, and love itself? But love is a different creature. It imbues its users with energy, and a deep joy that cannot be shaken. It is unshakeable for it is founded directly in One Who cannot change. Duty is a derivative of life on this earth, of our sin nature itself. Because we are weak and fallible, we have to keep reminding ourselves to “do our duty.” Love stands alone. We delight to love. Yes, sometimes it can hurt too, as this book will show. But it is a life-giving, joyful thing to serve out of love. Love stands firm through all that life can throw. It is Love alone that lasts through all of eternity. Duty will eventually die with its owners. Love goes on forever.

If you give your life for your friend because it is your duty, that is admirable. If you give your life for your friend because you love him above yourself? Well…that is something much higher than merely admirable. That is something that points straight upward to the throne of a God Who loved those who were entirely unlovable, Who loved such worms even to the point of death.

And that is the story our lives ought to be telling.

[The text begins here]

*At its basic level, a Hurfin is the Planistah term for a Christian. But our word falls somewhat short for a direct translation. For one thing, in our Christianity there was a definite split from the old Jewish ways into the Christian ways, after Jesus came and brought the New Covenant and all that. As a result, Christian can often be seen as being from a certain time period, whereas Hurfin encompasses basically the whole of Planistah history. Also, because of that shift from Jewish to Christian, our Western culture morphed the term Christian to occasionally mean things such as “non-Jewish,” or even, “portraying a certain civilized manner.” In contrast, Hurfin is a purely religious term, meaning someone who believes the Hurfin’s book (Planistah’s Scriptures) and professes Christ.

Glory to God in the Lowest

The sky was iridescent orange, with streaks of pink, and yellow, and deep purple underscoring it all. Our lonely mountain stood right in the middle of it, solid and unchanging in the midst of the fading sunset. A glance out the other car window showed the silvery brilliance of the full moon beginning to peek over the jagged peaks of the Organ Mountains, heralding the beauty of the night before the blazing beauty of the sun was even done for the day. Over the speaker system in my car a Christmas hymn was playing:

“What child is this…?”[1]

The Maker of the sun and moon.

The Creator of colors.

The Master of our souls.

And he lay crying in an animal’s feed bin.

Cold. Frightened. Helpless. Homeless.

The wonder of it caught me by surprise this year. Every year it hits me, but it hit me harder than usual this time. Jesus Christ, the One who makes the intricacies of a butterfly wing, and the song of the whale, and each new cloud, the One who spoke all the universe into existence…a baby? A real live wrinkled helpless pink thing, looking uncomfortably like a chimpanzee? Really?

Unutterable love!

Unfathomable mystery!

This is a plot twist no human could ever create. Humanity tells stories about false gods, stories of half-gods even. But the half-gods are always weaker than the “real things,” contemptible, and usually sprouting from a rather evil beginning. This story…this is fully God and fully man. This is the true Creator of all things, the Ruler of every soul ever made, the Highest of high kings, the very essence of goodness, One Who is holy, holy, holy…He is the One to enter a virgin’s womb…Fashioned and formed over nine months like every other human, born in the same bewildering, painful, messy way we all came into this world.

The wonder of it all!

The open-mouthed unexpectedness of this thing called Christmas!

The hope!

Oh, the hope. Our only hope. Humanity broke the world. We broke ourselves. We broke ourselves to the point of being dead. Think crossed-out eyes, skull and crossbones, dead. No life, no breath, nothing to the soul but a lifeless hunk of indiscernible, putrid gunk. But God chose to step in. He chose to show His glory, how loving He could really be. Hope was spoken the same day we broke everything. Hope was breathed into humanity in our darkest hour. It was a spark that stayed alive through Israel’s line for thousands of years, hundreds of generations. There was speculation and wonder over what the hope would look like solidly. But no one ever guessed the awesome, majestic, utterly ridiculous unexpectedness of the truth. God as a baby. A tiny thing that can do nothing for Himself except bellow at the top of His lungs when He’s hungry or upset. A baby that had to learn to walk, learn to speak; He had to learn it of His ordinary, fallen earthly parents. Don’t you know that was a trial for both the parents and the Son? A baby who grew, taught like the Master He was, and…died. What?! Wait, that can’t be right.

Unutterable mystery! He took the gates of hell by shocked surprise. Satan thought he had won when Christ died. In reality it was the un-guessable plot twist.

The Master stroke of the ultimate Story-Teller.

And it all began in a manger.

The angels felt the wonder of it. They were awed, shocked, amazed, and delighted to the point that they just had to find someone still awake that dark night to blurt out their praise of this incredible story just beginning in David’s little hometown. We grow too used to Christmas. We sing the same songs. We put up the same decorations. We look at the same manger scenes. Take a step back this year. Don’t step back and see it with the eyes of a child. Step back and see it with the eyes of a grownup who is open to wonder. We know more than children. We can be awed in a deeper way than a child. But we have to let ourselves wonder. Don’t let callousness slip into you this Christmas. Step back. Think about the lyrics of the carols you’re singing. See the baby in the manger with renewed eyes.

Remember what He was.

Remember what He became in Bethlehem.

Remember what He came to do.

Remember where He is now.

Yes, now…Jesus Christ lives. He is watching you this very moment. Forget about Santa watching you when you sleep, Jesus Christ is really there, eyeing you every moment of your life, granting you the breath that goes in and out of your lungs this very minute! That baby…the King of Kings…He is real. Long live the King! Forever and ever. No wonder Herod was upset. He had good cause to fret. A new King was born into the world that starry night in Bethlehem. But it wasn’t a new King at all. It was the oldest of all Kings. Sleeping in an animal’s feed bin. Cold, bewildered, only shepherds, a carpenter, a housewife, and barn animals to admire Him. Oh, and angels. 

This is one of the oddest stories ever to reach our ears. And it is all true. Oh the wonder of it!

“There has fallen on earth for a token

A god too great for the sky.

He has burst out of all things and broken

The bounds of eternity:

Into time and the terminal land

He has strayed like a thief or a lover,

For the wine of the world brims over,

Its splendour is split on the sand.

“Who is proud when the heavens are humble,

Who mounts if the mountains fall,

If the fixed stars topple and tumble

And a deluge of love drowns all-

Who rears up his head for a crown,

Who holds up his will for a warrant,

Who strives with the starry torrent,

When all that is good goes down?

“For in dread of such falling and failing

The fallen angels fell

Inverted in insolence, scaling

The hanging mountain of hell:

But unmeasured of plummet and rod

Too deep for their sight to scan,

Outrushing the fall of man

Is the height of the fall of God.

“Glory to God in the Lowest

The spout of the stars in spate-

Where thunderbolt thinks to be slowest

And the lightning fears to be late:

As men dive for sunken gem

Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,

The fallen star has found it

In the cavern of Bethlehem.”

-G. K. Chesterton, Gloria in Profundis

---

[1] Lyrics by William Chatterton Dix

Not Alone

     “The watch feed went dead and Pete spun on his heel to march the other direction. He paced up the plane toward the cockpit, his features set and his heart heavy. Fifteen pairs of eyes kept glancing at him (seven of their rescuees were children, whose eyes were plastered on the tv, as they avidly devoured a Disney movie Pete had flipped on for them). The wiry old Akim, pastor of the small flock, stood up and offered the young man a smile as Pete spun around again at the cockpit door.

     ‘Come, brother,’ Akim said in Arabic, laying a hand on Pete’s shoulder. ‘Come, kneel with me and we will pray for your Jojo. And this brother you speak of.’ Pete blinked at him for a moment, obviously having to recall his mind to be able to understand the man. Akim knelt, his hand still on Pete’s shoulder, and the Parabaloni dropped gratefully beside him. Pete bowed his head with this old man he hardly knew, and let his overwhelmed thoughts speed out to the God Who knew all his sorrows and cares, however weighty or petty they might be, and listened with intense gratitude as Akim lifted up Jojo and Yousef, speaking the words Pete couldn’t quite bring himself to say out loud. Another strong hand landed on Pete’s shoulder. Then another, and another. After a moment he found himself surrounded by this small band of brothers and sisters, as they all knelt on the soft carpet and prayed for the Aziz family. Pete was overwhelmed. He let himself kneel there, and found every prayer was one of intense thankfulness for this gift of united hearts under Jesus’ cross. He only knew a few scattered names from this underground church. But they spoke his heart for him when he had no more heart to speak it himself, asking for salvation for the Aziz household, for safety for Jojo, for deliverance for Yousef’s soul…Pete let himself be overwhelmed and didn’t try and fight it.”

 –Scene from Chapter 4 of Running with SJ

I keep communion cups. Not from every time I partake of the Lord’s table, but I do keep them fairly often. I sit them on the dresser in my closet, and every so often my eye catches them. A little stack of old plastic cups. Most of them are from my church, obviously. But some are from congregations across the states, that I’ve had the opportunity to join of a Sunday. When I pull open my closet door, looking for something else, and see that junky stack in the corner it reminds me of two very beautiful things.

First, a warm joy fills me, speaking of a grace showered on my soul, a Father bringing an unworthy daughter to His table, and an unspeakable hope that flutters in my heart and tells me I will reach the marriage table of the Lamb. He has called me His own. “My God, my God, why have you accepted me[1]!” my heart cries out again when I spy that little stack of cups, and an overwhelming joy tells me that Jesus loves me. Like the old children's song. He really loves me! He calls me again, and again, and again, to sup with Him. To remember His blood and broken body, given up willingly for me at the cross. “I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep[2].” One of the beloved flock of God Himself, trained to recognize His voice, and called over and over to His own table! It is a beautiful reminder. But not the only thing that comes to mind when I see those old cups.

Someone gives me those cups. A brother passes it to me, and bids me come to the table with him. A sister sits behind me, head bowed in prayer, silently offering up praises and petitions to the same Father I'm praying to as I sit, cup in hand. When my eye catches that strange stack of cups, it brings to mind the communion of the saints. All the people around me, praying to the same great God, Who not only deigns to hear our prayers, but commands us to bring our cares and sorrows and joys and delights to Him. Every time I take communion, in any truly Christian church around the world, I am surrounded by people with the same heart. Very divergent lives, and incredibly variant personalities, but people with the same destination and the same source to their joy. People with the same Father. It is a family table that I gather round of a Sunday morning.

     “Jojo Aziz had left home with the knowledge she might never again have a home in this world, at least not for years and years…And here she was, two weeks after landing in the West, surrounded by family and friends, all of whom she had a deeper bond with than any outward observer might guess. It wasn’t just that they had stepped in and risked their lives to save hers, and shared a rousing adventure with her already. That helped. But it was more that these three gathered here were the right kind of men. They were men who had been taken in their broken sinfulness and had their very natures twisted back round till they were right. Right with God, right with their fellow men, and right with themselves. Just like she had. It wasn’t a comfortable thing to admit you were fallen and broken from birth. But the aftermath of throwing yourself on a heavenly Father’s love, admitting nothing but grace could make you right again, was remarkable.

     As Jojo Aziz sat in that mountain meadow, laughing and listening to these three Christian brothers, she realized being made right did more than just save her eternally. It gave her this. Fellowship, in a deep, real way, with people from all backgrounds. She was flung into more than just her Father’s arms, she was flung into a new family. Algy’s greeting when he had first met her came back to her mind, and a broad smile spread over Jojo’s lovely face, though her eyes were tellingly moist. No matter where she went now, the world over (though some of them might be hidden away), there would be someone with this connection, someone she had a deeper bond with than mere common likes and dislikes. And at the end of her race she would come to a world where everyone had that deep bond and joy, with all tears wiped away and her Father’s arms opened wide…Algy’s words rang true in her mind, and Jojo whispered them to herself as her eyes rose to take in the rocky cliff side, a sprinkling waterfall tumbling down it, masking the Parabaloni HQ from obvious sight, and listened to the swift conversation and laughter of her brother and new friends.

     ‘Welcome home.’”

– Scene from Chapter 10 of Running with SJ

It is more than mere sentiment when we call our fellow Christians “brothers.” Christ has united us in a real, deep way. “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another[3].” We are not alone as we walk this earth. It is both a highly encouraging thing, and a convicting thing. How many of your fellow Christians did you even say hello to in church this morning? How many names do you know in your own church body? How many families going to your church have you had over for dinner? How many have you bothered to ask, ‘What can I pray for you this week?’ We are supposed to be a body under Christ. We are meant to be working together. To be building each other up, and even to be helping in the material ways. Bring a meal. Offer a night of babysitting. Maybe just take the time and effort for a good conversation before you run off for lunch after church on a Sunday; you may never know how much a warm hug and honest interest in a brother or sister’s life may mean to them.

Never think you walk alone.

Christian, every time you come to the communion table, remember your Savior first. That is why you're there. To commemorate His shed blood and broken body, His love for you. But take a moment to look around you. So many souls, so many personalities, so many lives! All of them intertwined with yours in the ultimate goal of building a kingdom for this Savior Who died for you. Thank God, we do not fight this war alone.  

“For all the saints who from their labors rest,

Who Thee by faith before the world confess,

Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest,

Alleluia! Alleluia[4]!”

---

[1] “Mystery of Mercy” by Andrew Peterson

[2] John 10:11

[3] Romans 12:5

[4] “For All The Saints” by William H. How

The Ballad of the Cross-Country Gentleman

While looking over something else, I came across this silly poem I wrote years ago. The morality of a man ducking his creditors might be a little skewed, but the silliness is definitely intact. Enjoy laughing at the poor poetry too, I certainly did. 

________________________________

There once was a man that was named Don Quintoe,

With so many bills he didn’t know what to doe,

So he threw up his hands, said “Away with these bills!”

And he ran through the door to the road to the hills.

His creditors heard, and didn’t like this at all,

So they took to the road and they vowed they would maul,

That bold Don Quintoe, who was having such a ball,

Out where the sun shown free, and he owed nobody.

CHORUS: “I am Don Quintoe,

“I owe and I owe,

“But I’ll not go away

“Till the queen you lay,

“At the feet of this Don,

“The cross-country gentlemon!”

He ran and he ran, and rejoiced at being free,

Till he did look behind him and then he did see,

Those men who resented his having defected,

And were determined to see their bills paid.

They were behind, as has already been said,

But did I tell you they were also ahead?

Don gasped in his shock at the creditors sundry,

And promptly decided to go cross-country!

CHORUS

Away Don did go, up and up he did run,

Away from the hot road bathed by the warm sun,

He ran till he came to a dark forest’s mouth.

This forest was dark, deep, and ran from the south;

Should he enter a place so dark it erased

The sun (for branches together so tightly laced)?

Evil things must dwell there to live out of the sun,

For good things exist without that orb none.

CHORUS

Don entered the forest, with nary a peep,

Though he knew that doing so was a great leap,

And as soon as he came, adventure he found,

For into his sight a huge creature did bound.

This beast had great horns, twice three, on top his head,

His eyes looked as though he was never abed,

And he growled at our Don, “What do you here, mon?”

Quintoe took a deep breath and then said the Don,

CHORUS

“What Queen?” said the beast, his brow creased hard with thought,

“I don’t know,” answered Don. “But it does rhyme a lot.”

“Hold hard, Don Quintoe,” growled the enormous beast,

“I know of a queen, and in beauty not least,

“An evil ogre’s cellar she does lie beneath.

“Who also has a good fortune to bequeath.”

“A fortune?” said Don, pricking up his large ares,

“Lead on, beast; to rescue this fair queen I do dares!”

CHORUS

The beast led Don deep, deep into the dark wood,

Till at last in front of the ogre’s house they stood.

Don did shake in his boots, till he thought of his bills;

“No ogre is worse than a man unpaid who sills

His goods to those who cannot pay all that he asks.”

And the knocker Don took and in danger did bask.

“Bang! Bang!” went the door, for the knocker was large,

And soon through the door the great ogre did barge.

CHORUS

“You’re who?” said the ogre with a gleam in his eye,

Don answered him not, but gripped his staff for to die,

He lifted his staff and the ogre did see,

What looked like the trunk of a very large tree

Coming down on his head, but he sidestepped instead,

And grabbed for Don with his sharp, horrible claws.

Don stepped aside fast, and rapped him but good,

And the ogre did fall right where he had stood.

CHORUS

Out the queen she did run, the good Don to see,

And a punishment fitting she did decree,

On the ogre who had kept her so painfully,

For all of Don’s bills she then transferred you see,

To the ogre who lay in the depths of the wood.

But Don she did wed; and he found he could

Buy what he would, yet now he could pay,

And Don lived quite happily on from that day.

CHORUS

CHORUS

And sometimes

CHORUS AGAIN