trans_9 | Mmm, good Bible.

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Mmm, good Bible.

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.”

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"Here's the thing. The Old Testament is called Old because it is old. God was harsher in it. Colder. Kinda angrier. But even then, Christians believe that death isn't the end, that when someone dies, if they've lived a virtuous life, that they live on somewhere else, somewhere without all the pain and suffering of Earth. We're afraid of it, and it hurts when we lose who we love, but we believe where we go in the end is a reward. God taking Job's family away is horrible, but if that's true, if there's a better place, then Job's family went there, and Job learned to be even more grateful for the gift he was given...life."

Jaime raises up a finger, before they can interrupt. "Buuut, it's cruel. It is. I think so too, and some Christians think they're not really supposed to question it, but I still do because my parents taught me to and God gave me a mind that questions and a heart that can't stand injustice and it seems unjust. But that's why I look to the New Testament, where Jesus showed up."

Katara understood what he was saying, and from what little she had heard, she agreed. She didn't, however, buy everything. "What's the point of a virtuous life if you're only doing it for a reward though? Shouldn't you do it because its right, because you believe in things like justice and helping others? Besides, don't Job;s family have a right to that life too? I'm sure they wanted to live! My problem is that THEY don't get a choice, and really, does Job? Love God or suffer? That doesn't seem balanced at all."

Katara would have given it a name, but even she knew better than to say exactly what word that was. She looked over at Roxie, then at Damion, who'd given the sermon.

"What would you say? You've had longer to think about all of this than any of us have."

Damn, and Daimon had hoped to get away from this completely.

"The truly virtuous do not do so because of a reward, but because it is right. This life does not matter for it is the next life that shall be everlasting."

"If this life doesn't matter, then why is acting 'right' important?" Roxie's calm facade cracks a little as she frowns. "If you're going to say that anyone is 'right', it should be people who help others without needing carrots or sticks wielded by a being they've never met to get them to act."

She folds her arms over her chest. "Besides, when the Book of Job was written, Satan was still being done up as a chief prosecutor, not a figure of evil."

Daimon just stared at Roxie. "You are speaking of things which you know nothing about. You only think you do."

Edited 2009-08-29 01:34 (UTC)

"Actually, I think both are important. This life and the next one. And that brings up another point--every person comes up with their own interpretation of religion and their faith. Some want guidance, though, so they stick to...a framework, to start with. Christianity, being split into all it's denominations has a lot of starting points. Others don't even want that, and come to their own conclusions."

He goes on, "Even as I sat there in mass, I didn't believe everything Mr. Hellstrom here said, or accept all of it, I understand it was his own interpretation, and what comfort I could take in it, I took, and the rest led me to thinking about the parts I didn't agree with or understand. That's what a good pastor does. Reinforces what you believe, but makes you question the things you're unsure of, to come to your own conclusions and search for your own answers. Ultimately it's between every person and whatever God they believe in, and for some, if they don't believe in a God, they believe in good, or themselves, or find other things to have faith about."

He lifts his chin slightly.

"But to answer your question, some people believe there is no carrot. That the reward goes to people who genuinely care about other people, who live a virtuous life not for the reward, but because it's just right to help other people. That people aren't rewarded for doing good things out of selfishness, but rather because they truly believe they're the right thing to do. Personally, I believe the most virtuous people aren't the ones that do it to go to heaven, but--if they were told that doing the right thing would make them suffer in this life or the next--that they'd still do the right thing anyway."

The waterbender nodded. "I know there are a lot of people out here that have certain beliefs. For instance, we waterbenders do hold a special place for the Moon: it was the every first waterbender and from it we learned how to control the tides. The closest thing we have to gods are Twi and La, two gods who decided to become earthbound. I guess my point is, I agree with what you're saying. I think you SHOULD pick and choose the beliefs you need to help you cope with the good and bad things in the world. I guess my real worry is, well, what some people will do when they read something and take it literally? What if someone thought that Job's story meant they had to fall to their knees and thank God and depend on him only to get through every day? What if they tried to make other people follow that way of thinking whether they believed it or not? I've seen that happen in my world."

She sighed. "I guess that's why that story bothers me. It sounds more rigid than open-ended. People are sometimes unwilling to let others live on their own terms. This is why I like the spirits in my world: they don't give out books, or write down what we should do. They advise, they keep the world in balance. I think that's why I'd like your Jesus stories more. People are more inspired to good by good deeds and humility, not stories that make one more like servants."

Roxie and Damion looked as if they were about to kill each other, and she was a little surprised. "Um, do you guys live in the same world?"

"No, I do not believe that we are."

"If he was from my world, he'd have been laughed out of it."

She's halfway serious, too.

This is the point where Jaime facepalms. He and Katara seem to be having an entirely different conversation than these two.

"Uh. Okay, so are we talking here or are we snarking at each other? Because I thought we were having a civil conversation."

"She is deliberately baiting me." Daimon said simply. "If you have no further need of me, I shall be going." To the other side of the Church.

Katara blinked. She thought Damion was going to try and explain the sermon better. Why was he leaving? She was about to say something, but decided against it. He seemed really agitaed now, and Katara knew a thing or two about trying to talk with angry adults. The results weren't really the best.

So much for conversation.

"Well...I guess that's it then," Katara said, watching the man walk off in a huff. "I should probably get going. I don't want to disturb anyone else here. It was nice meeting you Jaime...and talking to you. Maybe we should hang out sometime?"

She looked over at Roxie. "Wanna see if we cab grab something to eat?"

"Sure. Uh, I could probably give you a less cranky explanation of all the stuff he talked about during the service," Jaime offers. "What was your name, anyway? I never caught it."

Roxie's face twists, just a little, and then she's slid back into that softly cold, self-limited expression.

She can't nearly bring herself to apologize.

Katara smiled, then looked over at Roxie. "I'm Katara, and this is Roxie. Although I'm still not sure about everything said today, I'll try to have an open mind. It wouldn't be right if I were selective about what I was exposed to. Hey, who knows, we might see each other in class soon, right?"

She walked off with Roxie, looking confident she would understand all that happened today. "So...I guess you and Damion have met before, or he wouldn't have been so angry. I can't really blame you: for an adult, his emotions are pretty touchy. Still, Jaime seems like a nice guy. Maybe he might have answers."

She looked over at her quiet friend. "Have you decided which classes you'll take?"

"Not really," Roxie says, and a hand goes up to fiddle with her glasses. "I want to look at them first. School is usually too slow for me."

She speeds up a little, her shuffling pace having started to halfway fall behind. "... I don't handle blind faith very well," she says, almost to herself.

Katara nodded, and adjusted her speed to slow down until Roxie caught up. "There are a few I have in mind. I've been reading the comms, so I have an idea of who's teaching what. I was considering Damion's class...but now I think that might be a no-go. A teacher who can't explain their lesson to people who've never heard it isn't going to be very effective. That would just be them being comfortable teaching what people already know."

Katara did pause here though. "We went into a village once where everyone lived by the predictions of a certain fortune teller. It was all in fun, and even I was suckered in, until one of the predictions would have allowed them to ignore a volcano about to erupt. I learned that blind faith to something can be very, VERY dangerous."

"That kind of thing's why I want to get a look at all the classes before I settle on any," Roxie says quietly. "There's no way to tell how good any of these people will be at being teachers. I'm sure most of them don't even have any credentials." Which is stupid and hypocritical of her, because she doesn't think that credentials are worth anything anyway, but she skips straight over considering that—

"And I've met my god. It's hard to hear people talking about 'interpretations' after that."

"I see what you mean," Katara said. "I mean, I guess you could always request a transfer if things don't go as planned with the teacher. Besides, for something like this it helps to talk to the students too, right? I don't know how good anyone is either, but I wouldn't mind knowing what they know."

Katara, however, recalled Roxie in her "dreamspace" and reazlied something like that was likely not to happen if Roxie hadn't met her god in the forst place. "What;s he like? Anything like the god Damion wsa talking about?"

Roxie shakes her head. "Shyama doesn't demand blind servitude or faith without reward." She adjusts her glasses a little. "And he's not all... hugs and bunnies. Bad things happen, and he has a part in that sometimes, but it's part of the natural order of things."

When Katara thoufght about it, things weren't exactly hugs and bunnies on anyone's workds, but at least in Roxie's you knew that it was a part of the process. It wasn't fun, but it also was indescriminate. That made more sense to Katara.

"So he doesn't demand blind servitiude, but you follow him. Does he have more...priestesses than just you?"

"There aren't many of us." Roxie nods, though. "And gender doesn't matter. It takes the right mindset. There's only a few of us on each world, spread where the cho gather the most."

"Oh, I see," Katara said. "I think I remember you saying that. So you guys go to the heart of where the Cho go? That sounds really scary. Especially after seeong what they can do."

"We kind of gravitate toward each other. The cho know that we'd be able to work against them more effectively on the large if they left us alone." Even if it meant that more people would die locally, she doesn't say.

Once again, Katara felt an immense wonder at the kind of things Roxie must have seen. She always wondered if she was in any position to worry about her (even after being assured by that "Roxie replica" thaht she could hanbdle herself). There was so much Roxie had to del with on her world.

"Are you...upset that you're here now, instead of your planet?"

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