Author: Adam

Anselm’s Proslogion

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

Come now, insignificant man, fly for a moment from your affairs, escape for a little while from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside now your weighty cares and leave your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a little to God and rest for a  little in Him. Enter into the inner chamber of your soul, shut out everything save God and what can be of help in your quest for Him and having locked the door seek Him out [Matt. 6:6]. Speak now, my whole heart, speak now to God: ‘I seek Your countenance, O Lord, Your countenance I seek’ [Ps. 26:8].

There’s a lot to like in reading Anselm’s Proslogion, but the bit I’ve quoted above is probably my favorite.

Anselm is preparing to wade into some difficult questions about the nature of God and how we are to know Him, but before he does, he invites us to stop along with him and attend to God. To not just ask the questions of himself, but of God Himself. He will not idly speculate (why should he?) when the One he longs to know, and know more truly, is available to question. He invites us to ask these questions of God in a place where our hearts and minds will be capable of hearing the answers.

Anselm is following in Augustine’s footsteps here, doing theology as prayer–as conversation with God, the beginning and end of all things. And this is why the two men were canonized! Their lives were marked by the fragrance of Christ obtained through close and thriving association–communion even–with him. Their lives were changed by the God they longed to see and to know. You see, their theological endeavors weren’t just out of a desire for information or to explore the world and how it worked. Their theology was done out of a desire to know God, and in him to know all else. Theology for them was both prayer to God and a seeing of all things in light of their necessary relationship with God, their source and creator.

How could that kind of theological study not leave them changed?

Sméagol

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No matter what name you call him, whether it be Slinker, Stinker, Sméagol, or Gollum, he is one of the most fascinating and tragic characters in The Lord of the Rings. Wait. Tragic? Yes. His is a tragic case, which Tolkien well knew.

Many of the characters who meet or interact with Gollum hold little hope for his restoration or redemption. But Gandalf believes it possible, even though it remains unlikely. Unlikely though it may be, Gollum is within a hairs breadth of losing his battle with Sméagol on the stairs leading up to Shelob’s lair. After sneaking away to inform Shelob of his plans to lead Frodo and Sam to their deaths he returns to find them sleeping and the tender sweetness of the friendship shared by the two hobbits is the final straw. Sméagol wins out and had either hobbit woken to see the creature he was at that moment all might have worked out differently. Sméagol, the tired, lonely, and weary outcast who has long outlived any who may have once loved or cared for him looks with longing on the two hobbits, wishing he could share in that kind of fellowship. He reaches out to tenderly rest his hand on Frodo, who, feeling the touch, groans softly in his sleep and wakens Sam who seeing Gollum’s hand on his master lashes out with harsh words, failing to see the reality of the situation. And just like that, Sméagol is gone again and only Gollum remains.

We can ponder how the story might have been different if Sam had seen the truth in that moment, but ponder is all we can do, just as in the Primary World. What might have happened if things had worked out a little differently? If we had made different choices? If we had spoken up? If we had kept our mouths shut? We can never know the answer to those questions, but we can allow them to lead us back to one of the underlying themes throughout The Lord of the Rings, and that is the reality and importance of divine providence. As Tolkien so often repeats throughout his reflections on the role and nature of evil in his mythology, we can say with confidence that if we could see the whole picture–if we could see as Eru alone can see–we would know that the world and the story are better just so.

And that is reassuring, is it not? Even though this scene is tragic and one who was oh so close to redemption is driven away and fallen anew, it is somehow better so. We cannot know the possible outcomes. We cannot see or know how this is better than any of the other alternatives, but in Tolkien’s mythology–as in the Primary World–we can trust that it is so. It won’t make sense to us here on Earth. We won’t understand. But we can trust. We can hope. We can believe. And perhaps that is all that is asked of us.

The House of My Soul

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The house of my soul is too small for you to enter: make it more spacious by your coming. It lies in ruins: rebuild it. Confessions I.vi

I’ve been preparing to teach tomorrow on Augustine’s Confessions and there is a lot we could cover in our class session: there’s the conflict with the Manichees, there’s Augustine’s gradual realization that evil is nothing but the privation of the good and the related ideas of vice as a counterfeit good and the nature of sin as disordered desire, in short there’s all the things people always talk about in relation to Augustine–and for good reason. Those are major ideas that are worth diving into and thinking deeply about. Those are ideas worth wrestling with and probing. But the idea that my heart and mind have returned to over and over again is the passage I began with.

It is a prayer. And it is, perhaps, one of the most foundational prayers our hearts can make when we encounter God as he is: “My soul is too small for you. My life is too broken for you. My sin is too rampant for you. So Lord God, would you who are the ultimate Truth and Good enlarge my soul, heal my brokenness, and make me holy.” Augustine knows that this is a work only God can do, not that we don’t have a part to play in it, but it is not our work. To think that we can do it by our own efforts is “putrid pride!” and further sin which “maliciously damages our own souls.” But when we turn to God and invite him to work in the same way Augustine did, God graciously responds and moves toward us in kindness and mercy. The heartfelt prayer of Augustine is one God delights to answer for it is asking him to do in us what he is already in the business of doing: redeeming us and making us new.

Frodo’s Hopeless Quest

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It occurred to me as I began re-reading LotR again, that Frodo’s quest is hopeless from the beginning. Utterly hopeless.

When Gandalf returns with news of just what the Ring is, both he and Frodo see that even after such a relatively short span of time (if you consider 14 years a short span) he is unwilling to see it harmed. It already has a hold on his soul. If already (at page 45 or so) he can’t bear to see the Ring harmed, how can anyone expect him to cast it into the fire 900 pages and around a year of story-time later? Especially when we consider the Ring’s growing power and its corrupting influence; the Ring’s desire to get back into Sauron’s hands and its constant pull toward destruction and sin? Tolkien makes it clear from the very beginning that Frodo cannot succeed in this quest. And in the end, he doesn’t. Frodo doesn’t complete his quest. Don’t get me wrong, he did everything within his power to even get the Ring that far, and the fact that he got it to the Cracks of Doom is remarkable, but he cannot complete the mission. The Ring won’t allow it.

So it’s not that Frodo fails. His quest is simply not possible for him to complete. In fact, the intentional destruction of the Ring, while being the only hope for Middle Earth, is also the one thing that no one within Middle Earth can actually accomplish. No one could have done more than Frodo did. Not Gandalf. Not Galadriel. Not Aragorn. The Ring would have corrupted them and turned their desire to be rid of Sauron into them taking Sauron’s place as a new Dark Lord, wielding his power to possess and subdue. If Gandalf and Saruman, who are beings of comparable status to Sauron, could not have followed through on its destruction (and it is clear from their individual story arcs that neither of them could have), then certainly none of those of lesser status (be they elves, dwarves, men, or hobbits) could have either.

So how is it that the Ring is destroyed and Sauron defeated if no one within Middle Earth can willingly do the job? The Valar do not step in. They are actually committed to staying out of the war aside from sending Gandalf, Saruman and the other Istari to fight against Sauron. So what other power is there of greater power than Sauron? The Power that made it all and proposed the music in the beginning; the Power that meant for Bilbo to find the Ring and pass it on to Frodo; the Power that delights in Mercy and Freedom; the Power that Sauron, Gandalf, and Saruman know personally (even though only one of them has stayed faithful) has been at work providentially guiding the history of the world toward its fulfillment and eventual healing. This is just one chapter in Arda’s long march toward restoration. It will be mended in the end and there is only one Power who can accomplish that…

The Three-Body Problem

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There was much about Liu Cixin’s award winning The Three Body Problem, a hard science fiction (or perhaps we can call it SCIENCE fiction) novel, that was interesting. And I do mean much, but in the interest of brevity, I’m only going to focus on a few pieces, particularly since they integrate well with my specific interests.

I think this novel’s awareness of spiritual things is fascinating, though it paints those spiritual things in scientific colors. The driving force throughout the novel is a minority of the human race who has become convinced that humanity cannot solve its own problems and needs help from outside. This minority is a growing population that is working to pave the way for the alien invasion that will either utterly wipe out humanity or if not that then at least bring their advanced technology (which must make them more morally upright than we are) to set the Earth’s civilizations to right. Liu nails this truth of the human race. We can’t fix our problems on our own. We have ruined the world we live on and done irreparable harm to millions–perhaps billions–of people throughout our history, and so we do need help from the outside. But you want to know something crazy? The help already came. And though it came from the outside, it did so by becoming one of us and taking on all the messiness of a human body, all the dependence of flesh and blood, and redeeming it all.

In Liu’s postscript to the novel he writes,

The appearance of extraterrestrial intelligence will force humanity to confront an Other. Before then, humanity as a whole will never have had an external counterpart. The appearance of the Other, or mere knowledge of its existence, will impact our civilization in unpredictable ways.

Wow! Liu nails it again. An external Other, one who is distinctly not human, cannot help but change human civilization irrevocably. But where Liu is looking for an alien other to accomplish this encounter, the reality is that this world was fashioned by an Other who has been actively working throughout the ages of human history to accomplish a particular plan. Though the world was made through him and he has made his reality plain for all to see, the world no longer acknowledges his existence, and as one of this Other’s most ardent disciples notes, we have no excuse. And this Other? He’s the very same one who came in from the outside to take on humanity and by dying to put sin and Death to death. And by rising to new life, he brings us with him.

This quest for an external other is, I think, a deep-seated recognition that we were made for encounter with a Divine Other. In the depths of our souls we know we’re not alone in this universe (or in this multiverse if you prefer), but because we’ve taken God out of the equation we’re looking beyond the walls of the world for someone who is, in reality, near enough to hear our quietest whispers. We can continue to look beyond our solar system for an intelligent other–and we may just find it–but we don’t have to. The Other for whom and through whom and to whom we were made is waiting for us to call out to him, even if we cannot muster strength or breath enough to speak. He is ever near. And as another of his disciples once said, our souls are restless til they find their rest in him.

So let us all find rest in the One who is truly other, but also truly one of us.

His name is Jesus.

A Choir of One

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

The story below was originally slated to appear in the January 2011 edition of This Mutant Life before, sadly, the magazine shut down after the December 2010 issue. I still count this as my second published short story, though in reality it never did see publication. I still like it, though there are some things I may go back to expand upon or rewrite. But I think, in this case, it is best to publish it here as it would have appeared had This Mutant Life continued. Maybe someday down the road I’ll revisit it and rewrite it, but until then, I hope you enjoy it …

* * *

Kuni opened his mouth to speak and a babble of voices filled the air. So he closed it and the voices stopped. Instead of speaking, he nodded and Mia continued.

“I’m really proud of you Kuni,” she said. “You know, most savants can’t attend schools except those specially designed for them. But you, you’re doing exceptionally well. Mr. Trotter said your essay on the rise of savants and the end of mechanized war was superb, though your conclusions were rather bleak. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

Kuni shrugged. He knew his essay was good. Kuni also knew why he went to school with regular people. For being “special,” he was quite ordinary. Why should being ordinary make him happy?

“How can you sit there and shrug like that? You have been born with a gift!”

Kuni met Mia’s eye and opened his mouth. A cacophony of voices erupted. Eyes fixed on Mia’s, Kuni let the words roll and tumble over each other in wave upon wave. As the avalanche of voices thundered, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write in his childish scrawl. When he finished, he shoved the paper across the table and closed his mouth. The voices fell silent.

She picked up the paper and read aloud, “How is this a gift? I can’t even make the voices say what I want. They just talk and talk and talk and there’s nothing I can do but shut my mouth. What good is being a savant when my gift can’t do anything of use?”
“Your gift is useful,” Mia said immediately.

Kuni snatched the paper back and scribbled furiously. He knew his haste would only make his writing harder to read, but he didn’t care. Again, he thrust the paper at Mia when he had finished and leaned back in his chair awaiting her response.

“Can I lift cars? Can I fly?” Mia paused in her reading and looked up at Kuni. “Do you really want those gifts? Sure they’re flashy and impressive, but what about their minds? Will either of them ever be more than a three year-old mentally? Will either of them ever be able to ask the questions you’re asking now? And what about your essay? Didn’t you say that savants, just like every other weapon in history, would eventually be replaced?”

Kuni did not allow himself to be swayed. He just leaned forward and tapped hard on the paper with two rigid fingers.

Mia sighed and continued reading, “If war ever comes, who will they send to fight for us? Who will protect us from the other savants out there? Me?”

Mia didn’t respond; she only looked at him with pity.

Kuni grabbed the paper once more, and ignoring the message Mia had not finished reading, wrote in thick, dark letters, “I DON’T WANT YOUR PITY! I JUST WANT TO BE USEFUL!”

He slammed the pencil down and stood up, toppling his chair. He stormed across the room to lean, head and forearms against the wall.

A paper rustled once. Otherwise the room was quiet, the constant hum of the air conditioning the only sound keeping the room from complete silence.

Kuni wasn’t surprised to hear Mia rise from her chair a few moments later. He wasn’t surprised to hear her approach on quiet feet. Neither was he surprised when her voice broke the quiet just behind him.

“It may not make you useful for war, but the voices—I think I can help with those.”
Now that was surprising.

* * *

Kuni wiped away the tears that streamed down his face at the closing notes of the anthem. He wouldn’t look at Mia, wouldn’t acknowledge the way she had watched him when the song began and the tears followed. He realized that she had remained seated throughout the anthem—very unpatriotic of her.

The game didn’t interest him much, so after only a few minutes of back and forth between the teams he changed the channel, landing on the news of all things. War was brewing again and a dozen or more nations were readying their savants. He almost changed the channel then, almost turned the television off, but the map on the screen was too beautiful. Each country stood out boldly in a different color, each played its role in the image before him. But as he watched, the image transformed. Half of the colors, so striking when viewed side by side, turned to a deep red, rich and strong. And the beauty was destroyed.

He shut the TV off.

“Why does the anthem move you so?” Mia asked after a short pause.

Kuni shrugged and Mia came to sit beside him.

“I told you before that I think I can help with those voices. Do you remember that?” She paused again. “Of course you remember. But I think the anthem might be the key. I think if anything can bring the voices together into one, it’s the anthem.”

Kuni looked up at her, not quite willing to believe that what she said was possible. If he didn’t believe her then he wouldn’t be disappointed when it didn’t work. But he wanted to believe. He met her eyes and she must have seen something there, because she smiled, took his hand, and led him outside.

Perhaps it was the touch of her hand, or the hope she offered, or some mixture of the two, but whatever it was made Kuni’s heart thunder in his chest. They stopped beneath an oak tree and took a seat on a shaded bench. Mia released his hand.

Kuni pulled out a pad and pencil and wrote in a shaky scrawl, “How will the anthem help? What difference will it make? Why do you think you can help me with the voices?”

“It’s powerful, Kuni,” she said. “Somehow it cuts through defenses you don’t even know you have in place and grabs your heart. Does anything else do that? If anything will work, it’ll be this.”

Kuni scribbled a response with a hand that shook even worse than before. Mia read it and laughed.

“Of course we’ll start right away. Why do you think I brought you out here?”
Kuni’s heart pounded so hard he felt as if he rocked back and forth with each beat. Could this be possible?

“Do you know the anthem by heart?”

Kuni nodded.

“Good. What is it about the anthem that moves you so? Is it the words? The music? Or something else?”

Kuni flushed, but decided it would be worth a little embarrassment if this worked. He wrote, “The words and the music seem to speak of a longing for home and family. It’s beautiful.”

Mia looked up from the paper and gave him a look he’d never seen before. He had no clue what it meant, but his face grew hotter and he looked down at his toes.

“What I want you to do,” Mia said, “is concentrate on that feeling. Let it break your heart if that’s what needs to happen, but feel it. Can you do that?”

Kuni shrugged. But how could he know unless he tried?

He focused, brow furrowed and eyes squeezed shut, but nothing happened. He could remember the feeling, but he couldn’t feel it from memory. He tried again, this time gritting his teeth. Still nothing. He opened his eyes and shook his head.

“Okay, instead of thinking of the feeling, think of the anthem, remember the words and the music, and maybe that will bring the feeling back.”

Again Kuni’s brow scrunched and his eyes closed. The song was beautiful and he could even hear it in his head, but it was no use. The memory didn’t have any power to move him. He was about to open his eyes when a voice began to whisper the anthem, singing soft and low.

It had to be Mia since no one else was there, but with his eyes closed, Kuni couldn’t be sure—he had never heard her sing before. He didn’t want to open his eyes, knowing it would break the spell her gentle song was weaving. The words washed over him and one by one the emotions followed.

“Now sing Kuni,” Mia said.

Somehow he still heard her singing, yet clearly she had spoken to him. Was it her song he heard or some other?

Kuni opened his mouth expecting the cacophony to ruin the song, but all he heard was music.

* * *

Alexei yawned and rubbed his eyes with tiny fists. He bent down to pick up Teddy where he rested beside yet another charred and broken body.

“You have done well Alexei,” Teddy said in his fuzzy, far off voice. “There is only one more job for us to do before we can rest.”

“But I want to rest now Teddy.”

“No whining Alexei.”

His shoulders sagged and he nodded.

“I’m sorry to be sharp with you,” Teddy said. “This has been a long war for me too and my nerves aren’t what they used to be.”

“It’s okay,” Alexei said, stroking Teddy’s plush fur and squeezing him tight. “I forgive you. Where do we need to go?”

“East. I know we’ve only been punishing a few people at a time, but this time it’s a room full of people. They’ve been very bad, and they need to be punished—more than any of the people you’ve met so far.”

“Which way’s east?”

“It’s to your left.”

“Thanks Teddy. What would I do without you?”

Alexei gave Teddy’s soft, furry body another squeeze.

“Now hold on tight, okay Teddy?”

Alexei leapt into the air then sped off to his left, into the east, and toward those he needed to punish.

* * *

Kuni opened his mouth and for the fifth time that week, and second time that day, the voices said only what he wanted them to. It was progress. He promptly shut his mouth and smiled.

“You’re getting better,” Mia said. “I’m proud of you.”

Kuni grabbed the paper to write his response, but Mia’s hand closed over his. Her hand was warm and soft. His heart experimented with a new rhythm, beating with strange beats he felt in his ears.

“Why don’t you say it rather than writing it,” she said, not letting go of his hand.
Kuni spoke, or tried to speak, but the voices were no longer under his control. Still her hand did not leave his and his heart continued its irregular rhythm. Words continued to pour from his mouth in a multitude of voices, but gradually he began to hear in the cacophony one voice he recognized as truly his own. It wasn’t the tenor or rhythm of speech that alerted him, for he had never heard himself speak. Rather it was what the voice said.

Could she hear it? Could she pick it out of the noise?

“I love you,” it said. “I would give up all my progress with these voices if it meant you would stay and tutor me.”

He clamped his mouth shut. Those words, that declaration of love, were the only ones he had heard. It sounded as though they were the only words he had said, and all the other voices had gone still and silent.

Her head looked down and her hair, short though it was, fell in a veil, hiding her eyes from him.

His hand let go of the pencil and turned over to clasp hers where it rested. He leaned left and leaned right, hoping for a glimpse of her hidden features.

What had she heard?

Mia’s free hand reached up beneath the veil and did something, but even its motions were obscured. Its job complete, she let her hand fall into her lap once more. Kuni watched it fall and thought he might have seen a finger or two glistening, but it could have been a trick of the light. Still his heart stumbled along its uneven path, convinced she had heard him.

Kuni waited, afraid to move. Afraid the slightest motion would make her pull her hand away from his. He felt his strange pulse through fingers gently clasping hers. Even if she hadn’t heard him she had to feel the difference in that telltale pulse. She had to know.

“You’ve done well,” she said, sliding her hand off of his. “I thought you might progress with my help, but I must admit I didn’t expect to succeed.”

Did her voice tremble, or was it his imagination?

“I am proud of you, Kuni, but it’s time I was leaving.”

She stood and he rose to his feet with her, movements synchronized. Heart still stumbling, but picking up speed as though it was tripping down stairs, he opened his mouth.

Mia held up a hand, her left hand, the hand he had so recently held and wished he still did.

“I have to go.”

She turned and ran from him then. Wrenched open the door, she dashed through it. He stood and stared, shocked at her haste but hopeful.

Minutes dragged by and hope began to wither.

Five minutes after the door had closed, it opened a crack and Mia slipped halfway through. She did not look at him.

“Kuni, I just want you to know that I will be your tutor for as long as you’ll have me.”
With that she slipped out the door once more and left Kuni rooted to the same spot. It was only when the clock beeped the hour that he realized his mouth was still open, poised to speak, but no sound emerged.

* * *

Two days later, Kuni found a note taped across his door. It read:

Kuni,
Please forgive me for missing our tutoring session yesterday; I was called away to an important meeting. At that meeting I heard an update on the war. It’s not going well for us, but there is hope. I know this may surprise you, but that hope is in you. With the progress you’ve made, we think you might be able to help when the savant who has caused such damage arrives sometime tonight. Your gift is something he has never seen and you may be able to stop him, or slow him long enough for help to arrive. You wanted to be useful. Well, here’s your chance.

Meet me tonight at the city council office at 6:00.

Mia

He arrived that evening, eager to see Mia and to prove himself to these people, whoever they were. Instead, all he found was another note.

* * *

Echoes of voices drifted down the halls so faintly at first Alexei couldn’t be sure they were truly there. Cocking his head, he strained to hear them more clearly, but couldn’t. He began drifting down corridors, feet hovering a few inches off the ground. There was no particular reason he went down some hallways and not others, he just floated, until he rounded a bend and the voices grew louder.

He sped down the hall and came to a T, but there was no confusion left in him. The voices came from the left-hand branch. A few turns later and he stopped in front of a door. Even though he was sure the voices came from the other side of this door, they were still hushed. The door had to be thick.

Alexei pressed his ear against the door and realized for the first time that the voices were singing.

“They must be punished,” Teddy said in his metallic voice. “All of them.”

Alexei hesitated. He didn’t want to punish anyone else. He wanted to sleep. At the thought of sleep he yawned and rubbed at one eye with a fist. It wouldn’t even have to be a comfortable place. He just needed somewhere to lie down without Teddy telling him what to do.

“I know you don’t want to do this,” Teddy said, “but you must Alexei. This is the last time you’ll have to punish anyone.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“And after this I can sleep.”

“For as long as you need. Now, the sooner you open that door, the sooner our job is done.”

Alexei reached out and with strength beyond his small stature pushed through the heavy wooden doors.

* * *

The doors opened and Kuni’s mouth snapped shut. The anthem hung in the air, echoing back from wall to wall for a few moments while the young boy stood and looked around him. He was just a child. Kuni could almost imagine him with one arm tightly holding his teddy bear and his thumb in his mouth. The picture in Kuni’s head was nearly complete before him: the boy clutched a teddy bear tightly in one arm, but he doubted this boy had ever been allowed to have a thumb near his mouth.

Their eyes met and the boy asked a question in a language Kuni could not understand so he shrugged and shook his head. The boy tried again, though Kuni couldn’t tell if he had repeated himself or said something different.

“I’m sorry,” Kuni said in one clear voice, “I don’t understand you.”

The boy nodded then and paused. After a few moments of silence he began to hum and pointed at Kuni.

He understood then and focused on what Mia had taught him, letting his mind and heart sink into the longing stirred by the anthem. He began to sing. It was his voice, and his alone that sang. The boy watched him, looking vaguely unsatisfied. So Kuni relaxed his control just a bit and a couple voices joined his.

The boy looked at him more closely for a moment before leaping into the air and soaring around the room. He looked behind chairs and under tables. Obviously finding no one, he flew back and landed closer to Kuni. The boy watched him closely, eyes blinking only occasionally.

Kuni relaxed his control a little further and more voices joined the song. The little boy’s face lit up and he crept even closer.

With every voice that Kuni allowed to join the song, the boy moved closer, until Kuni let his control fall the rest of the way and a choir joined the song. The boy dropped his teddy bear and clapped, a huge smile spread across his lean, tired face. He leapt the last dozen yards and sat at Kuni’s feet, still smiling.

A metallic voice screeched from the teddy bear, but the boy didn’t even glance toward it. His eyes remained fixed on Kuni.

When the anthem ended, the little boy clapped again and cheered in his foreign tongue, before sitting still and waiting, eyes expectant. So Kuni began a softer song, a lullaby sung just above a whisper. The choir of voices sang together, soft and gentle, and gradually the boy’s eyes began to close. His body relaxed along with his eyes and Kuni kept singing. The boy inched down until he was curled up on his side in a little ball. The teddy bear screeched and hissed again, but Kuni kept singing. The boy’s eyes remained closed, his breathing slow and even.

Just watching the boy made Kuni drowsy, but he let the song continue. The little guy needed rest.

A side door opened behind Kuni with a soft squeak and quiet footsteps crept toward them. He heard these sounds, but continued singing. The footsteps stopped behind him, something was set down, and latches were undone, their clicks louder than the squeak of the door or the creak of the floorboards. Kuni wanted to turn and shush the newcomer, but he continued singing, afraid the boy would wake if he allowed the song to stop.
But a pinch at the base of his neck interrupted his song. He reached back to brush away whatever insect had bitten him, but was surprised to find that he couldn’t lift his arm. Strong hands supported him beneath his armpits and at their touch his legs gave way beneath him. The hands guided him to the ground to rest on his side, facing the still sleeping boy.

The newcomer walked around Kuni to squat by the boy’s side. He slid a needle out of a sleeve and gave it two slow shakes. The fluid in the syringe swirled. The newcomer pressed the tip of the needle against the base of the boy’s neck and pushed. The needle bowed and threatened to snap, but the newcomer eased off the pressure. He appeared to think for a moment and all the while Kuni’s body grew heavier. He felt as though he were sinking into the floorboards beneath him. All he could do was watch.

The newcomer reached across the sleeping boy and stuck the needle into the boy’s open mouth. With a slow pressure he let the liquid dribble out to mingle with the boy’s saliva. The boy didn’t wake.

Still squatting the newcomer turned to face Kuni then and with a surprise dulled by whatever drug coursed through him, he saw that the newcomer was a woman. He tried to focus his eyes on her face, but they refused, only growing blurrier the longer he kept them open. Kuni closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His heart beat slowly, pounding as it too seemed to join with the floor beneath him.

“I’m so sorry Kuni,” the woman said, her words barely a whisper.

He felt a tingle in his ear at the woman’s whispered breath.

“They told me to do whatever I could to train you, to break through your block. I hoped I wouldn’t succeed. Because success would only lead to this.”

The woman’s voice broke and in the silence that followed Kuni tried to make sense of her words. His brain felt hazy and unclear.

“You were right, you know, in your essay. The savants’ time has ended, but not to be replaced by something new. We are replacing you with nothing. There will be no weapons, there will be no war. Kuni, you and Alexei are the last of the savants, and soon, even you will be gone. And with you . . .”

The haze lifted just a little from Kuni’s mind, enough to recognize the speaker and follow her words.

“Who are we kidding? Killing the savants won’t end anything. It may give us a break, perhaps even a long one, but there will always be war.” He felt her gently brush his hair from his face. “You’ve known that for longer even that I have. But we have to try, right? We must try!”

Kuni tried to open his eyes, tried to look at Mia’s face one last time. She was killing him, but with her hand still brushing his face, he somehow didn’t mind. His eyes would not open.

So he stopped trying and focused instead on all the things she had taught him. He pictured her face. And with one voice, his own voice, he hummed.

She gasped and pulled away her hand. Seconds later both hands were on his face and he felt more than heard her soft crying just above him. One drop fell onto his face and with one kiss she brushed it away.

Kuni hummed until his breath ran out. The last sound he heard was Mia’s gentle voice singing the anthem over him.

Skin and An Ember in the Ashes

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

Okay, so this won’t be a proper book review, but is more of a meditation on two books with similar audiences, similar blurbs, but very different impacts on this particular reader. Both Skin by Ilka Tampke and An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir were compared to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire though, I suppose, in all fairness the comparison is actually to the HBO adaptation of his books. The comparison is fitting for both books, but for very different reasons.

For Skin it comes down to sex. Plain and simple. There is a lot of sex in Tampke’s book, and none of it presents sex in a good light. It is animalistic and bestial with nothing setting human sex apart from animal sex–she seems to make the mistake that Tolkien witnessed in the 1930s and described in one of the endnotes of his essay ‘On Fairy Stories’: when it comes to sex in Tampke’s novel, humans are presented not only as animals–which is scientifically correct–but as only animals. There’s nothing good or beautiful about sex in her portrayal. It’s just acting on animal instincts. There’s a lot more about her book that makes me uncomfortable, and it mirrors Martin’s work in those ways too, but it is in the presentation of sex that she follows Martin most closely, and that is the biggest shortcoming of Skin.

If we turn our attention to Tahir’s novel, we get a world that is absolutely brutal. Her main characters suffer some truly horrendous things, and also do some truly horrendous things, and so it is the violence in her world that is most strongly reminiscent of Martin’s Westeros. But what she does with violence is what sets her apart. Like in Martin’s work, no character (except of course the two PoV characters–this is YA fiction after all) is truly safe, and the peril makes the danger real. Tahir’s characters are painted in varying shades of grey, so that even the ‘good guys’ can’t be trusted and the ‘bad guys’ have truly redeeming qualities. With that said, though their morals and personal choices reveal them as decidedly grey, the characters (even the side characters) are drawn with enough color and flavor that their peril and suffering become truly powerful events, not just for the characters who know them but the reader vicariously experiencing all this. There is one scene in particular that hit me like a punch in the kidneys. It left me aching for the characters and the trauma they had experienced, which is just as it should be. Tahir doesn’t shy away from violence, but neither does she revel in it. She shows, so very clearly, that violence has consequences, and those consequences are psychological and spiritual just as much as they are physical. Violence may be the only adequate pathway at times, but that doesn’t mean it should be or can be chosen lightly, and it certainly doesn’t remove the consequences of violent actions. In fact, you might say that it is one, just one, past violent action that is the driving force behind the entire plot, and it’s not the surface conflict that is introduced on page one. This novel introduces a world with depth and history, just like Martin’s, but there is still room for hope–and even indications that the hoped for end will become reality one day.

Comparing fantasy books to A Song of Ice and Fire is all the rage right now, because for the first time in a long time, that comparison may draw in readers who wouldn’t have considered themselves interested in fantasy before picking up Martin’s books or watching HBO’s adaptation. And in both cases, the comparison will not wholly disappoint readers. One of them will appease readers seeking titillation, but the other is reminiscent of the best parts of Martin’s epic, and in those particular ways it may even surpass them.

From Fantasist to Son

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

I have seen the ice dragon rise
glistening and glittering
from the depths of the western sea.

I have seen the rusting hulks
our forefathers left us
power still thrumming through metal limbs.

I have seen the wolfman shift
and slide from man to beast
and from beast to nightmare crowned as king.

I have seen man’s mangled body
made whole
sewn and bound with threads of light.

I have seen you, my son,
nuzzling your head into my chest,
content to let me hold you as you sleep.

And that is the magic that stirs my soul,
no less powerful for being common,
no less beautiful for being simple,
no less wondrous for being true.

This poem was written shortly after the birth of my first son in late 2009 and originally appeared in the print edition of Jabberwocky back in 2010 alongside such excellent writers as Genevieve Valentine and E. Lily Yu (whose 2011 short story ‘The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees’ was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards) and can still be found on the Jabberwocky website.

Morgoth’s Ring

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

So, I’ve been reading Morgoth’s Ring (History of Middle-Earth, Vol. 10), and Tolkien’s reflections on Morgoth, Sauron, and the Ring are simply fascinating. In an unfinished essay entitled “Notes on Motives in the Silmarillion” Tolkien compares Morgoth and Sauron, the ultimate evils of their respective eras. While Morgoth is the superior being, he was foremost among the Valar along with Manwë, and Sauron is a lesser spirit, one of the Maiar, Sauron is actually “greater” in his era than Morgoth was in his. But why? First, a little back story may help.

As one of the chief among the Ainur (or Valar), Morgoth was one of those who sang the themes propounded by Eru (or Iluvatar: God) and thereby fashioned the world. He was integrally involved in the process, and was in fact the one who introduced discordant threads into the music in his desire for glory and dominion. When it came time to get their hands dirty and make the world fit for the Children of Iluvatar (meaning elves and men), Morgoth volunteered his services pretending to be rehabilitated after his altercation with Eru. But because he could not stand being confronted with things outside of himself in which his mind and will had played no role, he sought to taint and destroy all that the other Valar attempted, thereby making himself their enemy.

What Tolkien reveals in his unfinished essay is that in his desire to dominate and corrupt Morgoth invested most of his being into the physical constituents of the world, in the same way that Sauron invested the greater park of his power into the One Ring. But where Sauron’s power was localized into one item, small and potent and thereby always at hand, Morgoth’s power was distributed through all things that were “born on Earth and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits” (395). This means that all matter outside of Valinor (the earthly home of the Valar) contained a little bit of Morgoth–one might say that every atom contained a piece of his being–and therefore every living thing, to greater or lesser degree, leaned toward Morgoth and his ways. His being was disseminated far and wide, so though his power and being were far superior to Sauron’s in his original “angelic” form, he spread himself too thin and fell far from what he was. Sauron had not fallen so low in his era. His power was with him, contained in a ring on his finger rather than spread through every atom of the world outside Valinor.

This also means that the whole of Middle Earth was Morgoth’s Ring. It was the item he had invested the greater part of his being and power into so that he might achieve mastery and dominion over it. This is why the Valar were cautious in bringing battle to Morgoth. They knew that overthrowing his power would desolate parts of the world. And though they cast him down and the world was not wholly broken, neither was it cleansed of his taint.

The only way to cleanse the world of its terminal case is to break it down and build it anew.

At the end of days, Tolkien’s imagined world will, just like our own, need to be made new. The old must pass away and the new must come. Only then can the corruption of Morgoth be exorcised from the very fabric of the world, and the Children of Iluvatar be free of the pull to be like that fallen “angel” and those he has ruined.

Weak Made Strong

~ Adam ~ Leave a comment

I was the bait in their trap. I knew it. They knew it. But he knew it too, and he walked right into it with eyes wide open.

I could feel their eyes on me throughout his teaching. I wanted to hear his words, wanted to let them wash over me as they had done to others I knew, but those eyes boring into me from the sides and from behind made it nearly impossible.

I fidgeted.

I squirmed.

I nearly got up and left, but just as my mind had resolved to do so, something he said ended the power of their eyes.

“Come and stand here.”

I knew he spoke to me before I even looked up and found his eyes on me. My heart leaped and I scrambled to my feet, keeping my shriveled right hand close to my chest out of habit. Them gleam in his eyes the brightness of his smile encouraged me, but they both disappeared when his face turned to them. I looked out with him at their tasselled robes and pious, mocking faces.

“I ask you,” he said, “on the Sabbath is it lawful to do good or to do harm, to save life or destroy it?”

I saw rage heat their faces, saw them fighting for any response that would protect their standing in the Synagogue while denouncing the man. I can only imagine what he saw.

No words came from their lips. But seeing that they could not answer, his lips spoke once more to me.

“Stretch our your hand.”

And I did. The hand I kept close, kept hidden so others would not see my deformity and shame, I stretched out for all to see. And as I did spasms and snaps throbbed and flowered along my arm. What was weak and withered became whole and strong. The fig tree must feel like this as fruit sprouts from leafy branches, but what takes the tree weeks to achieve took only a moment for me.

I looked from my now perfect hand to the man who had made it so. The light and brightness of his face nearly blinded me, and though I often saw him after that the sight of him always dazzled me. But it didn’t dazzle them. Hatred had joined rage to twist their faces into a mockery of human form. And that was hatred was as much for me, I saw, as it was for him. But still he shone beside me and in his light even their hatred and rage could not disquiet me.

Their mutters contained murder–murder of his light. I knew it. They knew it. But he knew it too; and one day, several years later, he would walk right into it with arms and eyes wide open.