Paper

At the request of some others I have decided to post my paper. To spare you all the absurd length of it, I placed it behind this link.

Before you go there, I would like to make a couple of points. First, I did not edit the Deadrek (pronounced De-ah-drek) in the post like I did in the paper. The full story of the Watchers (The Nine) is included here, adding a couple pages to the length.

The purpose of this is to provide a mythology to the world of the Hidden Cities. You need not know much about the Hidden Cities beyond that the world is almost a mirror to our own, with the addition of the aforementioned Cities, placed like "rocks in a stream." The world flows around them but they can be accessed by those who know how. Those are the cities mentioned in the Origin of Men.

Between the Deadrek and the Origin of men comes the story of Semialich. Because I do not have it typed up, I will summarize here. Ëla-lon, the creator (who is Ëla under another name) created, in addition to the Nine Watchers (named and explained in the Deadrek) also created three other beings, the Exalted. They were equal with the Nine and regulators of the world, the chief of whom was Semialich. But Semialich came to desire Glory over Humilty, Freedom over Wisdom, and came to see himself as the Guardian of Ëla's nature. He elevated himself and through that, fell and become corrupted. He founded the fortress of Dirikan and set himself against men. This is where the story of the Origin of Men takes place.

Whenever a pair of brackets appear [] they refer to a location where a name is lacking. I a firm believer, as I mentioned before, in the importance of names and when I do not have one etymological and aesthetically accurate I leave blanks, marked for future refernce. Those blanks remain in this addition for I have yet to develop the names I need.

Feel free to post comments and questions here or at the other post and I will get back to you when I can.

Final Post

Well, I can't guarantee this is the final post, but I doubt I will work up the energy for another.

I was originally planning to post a vast study on suffering and the views on it, from its non-existence to its help in the salvation of man, but particularly the understanding of it given in the Bible. For those of you curious, the New Testament view of suffering is very different than the Old, particularly in the letters of St. Paul. Suffering is constantly referred to in light of Christ's suffering and His order that we "take up our cross."

I have nothing particularly insightful, witty, intersting, supportive, aggresive, odd, or otherwise noteworthy. I just wanted to throw out one more post (course, another after this would bring me up to a full 40, five shy of my last Dr. Sexson blog, but that was for two classes. Me thinks I wrote too much).

I present tomorrow (with tomorrow being Thursday) so I may post something from that if something is particularly interesting, but we'll see.

Free Food

Did I get your attention with my subject line? Every Friday during the school year the Catholic Parish next to the birdhouses puts on a free lunch (Chunch, from Church Lunch) from 11:15 to 1:30, no purchase necessary. Free food, fun, and fellowship.

Anyway, that is just background to what I want to talk about. I joined a couple of people I know today at Chunch and they were talking about the book of Jonah. Now my group did Jonah, so I figured I might have something to offer. After a few minutes talking, I realized our discussion had nothing to do with anything we even considered in our group presentation. Just goes to show you how versatile the Bible is.

The subject we discussed was Mercy. The exact issue we were looking at was how the worm/bush plot point was associated with the God/Ninevah plot point. The final conclusion came described like this:

"The reason Jonah was in need of the bush to shade him was because he doubeted God's mercy, expecting him to smite Ninivah. In response, God showed his mercy by giving Jonah a bush under which to shade himself. So while doubting God's mercy he himself was recipiant of that mercy.

"God then resinds the mercy he showed Jonah by letting the tree be eaten. Jonah then gets angry that God has not shown him perpetual mercy, yet he is simultaneously angry that God has shown mercy to the Ninivites."

Just a thought.