Beware flying toilet seats

Pearls Before Swine by Stephen Pastis

Rat is one sick critter, which may be why I am amused by him. This is a little reminder not to get caught up in one's own inflated fantasies.

Actually, it was Over the Hedge that recently ran an inflated fantasy series. But that's another story.

Meanwhile, back on earth, my current contract assignment comes to an end this Friday and I am looking for work again. Prayers gratefully accepted.

Not every day one can use a post title like that, eh?
--the BB

Geography

No, this is not a rant on how little Americans know about geography (though that could be an extensive topic in itselt). Merely a few scattered thoughts about topography, ecology, and distance.

We are shaped by our physical environment, much as we are shaped by the language(s) we learn, for these structure our thought-world. Perspectives are different for those who live close to the land and nature's cycles as opposed to those far removed from the soil and seasons. Urban v. rural, forest v. plain, coastal v. inland, sea level v. high altitude, plentiful rains v. desert, scarcity v. abundant food crops, expansive vistas v. crowded spaces--all these have much to say about our experience, our world-view, our self-understanding. They also limit how we can live.

I am a visual person. When I meet people without name tags, I over-compensate, desperately trying to match what I hear with the faces around me. Sometimes I impress folks but it is all a front. Most of the time I forget Susie's name by the time I say, "Hello, Susie, nice to meet you."

All of that is prelude to saying that I need to visualize and be oriented. Taurus is a fixed-earth sign, after all. Do not, for the love of all that is holy and the fear of all that is not, put a map down on a table in front of me without orienting the north end of the map toward the geographic north. I need to have a firm sense of direction.

So, when writing fantasy fiction, I often draw maps of an imaginary world before I tell a story. I may launch into the story first but very soon I will pause and work on maps. Topographical ones, no less. The graphic above is from my book of maps drawn in the early 70s for this world of which I write. How precise I was! I have since lowered the level of the inland sea. It's easier to put it at 500 feet than remember 614 ft. above sea level. Ah, the freedom of fantasy.

But how free is it? I want to believe in my world (or else why should my readers?). Rivers still need to flow downhill, societies need varied economies for survival. Grain must grow somewhere, sheep be raised for wool, waters flow for mill wheels, metals be mined, seas and rivers be fished, etc. Paths and roads must allow travel for commerce and communication. Cities cannot be located where there is no source of water.

If I am incorporating some kind of travelogue (and how can one have a quest or pilgrimage without one?), then I need a strong sense of the countryside through which my characters journey. If I can believe they cross a plain, thread their way through a forest, climb heights and descend them again, ford rivers, sail seas, get drenched in rains, rejoice to greet the dawn, then you, my future fans (a guy's gotta hope) may believe all this too.

So this evening, after painting the second wall of my bedroom and watering the garden, I have given thought to where the birth cities of the apostles are located. In the Sivvaron Empire (c) , of course; that is a given. But where were the siblings, the Great Martyr and the Great Apostle, born that they should conceive the idea of taking the Gospel to the lands about the Mere? And where might the primatial city of the province be located? [Tonight I decided it was the old capital of the province; there is a newer capital on the coast with easier access to the imperial capital.]

Given the expanse of the Empire, it should not surprise me, of all people, that the apostles come from some scattered territory. And that makes one wonder about other things? How did they come to the primatial city or become engaged in discussions of missionary ventures? What ordinary factors brought them together? One can well believe that the Holy Spirit brought them together, and indeed I do, but the Spirit's means are usually rather quotidian. We travel to visit friends and relatives, for commerce, for study, for pilgrimage, and for tourism, though this latter is not likely in late antiquity unless you are very wealthy and have nothing better to do. I suspect that even if you are very wealthy, you have more pressings matters than travel just to enjoy yourself.

As questions arise we can only assume there are stories behind the answers. And from that tangle of wondering come new tales.

Actually, the back story of the early lives of the apostles is not likely to be told, though it hovers in my mind. I am not sure how much of the early church history will be told in tales for publication. But I, who once thought I might get a PhD in Church history (and didn't), am busy writing the history of the early church in one region of a fantasy world. All my classwork at UCLA and years of reading now come to fruition. I feel like a second less-than-venerable Bede, piecing together the tale of a forming and emerging church. [It is no coincidence, btw, that the hero of the first novel has his grand adventure in 735 CE.]

Ah, reality breaks into fantasy. As I look at the map I worked on today, I realize that I need to change it. Already. The demands of plausibility. LOL. And it is over something that is not even part of the storyline of the Chronicles. As I said above: I have to believe it first.

Keep on believing, my friends.
--the BB

If you were to imagine....

If you were going to write fantasy fiction (which is what I am up to in most free waking and non-working hours) about some parallel world, what religions might you imagine?

Would any of them resemble Christianity as we have known it?

If not, what sources would you draw on?

If so, how might this faith be enacted (by which I mean first of all an Incarnation or parallel "Christ event"), how understood, how proclaimed, how lived in community? What would you tweak and make different? Remember you have full authorial license and it's fiction, for heaven's sake.
I realize these are unfair questions. I have been doing this and, because I wish to retain copyright on my stories, I cannot really reveal my answers except on the most cursory level.

The tales I write grow out of stories I told in the early 1970s. I have not abandoned those roots but have developed, altered, deepened, and enriched them. One of the most delightful imaginative exercises was teasing out a "pagan" mythology, the belief system of the world into which my young Christian hero from this world finds himself taken, without his consent. Like many folks I have known, he practices two faiths, accepting the imagery of the new world while still saying his rosary and, later on, baptizing his children. As in many indigenous traditions (or Hinduism) the many "deities" or holy ones are all understood as manifestation of the one Ultimate Reality, so the faith is not really polytheist. The various "gods" function more like friendly saints to whom one might turn for help or guidance, some heavenly assistance in the area that is their specialty. A folk religion with strong ethical elements, sufficiently vivid that I find myself thinking in its imagery.

But then there is a Christ event in that world and the missionaries come. When they meet the protagonist of my first two books they find someone already Christian! I have not gotten to that encounter as I am working on the background for all this, the family trees and interrelations of my principal characters and their children (and grandchildren) and the whole spread of Christianity (missionary history) in that region.

Since it is a fantasy world, I could play with the context of their Christ, and I get to do outrageous things like making the Church egalitarian from the get-go. My chief Apostle to the region where my tales take place is a woman and she is elected the first archbishop. No one gives it a second's thought. And why should they?

Sin and evil are not denied but the faith of that world is far less atonement-centered than the late medieval theology that has plagued us lo these many centuries. Mysticism is more central, and the path of self-giving love is prominent. But then, the choice between power and domination or love and community is a constant theme of all the stories. It seems I never get away from the abiding question: who is Lord, Jesus or Caesar? Our answer obviously determines how we live.

So.

If you were to imagine a new faith, or an old faith that you could embrace with joy, what might it look like?

What would be your John 3:16?

Your Lord's (or Lady's) Prayer?

What would be (or already are) the virtues of your favorite saint?

Have fun!
--the BB