Something Imaginative

Originally written: 02.07.2010 while in Lesotho.

I think I should stop reading st. Thomas Aquinus, he’s giving me ideas above my station. The thought was as follows:

Prayer transforms God’s power in potentia into God’s action in the world

This is hardly, I would guess, a new thought, but it is a new one for me. It gives human action a bigger part in prayer, being almost the guiding or directing force. Perhaps prayer acts more as the gate through which God can act? The problem with that is that that implies that God cannot act and requires permission to. My problem here, as always, is the opposite of the problem raised by J.B. Phillips in his book “Your God is too small” in that the Christian God is defined as being so Big. Perhaps, then, the important words are “in potentia”. If God’s purpose is something that is a river, constantly at work in the world, prayer then, as a two-way action, doesn’t simply alter the flow of the river, but makes us aware of the way, speed, and force of the river; making us more aware of the will of God. Of course that reads suspiciously like the near-traditional description of fate, except here the river is not an impersonal force, but that of a loving God. Prayers, then, could be seen as the pebbles dropped into the river, causing ripples. This implies that the more people who pray, or perhaps the stronger that you pray, for a certain thing the more the course of the river is altered. This doesn’t, to me, seem wholly satisfactory, but then I suppose that no analogy can ever be. However, there seems to be some superficial truth in the opening statement.

There is an equivalence with this idea in Christian ritual (the original statement, that is) whereby the celebrant (ordained person) calls God’s power onto ordinary bread & wine and transforms them into the spiritual body & blood of Christ. That power is called fourth and granted by the Grace of God. How much of the Eucharistic Prayer is necessary to achieve this transformation is a big debate in theology . For me, it requires the commemoration (“On the night he was betrayed, He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them saying “Take, eat, this is my body that was given for you, do this in remembrance of me etc.”), and the call of the Holy Spirit (Heavenly Father, send your spirit upon these thy gifts of bread and wine so that they may be for us His body & blood”). It is the point of the call (during or directly following – I’m not sure, not yet being Ordained!) that the elements (bread & wine) are changed. This then, is a call on God’s power In-potentia and demonstrates (or seems to) that Man# has the ability to call and use God’s power, ot at the very least a properly# Ordained person does. The practise of (emergency) baptism by lay people is still practised and considered to have force, and there are no standard words for such (or, rather, no guarantee that such words were available at the time) and no-one has called these Baptisms invalid#. The problem with prayer then is the seemingly rare occurrences of them being answered ( we don’t have hundreds of millionaires, nor are the terminally ill healed at any scientifically validated rate). Christian theology had then looked for other forms of “answers”; the spiritual healing for the terminally ill, becoming wealthy in spirit. Though they are good and valuable answers they neatly side-step the idea that prayer should be able to move mountains and uproot fig-trees and throw them in the sea with very little faith#. Seemingly, then, the amount of faith a person has does not have an impact on the level of success one should expect from a prayer. There is also the idea that:

“All Prayers are answered; sometimes the answer is ‘No’”

Giving “no” as an answer fits with the idea of a loving Father-God. Any parent# knows that giving in to every demand of a child leads to tyranny of the spoilt. however, it is difficult to see how a loving Father-God could answer “No” to the prayer to intervene in massive humanitarian problems (like Zimbabwe# massacres) or even to help people suffering as the result of a natural disaster (which are ultimately, according to the standard Christian doctrine, the result of God’s action).

With things like the Zimbabwe massacres it is possible to point to human free will as the problem. God gave us free will#, and must therefore allow us to exercise it. It does, however make God appear to be complicit with massive human death, especially as nothing is being done to stop him (Mugabe#). There is no-doubt much prayer being said against Mugabe.

On the small scale it appears that prayer does seem to function in-line with 2000# years of Christian thought. Probably just enough to bring new believers to the faith as they experience the subjective truth of God’s presence#.

There seems to be, then, rules that govern God’s interaction with the world. They are no-doubt, subtle and complicated, and probably, ultimately, unknowable, but it seems rational that these rules can be explored in a fairly rational way. We can, of course, only speak in generalities because God (presumably) is able to transcend any of the rules at will. This does not mean that the inquiry, though it may not be wholly successful, will not in someway bare fruit. To paraphrase Aquinas, all exploration of Divine truth is profitable. It should also be remembered that the truths may not bring specific comfort, as anyone who has faced the sudden death of a child# in any capacity has found that the notion of God’s plan wholly unhelpful, or as anyone who has had to explain to a near-hysterical person why God thinks that it’s okay that they might suddenly drop dead, and how is this fair on them or their loved ones found the questions impossible to answer. The fact that we may never truly know the answer should not stop the enquiry.

So where does that leave the opening statement? It stands, I think,as a good place from which to continue thinking about God’s actions, how we perceive them, and what they say, if anything about God. It seems to me that we cannot jump straight to speaking about the general transcendent God until we have outlined how He appears in specifics, on the small scale, before taking this image out to walk in the light of world history and global problems. We should start, as any enquiry should with what we know,what we understand and how this applies, and then, once that shape is wholly tested,and ironed out, forged as it were, in the light of experience and interpretation with God can we then explore the general and far-reaching truth about God.

~BlackXanthus

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While thinking about the nature of belief, it occurred to me that most people see the movement of God in their life through a high level of coincidence-type actions. When people see that their life fortuitously comes together, or improves despite some calamity, it is easy to see how this could be the action of a God. Especially when such events seem to occur on a regular basis. These events are then often coupled with a deep feeling of connection to something Other, something outside of the individual, normally something greater than oneself, and a feeling that perhaps one’s life is being guided by a benevolent hand. When times are not going so well, there is a tendency to look to oneself as a source of the problems. IF the problems occur outside of oneself (for example, loosing one’s job during the recession), then there is a tendency, at least in the short term to recite platitudes, like “Everything happens for a reason”, or “God moves in mysterious ways”. The positive is re-enforced, and the negative is often forgotten, or seen in a different light. The negative can also be seen as the action of something outside of oneself, but a force that is in some way evil. Logically, if God is Good, then the negative force cannot (at least in the immediate instance) originate with God, and so such “evil” is then attributed to a personified form of Evil (in much the same way that the Good is attributed to the personified God).

Much of the decision-making that happens in regard to Belief seems (at least to me) to be based on a mix of cognition, self-fulfilling prophecy, and emotion. As humans, we have fallible memories, and it is well documented that our minds have a wonderful ability to forget things that we would rather not remember, and to remember things in a more positive light than they actually were. Anyone who’s had any previous relationships (friends or lovers) need simply to look back on them, and they will find that over time one aspect tends to shine through more fully than any other (be it the positive or the negative aspects of the relationship). Sometimes we might even forget why it was we liked them in the first place, or perhaps, why it was we broke up with them. It is these fallible memories that leads us to remember only those things that match the way we see the world. This human tendency makes it very difficult to attribute experiences contrary to our held stereotyped view of the world properly. An example would be that should we hold a sweeping stereotype like “All Blonds are Dumb”, even if we were to meet an intelligent blond, we would either think they had died their hair, or even if it was proven to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were natural blonds (how that might happen, I’ll leave as an exorcise for the reader) we would simply add this blond as the “exception that proves the rule”. We could meet many intelligent blonds, and still hold the notion that blonds are dumb. A wonderful example of this was done my the Monty Python Team in the life of Brian.

Reg: …. And what have they ever given us in return?
Xerxes: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That’s true.
Masked Activist: And the sanitation!
Stan: Oh yes… sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.
Reg: All right, I’ll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done…
Matthias: And the roads…
Reg: (sharply) Well yes obviously the roads… the roads go without saying. But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads…
Another Masked Activist: Irrigation…
Other Masked Voices: Medicine… Education… Health…
Reg: Yes… all right, fair enough…
Activist Near Front: And the wine…
Omnes: Oh yes! True!
Francis: Yeah. That’s something we’d really miss if the Romans left, Reg.
Masked Activist at Back: Public baths!
Stan: And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now.
Francis: Yes, they certainly know how to keep order… (general nodding)… let’s face it, they’re the only ones who could in a place like this.

(more general murmurs of agreement)
Reg: All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?

I think you get the point. However, a Robot (that is, a high-functioning AI robot) has perfect recall. They are able to remember everything that they have ever done, and every sequence of events that has led to specific outcomes. If we take a robot like Data (from Star Trek: Next Generation) He would also be able to work out the probability of the action that has happened. A robot would not be able to accept the empirical proofs put forward such as “I feel it”, having no emotions (which are prone to be arbitrary). The actions of God in the life of the Robot would need to show actions that border on the far side of probability for the Robot to even begin to contemplate the existence of some form of entity that guides their destiny. They would not be subject to the same problems that fallible humans are. Would the Robots ever come to believe in a God?

I’m not sure if a Robot would ever make the leap to a full-formed God, like, for example, the God of the Christians, because they would be lacking in the emotional attachment such religious structure brings with it. They would have no use for the moral structure, and would have difficulty making a personal connection to a deity like Jesus because these, primarily, are emotional links. However, should the amount of chances in the Robots life actually border on the far edge of probability, if they were able to see that there is an apparent Order in the Chaos of their lives, would they make the logical leap that there was someone aiding their life, guiding it in some way? or simply see that they existed on the far end of the probability curve, and therefore, re-draw the probability curve to one that matches where they are? (this is the kind of math that’s a little beyond me, but it occurs to me that if things are happening on the edges of probability repeatedly, then the math that produced the probability graph is off, and they move to become the “norm”, rather than improbable).

I’m not sure a truly logical brain could actually arrive at the notion of a God, unless, of course, God existed. A mind that remembers everything, that is able to view their life without prejudice of emotion, or self-delusion could only arrive at the notion of a God (here defined, of course, as an unseen entity guiding their life) unless it became truly apparent to them that something was. For Robots, of course, they won’t believe, they will simple accept it as another fact, another variable to add into their equation. They can’t believe; they have no emotions.

The lack of emotion, of course, raises all sorts of other questions. CAn you have a soul without emotion? Can a soul that lives in what is essentially an inanimate object enter heaven? (because belief is cited as a criteron for entering heaven). The reason I’m not contemplating the question of wether or not a Robot can gain a soul is simple; God can choose to give a soul to a Robot, if He wants too.

~Black Xanthus

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Recently, I was reading “Stubborn Theological Questions”, by John Macquarrie. An interesting book which I found myself thoroughly disagreeing with. The problem, for me, was the current thrust to “De-Mythologise” Christianity. Denial of things like the Incarnation, and of explaining away Miracles as happenstance, or with other logical answers seems to be the way of the times. This is the process where people seem to be hunting for the true facts behind the Bible stories; that is, those that can be explained only by scientific, archaeological, or historic means. This to me seems to be a little.. odd. Essentially, what these Christian Theologians seem to what to turn Christianity into Christophosofy. A Philosophy that’s based around an eccentric Rabbi from distant Palestine. Okay, so when looked at like that, it’s not a bad philosophy. Love one another, and share the wealth around. Not at all a bad way of living your life. However, the thrust of Christianity also adds the idea of a “God”.

In the modern world, many people feel that it is necessary to prove the existence of God in a scientific way. This is not a new argument (though some people act as though it is), and some of the greatest (and not so great) minds have tried to come up with a suitable answer to the problem. As of yet, we (Christians) have not found one. Though more and more people keep finding that there is something… other in the world that doesn’t fit the rational scientific post-enlightenment mind set. For some, this way of thinking is destructive, and for others it’s liberating. The Post-Modern Philosophy that currently drives our society puts the emphasis on the personal experience. Some theologians would sneer at that as the sin of Subjectivism, but is a world-view where Miracles happened, where God does have a part to play in guiding the world a bad thing?

As with many things, it’s a double-edged sword. There are Christians who would want to hold onto the Bible with both hands and scream “if it’s not in here, it’s not true”, which does the book itself a disservice. The Bible is full of people thinking, and re-envisaging their interactions with God. Becoming or Being a Christian does not mean checking your brains it at the moment the Bible is opened, and never turning them on again. Indeed, the Old Testament is a struggle to do just that, to record the history of a people, and to see how they observed God moving and supporting their small country.

If we are going to believe in a story based on the Miraculous, it seems to me to make more sense that on some level that we must also accept the Miracles, and the idea that Christ, in some way, is the Son of God. To look for miracles in our own lives, and to be willing for the Other to have an impact, and to change the way we view life. To look around us, and to not see nature, but to see Creation. This doesn’t meant to deny the process of nature (such as evolution, the Big Bang and so on, God gave us the ability to think for a reason), but rather to look at the world and to think that, in some way, God had a hand in bringing it about.

If we are to avoid the turning Christianity in to yet another Philosophy, then we need to find a way to deal with the miracles, and with the other super-natural events that are part of the heritage of Christianity (say, perhaps, the miracles of saints), and wrap them into our world view. I can understand that some people might find the concept of the super natural difficult, especially when such events have not managed to produce themselves like dancing dogs for the scientists. Our fear of trying to justify what some people see as “insane thoughts” has meant that we would rather remove anything we can’t justify under the scrutiny of science. Of course, if we spend all our time trying to justify it to the level of science, we will go mad (though, of course, some people think that to believe things that cannot be proved to be true is a form of madness). If we do remove all these things that we cannot prove all we end up with is a Christosophy. A noble way of life, indeed, but it makes the ritual, and the gathering connected with it a little pointless.

The strange things is that as Christianity is busy trying to stand up against science, the selves of the “mind, body and spirit” section are growing. The local Waterstones has gone from one shelf to nearly three. It’s not that people don’t want to believe, from all walks of life, but they want to believe in something that is where they are. That walks with them, and connects to their sense of the other, that explores their own life of Spirituality, where there is an explanation for the way that they find their world.

So, really, what is it we’re afraid of? Being laughed at by scientists? Is that really enough for us to run and hide our belief?

To my mind we must face up to the challenge, and ensure that what we believe is moral, sensible, and well thought out. As an Anglican, the three pillars popularised by Richard Hooker or Reason, Scripture, and Tradition serve as constraints, but also as guidance. We are not to suddenly ignore the world, and to claim (like some fundamental Christians would have us do), that Evolution is an unsubstantiated Myth, and that Dionsaur bones are either faked, left there in the flood, or put there by God to test our faith. I’m suggesting, however, that we walk a fine line between what Science tells us, and what we ourselves discover about the God and the world through our own interaction with it. It is a difficult task. With every line I write, I can hear the voices of scientific disapproval. Of those that say “But you can’t prove any of it, why believe it?”. It’s a difficult place to be. To have science demanding answers that you just can give it, and every bone in your body believing despite yourself. Knowing, almost beyond doubt, that there is something other, that out there, somewhere, there is a God, and that He sent his Son to show us the way back to Him. It’s a lot of big ideas, a lot of ancient thinking that has, on occasion, been a weight that has held down further thinking. We are simple thinkers, trying to find a way forward in a world where Belief of any kind is marginalised, and where believing in God is the path of ridicule. In this world, we must find a new way of thinking, a new way of approaching God that doesn’t leave us thinking that some form of mental trick has been pulled.

The great thinkers of antiquity were all writing in a time where God was almost a Fact. Now we are writing in a time where God seems almost distant, and the Mysteries and Miracles spoken about in the Bible and in the writings about the Celtic saints are considered to be fiction. To keep these elements as part of a theology, then, seems a little insane, but it seems to me that there’s no smoke without fire. All these wonderous things, then, must find a place in theology. All the things that people point at an scream “myth” like it’s a bad thing need to be re-investigated. There is no smoke without fire, and indeed, a lot of the records were written by people who had a lot less knowledge about the world than we do, and yes, perhaps some (or, a lot) can be explained with what we know about modern medicine, but somewhere in those stories, somewhere in all these ideas there is something deeper, something that fires our soul.

AS you can see the entire idea is not exactly a re-envisaging of theology. Perhaps a re-romanticising of Theology, but definitely a Re-Mythologising of Christianity. Anything to avoid it becoming a Christosophy.

~BX

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….. Westborough Baptist Church looses.

Which is not very surprising, at all.

The usual madness that is the Fred Phelp’s clan descended onto Comic Con, USA, only to be faced by a protest held in response. With people holding signs like “Is this thing on?”, and “Odin is God”. The article doesn’t record the response of the Phelps’, but I hope that one day they will, themselves, see the light, and stop their hate-spewing nonsense. It is admirable that they are protected under the Free Speech rules, and so they should be, no matter how distasteful most people find them to be. However, it is also nice when those same rules are used to make the point that most people think them to be distasteful.

For many pictures, check here: Comic Alliance

~BX

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Yes indeed.

I have travelled back from the distant land of Lesotho back to good old Blighty. I have to say, I’m very glad to be back.

I did indeed have a good time in Lesotho, the people, by and large, were varied and interesting, but like a lot of placements, there were a few problems too.

I know that there is a lot of things that I have learned about myself. Spending 4 weeks (essentially) alone with nothing really to do other than think and read Theology books can do strange things to one’s mind. For example, I think I might actually want to be a Theologian. I realise, from varying perspectives, that we are all theologians, but right now I want to fully investigate what I think and believe I know about God, then write it down, and with the permission of the relevant authorities, get it published. I say with permission, because some of it might be a little.. out there, and all good theology should be tempered by someone who knows enough to say when you’ve gone too far, or too wide. You don’t want to go and accidentally explore heresy. (knowingly exploring heresy, on the other hand is fine, but it’s always good to know where the line is).

Yet what of Lesotho itself? What can I say? Well, most of my time was taken up visiting the churches in the Parish that I was sent too, with the aim of producing a report at the end of it. This was fascinating, seeing how they approach worship, church life, and other Christian activities. I have to say that they do seem to be doing more for those around them than most churches in the UK, though that may because there is a lot they CAN do. They don’t suffer from the rules and regulations that we do here in the UK which can, in some cases, make it impossible to actually do any practical help. For example, here in the UK, you need a food hygine certificate to make food for the homeless, there is no such barrier in Lesotho, and so it was relatively straight-forward for the to organise visiting people with meals.

That said, the church suffered from the “inward looking” point of view of churches here in the UK. They would visit the sick that were once part of the congregation, and have no real thought about visiting those that were not part of the congregation. Here in the UK, suffering as we do from very little knowledge about our neighbours, it would be difficult to know who of our neighbours are sick, and require our help. Lesotho, however, doesn’t really ahve that problem. They still (mostly) live in small villages, where it is conceivable to know everyone (or at least a major part of the village, and definitely enough to be kept informed). Though, I suppose, it’s all swings and roundabouts. Though it may be possible to be kept informed of all the sick, how many could the poor church rationally visit, and doesn’t it therefore make sense to look after the congregation first, and then the others?

A lot of the things that I saw in Lesotho raise a lot of interesting questions for me, and how I would be able to put some of it into practice in the future. Their strong connection with Guilds (like Mothers Union), meant that the church was already naturally split into different groups with different foci, which simply needed to be mobilised. Here in the UK I would guess we would need to do the forming of groups, and then do the mobilising. It would be interesting to see if something similar could work in the UK, to form people into groups with vaugue outline goals, and then to call on these groups to do specific tasks (rather than form groups specifically for the tasks). It would definitely work to build communities, but may run the risk of over-identification with the individual groups. Then, most things have a downside.

I suppose what I should mention here is something about the country. I guess going in winter that meant that most things were dead (as things do over winter). The landscape was mostly a mix of yellows and light browns, and went on as far as the eye could see. The mountains were quite impressive, topped with flat platoughs, but even that lacked something. As much as I’m glad I went, I’m not sure that I have the impetous to go back.

I will probably write more later, though that might be in the form of theological reflection.

~BX

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So, dear and gentle reader,

This is it. This is me getting ready for Lesotho. I can’t guarantee that there’ll be any updates while I’m away, but if I do get a change, I will put them here. So, for now, for the next four weeks, I shall be in Lesotho, seeing how the other half lives.

Peace Out.

~BX

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The new version of the Java IRC client, BIRCH (written by yours truly) has been released. It’s only a point release, but don’t let that fool you, there’s many new additions, updates, and changes that make it well worth checking out.

You can find it at http://birch.jara23.co.uk

Tell your Friends!

~BX

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Martha let her hands dance over the white piece of paper. She liked blank pieces of paper, they made her happy. It wasn’t long, however, before the pen in her hand began leaving ugly trails all over it. Her hand was trying to capture the images in her head, the noise and the voices. None of them were hers, she knew that. The Doctors, of course, knew differently. They kept giving her different medication to make the voices go away. Martha had quickly discovered that the voices didn’t want to go away.

They weren’t always the same voices, sometimes they were different ones. They were never talking at her, they were far away, in different places, in different countries.

Martha looked down at the once-white page now covered in scrawling handwriting. It seemed to be some sort of prediction about the end of the world. That had been happening a lot recently. It was happening with irritating frequency. She liked it when what she wrote was different, entertaining. Sometimes she would see a story play out in her writings, sometimes she would just images of things. Of terribly, horrible things. Of people calling out in pain, in terror, in anguish, calling out with a note of terrified hope that there was someone coming to help them.

There never was. Well, in the beginning there wasn’t. Now, though, sometimes she would get visions where someone had been there to help them. Never the same person twice in a row, but some of the faces she saw time and time again, in different places. There was on of them she was quite fond of. He drove around in a black van, and he was trying to save the girl in the back of it. It was almost romantic. She hadn’t seen very much about him recently, and she blamed all these end of the world images. They weren’t very nice, and they scared her.

Martha didn’t like being sacred. She let the piece of paper float to the floor to join the other drawings and writings that she had scattered all over the gray-carpeted floor. She stretched her back, and felt the plastic chair beneath her creak a little. She lifted up her pink-slippered feet and waggled them for a bit. Distractedly, her free hand sought out her lunch. Half finished and long cold, she slowly eat a few of the chips, and regarded the new blank sheet of paper before her. There was the jangle of keys, and the door to her room opened. It was time for something. She knew that because the door was opened. She looked up at the large man expectantly. He had a kind face, and she knew that she liked him. She didn’t know his name though.

“Hello Martha” he said, softly.
“Hello” she replied, and swung her feet under her plastic chair. “Do I know you?”.
His smile broadened a little “Yes Martha, my name is Stewart”.
“Oh. I’m not really very good in the present. How can I help you?”
“It’s morning, Martha, you can go into the day room.”
“Morning?”
Martha looked around her. Her bed was unslept in, there were two trays of food on her desk, one of them was covered with paper. She brushed the paper off, and eat the food. When she had finished one plate, she moved onto the other. When she had finished that, she picked up her pen and idly regarded the paper infront of her.
“Marther?”
Martha looked up at the man in her room. He had a kind face, and she knew that she liked him. She didn’t know his name though.

“Hello, Martha”
“Hello” she replied. She let the pen drop from her hand and swung her legs under her plastic chair. “Do I know you?”
His smile was soft, and pleasant. “Yes Martha, my name is Stewart.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not very good in the present. How can I help you?”
“It’s morning Martha, you can go into the day room”
“Morning?”
Martha looked around her. Her bed was unslept in and there was two empty food trays on her desk. She must have forgotten to sleep again. No matter, sleep would come when it was ready. Or it would come in a needle. Either option was acceptable. She picked up some paper, and a pen, and looked at the large man in her doorway. He gently reached out his hand, and she took it, and gently squeezed it. She liked this man, whoever he was. He smiled softly back at her, and led her into the day room. Stewart made shure she was comfortable, and that her paper was laid out just as she liked it. Just as he had done since the first time she had arrived. This was an exclusive facility, and for the money the Office was paying for the people here, every was well-cared for. Once He was sure she was settled, Stewart went back to her room to tidy it. He picked up all her writings and drawings, as well as her washing, and carried them out with him. The washing went into her hamper, and he would do it for her later. The writings were important, and he did as he had been trained to do. He photo-copied them all, and put them into an envelope with the day on them, and put them in the internal post, he then scanned each image into the computer, and saved that onto their central server.

His next task was a simple one. He put Martha’s clothes on to wash. She had many pretty clothes, some of them he had bought for her, and some of them she had arrived with. He then took her writings back to her room and put them into her file, kept on her shelf. That done, he turned his attention to her wardrobe, and picked out an outfit for her, and laid it on her spare chair. When he had first started working here, the attention to detail had disturbed him somewhat. The fact that he had been asked to buy closed for Martha, ones that he thought she would like when her old ones were getting threadbare, the way that he, along with the rest of Martha’s team, had worked out her schedule, always had the same conversations with her, watched, made sure she eat, slept and washed. It felt a bit strange being part of all-male team. Apparently Martha didn’t like women on her team, they scared her, but no one knew why. Martha couldn’t concentrate long enough on the present to tell anyone. It was odd, Stewart reflected. After 4 years with Martha, he was beginning to use the same phrases that she was. Stewart took a final check around the room, and rescued a pen from under her bed. He checked that it worked on a pad that he carried with him for just that purpose, and satisfied, placed it neatly into the pot on her desk. He looked at the plastic chair, and wished, not for the first time, that Martha would let them replace it with a more comfortable chair. He glanced once more around the room, then pulled the door closed behind him.

~BX

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Hello Friends, Romans, Netizens!

I have come not to praise Black Xanthus, but to ask politely for your money!

I have been accepted by USPG to go to Lesotho on Mission. This will be a wonderful way to expand my horizons (which is probably why USPG call it the Expanding Horizons Program), but it’s very expensive. There is only a small donation available towards air-fare, and the rest of the costs have to be found by me. As such, I’m asking as many of the kind folks that I know to please, please donate.

For further information, see the Send Me To Lesotho! page, or simply donate now through PayPal. Donations from as little as £1 (or even less, if pay-pal will let you), are gratefully accepted!:

Thanks,

~BX

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James crawled his way through the old metal tube, and stopped at the metal grill that looked down into the dark room below him. From the smell that rose up he was sure he was in the right place. The rank smell of rotting flesh and drying blood. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he could make out two shapes moving below him. As he lay there, watching, he ran over his plan again. Drop out of the vent, kill one of them, and fight the other one until he had incapacitated it, and then force the thing to tell him what he wanted to know. It wasn’t a through plan, as plans went, but it was better than the last attempt. That had involved him ripping down the boards on the windows, and then kicking open the door. The kicking open the door had been a bit redundant, because the sunlight streaming in through the windows had turned everything inside to so much ash. This one would work better. He crouched, and timed his moment. Taking a last breath of fresh air, he kicked open the grill, and landed on one of the things. A hiss broke out between it’s teeth, which was quickly mirrored by the hiss of it’s companion. James drived the wood into it’s chest, and watched as it froze. He then jumped forward as the companion made a grab for him. James grabbed at wood over the window, and pulled it back. Light spilled into the room, lighting the corner that James stood in. The thing stalked the darkness around him.
“Time will run out tasty mortal. I eat when darktime comes”
James fished out a mirror from his pocket, and shone a beam of light at the thing. It screached, and backed away.
“Morsal got magic wepon”
James looked at the thing. “Answer my questions, or I will use the … uh.. magic wepon on you”
“I don’t answer to food”
James flashed the mirror onto it, and it screached again. “Tell me how I undo the curse you have”
“Food want to save me?” the thing laughed, a cruel and corse laugh.
“No. ” James flashed the mirror again. “I want to save someone else”.
“A cure would mean that this was disease, bad thing. This is not bad thing. This is great”.
James let the mirror direct light onto the thing for a few seconds.
“When dark come I find you, I get you, I eat you”
“Tell me what I want to know”.
“No.”
The light beam set the flesh on it’s hand alight. “Tell me!”
“I not know! I now know!”
James turned the light off. “Why don’t you know?”
“I only new. I only little. I been in darkday for maybe one moon. I not have the pure blood.”
“Pardon?” James said.
“My blood, it new.” The mirror glinted, and the thing began babbling. “The blood it like magic. New blood mean you not think like those of old-blood. It mean you got to fight the thing, and be all clever and survive. You gotta fight the noise. You gotta fight it, so you don’t slip and become animal. I not so good at fighting it.” The thing looked down, then apparently became aware of the body parts around it’s feet. It slowly sank down to them, and picked up an arm. It held the fingers to it’s face, and ran them along it’s cheek, then hugged the arm. “Sometime the thing inside, it cry so loud. It cry so loud.” The thing looked up at James, with tears in it’s eyes. It proffered the hand to James. “I never meant to. She was the only one who ever think I was worth something.” James watched, taken aback. He had always thought of them purely as animals, here was one showing emotion. It stood up, and looked at James. He stared at the thing, and it looked back. James tried to regain control of the situation.
“Tell me what I want to know”. The thing shook it’s head. James let the mirror glint again. “Tell me!”.
The thing crouched. “To tell would be worse than the cry inside.” It launched itself at James, and caught fire in the light. The burning body hit the surprised James, and he rolled it off him, stripping off his now burning jacket, and frantically patting out the flames. He stood there, looking at the burning body for a long time, then he turned, and flung open the door. James headed back to the van, leaving the other body caught light in the sunlight.

~BX

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