A rainy Tuesday afternoon, in a nice, tidy house that I’ve spent the morning cleaning is just about the perfect time to write, by my estimation. But, am I?
I’m writing this, certainly. Not editing Book 2, though. And, maybe this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. Maybe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Maybe there’s nothing wrong. Nothing to be fixed. Maybe everything happens in the proper time, exactly when it’s supposed to.
That’s the energy that I’ve been cultivating, for the last few months. Slowly un-peeling the onion of my psyche, unravelling my own trauma around needing to be productive, making sure my time has ‘value’ beyond enjoyment. And taking the time to find the value in enjoyment, too. Sometimes I wish I had it as easy as Fiona did - ripping off the band-aid of the mundane in one fell swoop, and landing squarely in faerieland.
In this timeline, this Fiona has not had nearly so quick a time at it, although I am proud to say that I’ve been making some pretty serious in-roads into the land of faerie, these days, and finding my way to the places that the fae hang out - after hours at the Renaissance Faire, for example. There have been a few times lately, when I’ve been caught doing happy little dances in the kitchen by one of the family or another. Why?
“I’m just so pleased with my life right now, that’s all.”
And why wouldn’t I be? After an incredibly successful summer of finding likeminded folk, I’ve been invited into a performance guild, and a regular music practice with bards. I’ve got plans to make zines, and partner dance, and crafts I need to make for the big Samhain market, and a pile of stained glass to cut, to make a lantern for the photograph for the cover of Book 2
…which I am supposed to be editing. Funny how it all comes full circle like that. And, so will this. The passion will come when the time is right. As long as I keep bouncing from thought to interest to thought, the inspiration of my own chaos will keep me moving forward in the way that I’m meant to, at least, it has so far.
There are still 45 minutes before the bus comes, and I can do a lot in that time, if I can step into the stream of inspiration. The Awen, my friend Seamus told me it’s called in Welsh.
Well, 43 minutes, now. We’ll see.
Ah yes, that’s why. I’m jumping back in, and it’s the middle of the first church scene. In the belly of the beast, staring nose-to-nose with an Evangelical preacher. No wonder I’ve been taking my time coming back to this… It’s important work. Important things to be saying. Things we haven’t been allowed to say. And, it’s work I want to do. Work I want to stand behind. But, that doesn’t make it easy.
40 minutes. At least that’s bite-sized. Just a little bit of time, nose to nose with Rev. Rex. Or, better yet, just 30, and then I’ll come back and let you know how it goes.
It went pretty well, actually. I got through the Reverend’s speech and I feel like it makes the point much more clearly now.
It’s a week later, and I haven’t opened up my laptop since. Too busy with important priorities like enjoying my son and making my space the kind of place I want to spend time in. But, now it’s a rainy Tuesday again, and I’m back at it, taking another look at the Reverend’s speech and threading a few more of my own opinions through his rhetoric.
I’m ready to move on from this chapter now. Good enough for this pass, anyway. And, now it’ll be easier to get back to it, because I won’t be coming back to this intense, heavy piece…
Here’s where we’re at with it, right now. I’m pleased with the effect, and I think it’s a nice preview of what to expect in Book 2. Check it out and let me know what you think!
From Chapter 18…ish
The words Welcome Home appeared and faded again, as music swelled.
A puff of stage smoke tooted out of a nozzle in front of my feet, and a beam of light twisted through the fog, making the whole thing feel like a rock concert. A drumset and guitarists rose out of the floor on hydraulics and the crowd roared a greeting. Urb and I rose to stand with the rest of the congregants, and I caught myself tapping my toe to the catchy beat of the music.
From our spot at the edge of the front row, I could look out at the faces of the crowd. Most were clapping or singing along, heads bowed and hands raised. I could hear Nora’s high soprano next to me, belting out the chorus.
I thank the Master, I thank the Savior, I thank God.
The Master, huh? That idea made me extremely uncomfortable, I thought as I looked out at the enormous sea of congregants. What was it that they all needed saving from, I wondered. What was so terrible that they were all willing to give up their own autonomy to live under the control of a Master?
The refrain repeated over and over, much longer than the standard three minutes of radio play, accompanied by the rhythmic clapping and stamping of the frenzied crowd. The energy in the room swelled until I could feel it crackling like the lightning storm outside.
“And if he did it for me, he can do it for you!” An amplified voice boomed as the music surged to a final crescendo.
Reverend Rex stepped out of the shadows and into the spotlight of center stage, and the crowd cheered, then quieted. In their sudden silence, I felt the energy that had been raised by the singing and the cheering wash over us like a wave, with a palpable whoosh.
I raised my eyebrows, catching Urb’s sideways glance. “They do this every Sunday?” I whispered, awed by the amount of energetic power that had just crashed over me, toward the man at the podium in front of us.
“Today,” Rev. Rex boomed, voice amplified to carry out over the entire stadium crowd, ”We are gathered here to talk about trust.” After this first stern pronouncement, he stepped out from behind the podium, tucking one hand into his jean pocket with a practiced casualness.
“In our world today, we have trust issues with God. When we want something, we listen to our human desires and take what we want, even when God says it's not for us.” He reached out, grasping at the air in exaggerated longing. “Like we’re saying, ‘God, I know there’s something so good, right over there, and you’re holding me back from it. I know you say that it’s wrong, but it just looks so yummy, so delicious, so tempting. Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong. Maybe I know what’s best. Maybe my desires are the most important thing, and not the love and the faith that I have in you.’”
“Think you can trust yourself?” Urb muttered, leaning close to me, “Well, you’re wrong.” His voice dripped with sarcasm and I stifled a giggle, all too aware that we were mere feet away from the man onstage.
The Reverend stepped behind the podium again, resuming his stern lecturer’s aire. “And that’s the moment that you decide that God doesn’t know best. When you trust your own instincts more than you trust God, that’s when you can truly damage your relationship with him.” He shook his head, disappointed. “Your trust is the most important part of your spiritual relationship. Your intimacy with God grows along with your trust in him, do you understand that? You have to show him that you are willing to do what he’s asking you to do. You have to trust.” His gaze, scanning the crowd, now landed on me, seated in the front row. I froze, and a chill ran down my spine. Luckily, he looked away almost immediately and fiddled with something on his podium, saying, “Now, let’s all take out our Bibles and turn to Romans 12:3.”
The crowd rustled and resettled, and I exchanged a meaningful look with Urb. This church service had certainly gotten off to an interesting start. The Reverend’s message was contrary to everything the fae had taught me about magic. They told me to trust my own instincts above all else, and look inward to find my own inner truth. Reverend Rex was preaching the opposite, telling this enormous crowd that they should ignore their instincts and their own free will and listen to God instead. And, who was God’s messenger on Earth? Well, that would be Reverend Rex himself, wouldn’t it?
He held up a gilded black bible, cleared his throat and read. “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. Now, what do we think that means?” He closed his book with a snap and walked out from behind the podium again. “It means, don’t think too highly or lowly of yourself. Be realistic. You’re not God, you’re not Jesus. You’re just a flawed human. A sinner, like all of us. But, you’re not a godless heathen. You’ve been saved, because you’ve accepted Jesus into your heart and you’ve committed your life to God, so that you can help others find that same salvation.”
“Don’t forget that you’re bad,” Urb muttered to me under his breath, “but you’re one of us, so at least you’re not as awful as everyone else.”
What an incredibly depressing outlook on life, I thought, as I watched the rapt faces of parishioners nod along with the Reverend on the enormous screen behind the stage. The video feed must be live, I realized, as a man holding a professional shoulder-mounted video camera stepped in front of me to get a better angle on the Reverend.
“Now as we all know, today is the 4th of July, and that’s a day to celebrate,” the Reverend said, tone brightening. He pumped a fist in the air, and the crowd cheered. “And we want to give glory to God and honor this great country by lighting up some big old fireworks, am I right boys?” The crowd cheered again, this time with a deeper, more masculine resonance.
“Alright! We’ve got some red-blooded American men right here, and that sure is a good thing to be. But,” he paused and held one finger in the air, and the room waited. In the silence, we could all hear the rumble of thunder. “That doesn’t mean that you get to let your desires rule you. Not in the Kingdom of God. You know as well as I do that it’s been dry as a bone all week, and Jesus told me, just last night, that it was my duty as a leader in this community to make a recommendation to my friend the fire marshal, and thankfully, he’s a Godly man and he agreed with the Lord. He took my advice and issued a burn ban for the entire county, just this morning.”
The Reverend smiled proudly while the congregation erupted with disgruntled rumbling.
“See, there it is, that sinner nature in all of us, thinking that our good time is more important than the will of the Lord.” The stained glass at the rear of the church flared with brilliant color. “Believing that our earthly pleasures are more important than-” He paused again and waited for a loud peel of thunder. “More important than the plan that Jesus has for us. And that’s the Devil right there, speaking to us through our own base desires. And that’s why-”
The Reverend motioned with his hand and a second spotlight turned on, lighting a choir loft high up in the rafters, at the back of the church. There sat the largest pile of fireworks that I had ever seen. The entire mound was spangled with red white and blue, and emblazoned with more hazard symbols and fire icons than I could count.
“I’ve arranged to have the rest of the county's fireworks stored right here, under the watchful eye of our own Morality Police, so that no one needs to face the temptation of giving in to sin and lighting them up, anyway.”
The spotlight clicked off, bringing our attention back to the Reverend.
“You might be tempted to hate yourself for your sin nature. For your drive to take whatever and do whatever just because your human desires tell you that you want it. And that might be right to do, if you were a heathen, living outside the grace of God’s love. Out there, you’re judged on your actions, on what you think and what you do. And we all know how hard it is. We know that we’re going to fail sometimes, and give in to our lowly human desires, instead of following the Lord’s path.” He paused and shook his head somberly.
“Wait, they’re not judged on what they do? What are they judged on, then?” I whispered to Urb, in the silence.
“No, Christians aren’t judged by what they do,” the Reverend continued, as though in answer, “We are made worthy through our submission. We give ourselves to God and he gives us salvation. He loves us and he lifts us up, even though we’re flawed. That’s the deal we make, as Christians, when we devote our lives to Jesus.”
But, if he’s saying that sin is inevitable and you’re saved anyway, because you’re a Christian, it almost seems like he’s giving people permission to sin, I mused, resisting the urge to whisper to Urb. Lightning flashed again, making the stained glass glow, and thunder followed just a second behind it.
“Followers of Jesus can’t hate themselves, no matter what their sin nature makes them do. If you hate yourself, then you’re proving that you don’t understand the unconditional love of God. A Christian can’t hate himself. It’s a contradiction, simple as that. Come on, now, Brothers, let's pray together.” He raised his hands in benediction. “Jesus, help us remember that it’s not about how good we can be, it’s-”
CRACK!
A bright flash and a sound like a gunshot rang out over the crowd. The next moment, the sanctuary was plunged into darkness, and the stadium-sized room erupted in chaos as people screamed and scrambled in panic. The smell of ozone tickled my nose, making me want to sneeze. After a few seconds, our eyes adjusted, and once we realized that the mid-morning light filtering through the church’s stained glass windows was bright enough to see by, even on a cloudy day like this one, the crowd began to calm.
“What happened?” I asked Urb, “Did we just get hit by lightning?”
He ignored me, facing toward the back of the room where the spotlight had been shining earlier. “Look,” he said, pointing. Thin tongues of flame were beginning to lap through a hole in the roof. As we watched, they started to creep down the wood of the high, drafty rafters.
“FIRE!” The cry rang out from someone in the audience, reigniting the chaos of the crowd. Parishioners at the back of the crowd piled through the double doors out of the Sanctuary and onto the street, but many others were stuck inside, crammed into the narrow aisles between pews, unable to move. The flames continued to creep down the rafters toward the Reverend’s confiscated fireworks. Seconds later, we could hear the tell tale hiss of a lit fuse. I stood frozen, watching as the first of the fireworks ignited.
SNAP! FIZZ! POP!
At the very front of the crowd, there was no way we could make it through the crush of bodies cramming through the back doors. We would be the last ones to escape.
BANG! WHIZZ! SKREE!
“Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here,” said Lena. She grabbed my hand and I grabbed Urb’s, following her onto the stage, away from the screams of the crowd, as more fireworks whistled and howled in the burning choir loft behind us. We followed her down a short maze of hallways and out into the alleyway behind the church.
Lena held the door open and gave me a tight smile as I passed her.
“That must have given you a really intense first impression of Christ’s Heart,” she said, “I promise it’s not like this usually!”
twang twang
be honest
“The idea of giving up my own free will and submitting to a Lord Master is a little intense for me, yeah,” I agreed.
She cocked her head, startled by my response, then furrowed her brow processing my answer. Fire alarms blared from inside the church and I could hear the sound of sirens getting closer. I turned and took Urb’s arm, heading away from her, down the alleyway. I could feel the sensation of her eyes on my back until we turned the corner onto the street.
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