Mmm, good Bible.

[birthmural]

Daimon had chosen the location ahead of time. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was sacred, perhaps more so than the Vatican. It was the place where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried. It had also not been descrated.

Many months had passed since Daimon spoke before a group of people. His palms sweat and he wiped his brow. Silently, he asked God for the strength to not simply speak but to speak on behalf of the Lord.

When the time came, he walked up before the assembled, Bible in hand. While he was nervous, perhaps on the verge of a panic attack, his words were strong and passionate and grew surer the more he spoke.

“I recognize that the people on board this ship come from various walks of life. Some of you, perhaps, are not familiar with Christianity. If this is the case, you may ask whatever questions you have and offer me any comments or insights after I have spoken.” Daimon then gave what he called a “brief summary” of Christianity. It was, in fact, very lengthy and detailed and contained heavy praise of Jesus and the love of God. He then moved on to give a similarly “brief summary” of the context behind the Old Testament.

“Some of you are perhaps aware of the book of Job. Job was a prosperous man. He had seven sons and three daughters. He had herds of animals and acres of land. He was a devout worshipper of God. In the story, the Adversary speaks with God and tells him that Job only praises God because he has no reason to blame him. He says that if God takes away from Job all of his blessings, his animals, his land, even his children, then Job will curse God’s name. God answers that Job will retain his faith and permits the Adversary to strip away everything from Job save his health.”

“A series of disasters befall Job. He loses everything, his land, his herd, and even his children.” Daimon paused. “Job is distraught. Throwing himself upon the ground, he cries:

“‘Naked I came from the womb,
naked I shall return from whence I came.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.’

“The Adversary spoke with the Lord God again. He tells him that Job continues to praise God only because Job himself has not been afflicted. God allows the Adversary to take from Job his health.

“Robbed of his health, bereft of hope, Job laments. He cries out to God, begging for relief, begging for death, and questioning his justice. Each of Job’s friends berate him and encourage him to have faith but Job refuses. Job’s lament continues until God himself answers him. The Lord says:

“‘Brace yourself and stand up like a man;
I shall put questions to you, and you must answer.
Would you dare deny that I am just,
or put me in the wrong to prove yourself right?
Have you an arm like God’s arm;
can you thunder with a voice like his?
Deck yourself out, if you can, in pride and dignity,
array yourself in pomp and splendour.
Unleash the fury of your wrath,
look on all who are proud, and bring them low,
crush the wicked where they stand;
bury them in the earth together,
and shroud them in an unknown grave.
Then I in turn would acknowledge
that your own right hand could save you.’

“At these words, Job kneels and asks for forgiveness. The Lord grants it and Job prospers greater than ever before. He lives to see his grand children and his great grand children and his great great grandchildren. To the end of his days he sang the Lord’s praise.”

Daimon gazed into the eyes of the people before him. “You may ask, as I have, why the Lord would cause a blameless man such grief. You may, as I once did, come away with the sense that God is not just, that he is fickle and cares not for man but this could not be further from the truth. To ask why God could and does allow such horrible events to transpire to such good people would be folly, for it is as the Lord says: we cannot judge him. We cannot know why the Lord acts as he does, nor can we hope to know. We can only have, nay, we must have faith in his actions. For the Lord is greater than all of us. He sculpted us with his hands and breathed into us our souls. The Lord knows more than we can possibly imagine and has our best intentions in his heart, even if it seems to us that he has caused us nothing but misery.

“Why, you may ask, have I told you this story? ‘What meaning could it have on my life?’ And this, I shall tell you. Every one of us on this ship is lost. We have been stripped of our most precious comforts- our home, our friends, our family. We do not know what lies ahead of us. We may despair, we may weep, we may beg for the mercy and guidance of our Lord. On board this ship, even surrounded as we are by each other, we may still feel, as Job felt, alone and abandoned.

“But I tell you that this is not so. You are not alone. The Lord sees you. In your darkest hour, at the hardest time of your life, you must remember that you are loved. You must remember that there is hope, no matter how dire your future seems. Furthermore, I tell you that though you have listened to every word I said and still do not believe, I tell you this: you are still not alone. For though we come from different worlds, cultures, and beliefs, we stand before each other as equals. We stand here together and so I tell you: we are not alone.”

Comments

threadhop is go

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

Mhm, whoops. Other people talking to the preacher-man means that John will stand over here, to the side, and wait to get Daimon's attention.

Since he doesn't know Sheena from anyone, really.

Re: threadhop is go

[birthmural]

Young flesh

"Thank you." Daimon mumbled, doing his best to ignore the desires of his darker half (and, if he were to be honest, his human half).

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

"Sayyadin, I have something you may be interested in." Besides me. Other memory was quick to caution her: There is more to this priest than first appears, Sheeana.

She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small, black object about the size of her thumb. It was a holofilm portable book, the kind used by travellers. She pressed it into his humid palm. "This is the Orange Catholic Bible. I know I can trust you to bring it back to me unharmed when you are finished with it. You operate it by moving the selector with your thumb." Which brings up a holographic projection of each individual page.

There's a tiny indentation around a favored passage: Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us? What is there around us that we cannot. This is the original copy, thousands of years old, given to Paul Atreides by Dr. Wellington Yueh.

Before he has a chance to stammer out a refusal, she is going. She doesn't make a big, obvious sway of her hips as she walks. Circumstance just happens to part her hair to reveal the delicate nape of her neck. The silent glide of her walk seems natural grace, though it is actually the product of years of training.

She only takes a moment to spare a glance at the young man waiting behind her, wonders what he thinks of what she just did.

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

John thinks a lot of things, running a spectrum from What was that? to the mental note that he does not, at any time, want to meet Sheena on a bad day. Everything about her strikes him as somewhat dangerous.

Fortunately he is not as tempted by the way she looks as poor Daimon, here.

He meets her look when she glances, but when she's gone John shakes his head and clears his throat. "I have a question, if you wouldn't mind. My friend and I do, rather."

[birthmural]

Daimon opened his mouth to ask the woman not to call him sayaddin, and to ask more of this Bible but she left before he could speak.

Strange.

And attractive.

He turned to John. "What is your question?"

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

"For those of us who don't feel abandoned or alone. What else would you say applies?"

Sorry the question is vague, it's not actually his question!

[birthmural]

"Do not question God's will. We may not know why events in our life occur. Perhaps it is all determined by free will, perhaps it isn't, but in either case God has a reason for his action or inaction."

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

"But how are we supposed to figure out what that is or why that is when most of us have no means of directly inquiring?"

[godelsolution.livejournal.com]

Allison frowns, slightly, at that answer. Which doesn't really feel like an answer to her. "Why shouldn't we question him?"

[birthmural]

"For the most part, you cannot. God's knowledge is as boundless as his love. 'Why' is not important and it is pointless to agonize over the question for you shall never, in your lifetime, have the answer. You must move on and place your faith in God."

[godelsolution.livejournal.com]

"For what reason should we do that? What reason does he give for that faith?"

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

John shrugs. "Why should I put all of my faith in something I don't understand and can't communicate with?"

[birthmural]

He has a point there.

"There are those who say that God does talk to us, we simply do not always notice."

[godelsolution.livejournal.com]

"How could we not notice?" Perplexed look.

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

"Okay, well. If you're talking about things like instinct or gut reactions, those could be other things too. Genetic memory. Social consciousness. People take in a lot of subconscious cues without ever realizing it. How is someone supposed to know that's God? What about people who don't believe in that version of the Almighty anyway? Are they wrong, or just looking at it differently?"

[birthmural]

Daimon sighed. He had never done well in the more social aspects of his classes at seminary. In fact, he'd done terribly.

"I cannot answer those questions for I feel you would not believe me. I will say this: at one point you must move beyond logic; step away from the the earthly realm and enter the spiritual. Faith, by its very definition, requires belief without logic and reason."

[godelsolution.livejournal.com]

"But faith in someone that you can't hear? Can't see or can't feel? How is that faith and not foolishness?"

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

"I can have faith in people. In causes, in movements, in intentions of others. But something I can't communicate with and don't understand, I feel that's asking a bit more than I'm willing to put out there."

[birthmural]

They are calling you a fool.

"That is your decision to make." Daimon grumbled.

[godelsolution.livejournal.com]

"It is, isn't it? We won't be hurt by not having faith..."

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

He shrugs. "It's just questions, either way."

[birthmural]

"Unless Hell exists, which in my world, it does. If you do not believe and are not devout you risk being sent to the Pit."

[godelsolution.livejournal.com]

She shrugs, "It couldn't be any worse than where I was."

[antitachyonic.livejournal.com]

Eyebrows up. "That...seems incredibly imbalanced. If it were be damned for being a bad person, sure. But to be damned because Christianity isn't what you believe in...then what about all the Buddhists and Agnostics and Islamics the world over?"

He's assuming they have those, where Daimon comes from.

[birthmural]

Daimon tensed at Allison's comment.

"There are exceptions. I am merely telling you what was taught to me." He turned to Allison. "And unless you came from Hell itself, you are mistaken. It can be worse, much worse."