When Sparrows Fall
Title: When Sparrows Fall
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Scully, Father McCue (mentioned)
Summary: Scully is sitting in the chapel, thinking. Set in Season Five, post-Emily.
Note: May have Catholic overtones, since this concerns Scully's issues with religion. Also, I hope I didn't gauge the timezone wrongly, since the 21st is my date and I'm not a no-show. Done for xf_is_love .
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‘Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.’ - Matthew 10:29, KJV
It is quiet here, in the chapel.
I think it would be quiet even if there was a crowd. I’m coming to learn that quiet is a state of mind, more than just the absence of sound.
I am a scientist first; a believer in the empirical, in that which can be measured, and set aside as knowledge. I am coming to learn that some things are beyond measurement. Faith and reason: these have always been set at odds since Galileo and Kepler defied the church to push for scientific accuracy over romantic theological ideals.
Science demands that there be answers. Science demands that there cannot be miracles, only that which isn’t understood.
Faith is. Faith isn’t concerned with the how, only that it has happened, and that there is meaning in every little thing. That the greater plan can be revealed through these small things. Through the choices we make, the way these impact lives. That if we study them, the way a physicist examines the motion of particles…there is a pattern there, and if we were clever enough, we might understand. A pattern that does exist, and must exist, whether or not we can see it.
Data, observational patterns - these exist, whether or not the scientist can detect them.
Who are the men, I want to ask, who would create a life whose only hope was to die?
Reason says all I need to know: that these men are evil.
I am thumbing through the missal, breathing in the familiar scents of aged paper, feeling the creases where hundreds of hands before me have handled the book. It falls open to the Matthew reading. Matthew 10:29.
Outside the chapel, the world goes on. Parents walk their children to school. Doctors work in the hospitals, saving lives. Cops do the same, outside of the hospitals. Businessmen drive to work. I am reading the print again and again, until my eyes threaten to blur. Maybe I’m tired. I don’t think I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep.
She’s one life. One little girl.
To me, she is everything.
Outside the chapel, she is nothing. The world goes on. And I am wondering about the god of small things, the god of the sparrows who knows and wills when sparrows fall.
I want to believe, so badly, now. This is where the scientist can’t go. But this is where the children’s catechism is, in this empty space where I’m sitting and…not-quite praying. Thinking.
I’ve had a professor talk about this once, when I was studying undergraduate physics. He was an atheist, as many in the field are. Sometimes, faith is something you are born into, even when you can’t hold a little of it yourself. “What kind of God,” he would say, pacing the aisles of the classroom, “What kind of God would inflict suffering, torture, all these evils on a world of innocents?”
Reason and faith. Sometimes, the only way is to not think about where they grind against each other to expose flaws. Sometimes, you have to.
I watch the votive candles flicker. One of them has already gone out. I wonder who placed it there. A prayer intention? A small candle for someone else’s daughter, brother, mother? Maybe I should have lit one for Emily.
What kind of God is this, I want to ask, who would allow, even will the sparrow to die?
It is quiet, here, in the chapel. There are others here, sitting in the pews, praying. Talking to God in their own ways. Believing. This is what we have in common: the religion I was born to. Maybe my doubts. My questions.
It is quiet, here. There are others here, but I am alone. Pain has a way of doing that to a person, of cutting you off, trapping you in a bubble universe. In a void, alone.
In this quiet, there are no answers; none that come to mind, and I am aching.
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Scully, Father McCue (mentioned)
Summary: Scully is sitting in the chapel, thinking. Set in Season Five, post-Emily.
Note: May have Catholic overtones, since this concerns Scully's issues with religion. Also, I hope I didn't gauge the timezone wrongly, since the 21st is my date and I'm not a no-show. Done for xf_is_love .
-
‘Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.’ - Matthew 10:29, KJV
It is quiet here, in the chapel.
I think it would be quiet even if there was a crowd. I’m coming to learn that quiet is a state of mind, more than just the absence of sound.
I am a scientist first; a believer in the empirical, in that which can be measured, and set aside as knowledge. I am coming to learn that some things are beyond measurement. Faith and reason: these have always been set at odds since Galileo and Kepler defied the church to push for scientific accuracy over romantic theological ideals.
Science demands that there be answers. Science demands that there cannot be miracles, only that which isn’t understood.
Faith is. Faith isn’t concerned with the how, only that it has happened, and that there is meaning in every little thing. That the greater plan can be revealed through these small things. Through the choices we make, the way these impact lives. That if we study them, the way a physicist examines the motion of particles…there is a pattern there, and if we were clever enough, we might understand. A pattern that does exist, and must exist, whether or not we can see it.
Data, observational patterns - these exist, whether or not the scientist can detect them.
Who are the men, I want to ask, who would create a life whose only hope was to die?
Reason says all I need to know: that these men are evil.
I am thumbing through the missal, breathing in the familiar scents of aged paper, feeling the creases where hundreds of hands before me have handled the book. It falls open to the Matthew reading. Matthew 10:29.
Outside the chapel, the world goes on. Parents walk their children to school. Doctors work in the hospitals, saving lives. Cops do the same, outside of the hospitals. Businessmen drive to work. I am reading the print again and again, until my eyes threaten to blur. Maybe I’m tired. I don’t think I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep.
She’s one life. One little girl.
To me, she is everything.
Outside the chapel, she is nothing. The world goes on. And I am wondering about the god of small things, the god of the sparrows who knows and wills when sparrows fall.
I want to believe, so badly, now. This is where the scientist can’t go. But this is where the children’s catechism is, in this empty space where I’m sitting and…not-quite praying. Thinking.
I’ve had a professor talk about this once, when I was studying undergraduate physics. He was an atheist, as many in the field are. Sometimes, faith is something you are born into, even when you can’t hold a little of it yourself. “What kind of God,” he would say, pacing the aisles of the classroom, “What kind of God would inflict suffering, torture, all these evils on a world of innocents?”
Reason and faith. Sometimes, the only way is to not think about where they grind against each other to expose flaws. Sometimes, you have to.
I watch the votive candles flicker. One of them has already gone out. I wonder who placed it there. A prayer intention? A small candle for someone else’s daughter, brother, mother? Maybe I should have lit one for Emily.
What kind of God is this, I want to ask, who would allow, even will the sparrow to die?
It is quiet, here, in the chapel. There are others here, sitting in the pews, praying. Talking to God in their own ways. Believing. This is what we have in common: the religion I was born to. Maybe my doubts. My questions.
It is quiet, here. There are others here, but I am alone. Pain has a way of doing that to a person, of cutting you off, trapping you in a bubble universe. In a void, alone.
In this quiet, there are no answers; none that come to mind, and I am aching.