Sermon sparking some thoughts about my writing
Just left the Unitarian Universalist church I go to every Sunday. I almost didn't, because the back pain I had yesterday is persisting. But I went, taking my cane with me to help me sit up and sit down.
Today was an extra special service there, a pledge day. They had special music (Latin flavoured) and a guest minister, a woman who helped her original congregation grow so much that the higher-ups sent her to Massachusetts where, surprise surprise, she pulled off the same feat. And it wasn't hard to see how she did it. You should have heard her sermon. It was about how people are always worthy of love, that God loves everyone no matter what, and about how we have to keep spreading that message because people need to hear it. It was how we need to remind ourselves of that message, as well. No matter what we do or don't do, no matter what, The Divine loves us. We're still worthy of love. It was also about how some people's experience is so far from the concept of unconditional love that they may not be able to recieve the message even if they hear it. But that we should keep trying anyway. I wish my description here could do it justice. And if I hadn't spent $3 on a CD copy of last week's sermon, I would have gotten a copy of this one.
These words made me think a lot. My Goddess, Djao'Kain (Shao'Kehn), who lives in my head, is always there to tell me She loves me. Whenever I feel scared, depressed, ashamed, or otherwise down on myself for something I've done, not done, thought, or felt, She has been there to tell me that none of it matters to Her; that She loves me. And this is possible for me because my own parents, though struggling with that a little, have *lived* unconditional love, shown it to me and my sisters. I've experienced unconditional love from my parents, which is something that a lot of people cannot say.
I've been thinking about my writing lately, especially the Lyria Spellspinner stuff, and I realized something I should have noticed sooner. All of my protagonists, and a fair number of my antagonists, have had traumatic lives and have psychological issues to work through as a consequence. That much I figured out a few days ago when I went to Freddy's to write. I decided I need to add signs of the struggles with these issues in the story. Take Forizano for instance: drafted to a war when he was a pacifist and a scholar, lost his legs for his country, then was treated like dog shit's vomit for it, ending up a homeless, starving beggar for 5 years before Lyria pulled him out of that life. Lyria herself has done horrible things in her life, been exiled from her homeland, done things she can't even forgive herself for. And I already knew that the relationship between her and Forizano would be mutually healing.
Today's sermon made me realize that the prevailing lesson of the Lyria story is about pain, healing, and unconditional love. Forizano is horrified by some of the things Lyria does when she loses her temper. But he's falling in love with her anyway, and whether she knows it or not, she's falling for him in return.
All of these thoughts made me realize that I need to sit down and write a chapter where they work through some of this. It would have to take place after a certain event, which I will not spoil. But I realized that Lyria might be wondering if Forizano's silence about the issue is from fear of her (she warned him, before he agreed to be her employee, that she would kill him if she had to, to protect her family), or from something else. Forizano also needs to figure out his own feelings in regard to Lyria, as I'm not sure he has it figured out yet.
I knew there was a reason I loved this series.
Come to think of it... it might be good to do some stories with Nokwahl that visit her past, since most of her healing has already been done by the time the novels focus on her. I mean, she was raped and almost murdered, when she was a child no less; that's not something one gets over easily. By comparison, the beginning of Lyria's troubles are tame. It was Lyria's reaction to those events that snowballed the situation to the extremes it went to.
Those two - Lyria and Nokwahl - are my two big examples of people with issues, with pain to work through. But there are others.
Actually, now I think of it, I don't think Fiomi of my "Carbon and Silicon" world has any issues... yet. Aside from his study of carbon-based life forms being viewed as something like a scat fetish by most of his people. But if I ever finish that novel, things will get much worse for Fiomi.
Anyway, so yeah... healing from pain, the lesson of unconditional love, these are the messages I want to send in my writing.
Crossposted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org
Today was an extra special service there, a pledge day. They had special music (Latin flavoured) and a guest minister, a woman who helped her original congregation grow so much that the higher-ups sent her to Massachusetts where, surprise surprise, she pulled off the same feat. And it wasn't hard to see how she did it. You should have heard her sermon. It was about how people are always worthy of love, that God loves everyone no matter what, and about how we have to keep spreading that message because people need to hear it. It was how we need to remind ourselves of that message, as well. No matter what we do or don't do, no matter what, The Divine loves us. We're still worthy of love. It was also about how some people's experience is so far from the concept of unconditional love that they may not be able to recieve the message even if they hear it. But that we should keep trying anyway. I wish my description here could do it justice. And if I hadn't spent $3 on a CD copy of last week's sermon, I would have gotten a copy of this one.
These words made me think a lot. My Goddess, Djao'Kain (Shao'Kehn), who lives in my head, is always there to tell me She loves me. Whenever I feel scared, depressed, ashamed, or otherwise down on myself for something I've done, not done, thought, or felt, She has been there to tell me that none of it matters to Her; that She loves me. And this is possible for me because my own parents, though struggling with that a little, have *lived* unconditional love, shown it to me and my sisters. I've experienced unconditional love from my parents, which is something that a lot of people cannot say.
I've been thinking about my writing lately, especially the Lyria Spellspinner stuff, and I realized something I should have noticed sooner. All of my protagonists, and a fair number of my antagonists, have had traumatic lives and have psychological issues to work through as a consequence. That much I figured out a few days ago when I went to Freddy's to write. I decided I need to add signs of the struggles with these issues in the story. Take Forizano for instance: drafted to a war when he was a pacifist and a scholar, lost his legs for his country, then was treated like dog shit's vomit for it, ending up a homeless, starving beggar for 5 years before Lyria pulled him out of that life. Lyria herself has done horrible things in her life, been exiled from her homeland, done things she can't even forgive herself for. And I already knew that the relationship between her and Forizano would be mutually healing.
Today's sermon made me realize that the prevailing lesson of the Lyria story is about pain, healing, and unconditional love. Forizano is horrified by some of the things Lyria does when she loses her temper. But he's falling in love with her anyway, and whether she knows it or not, she's falling for him in return.
All of these thoughts made me realize that I need to sit down and write a chapter where they work through some of this. It would have to take place after a certain event, which I will not spoil. But I realized that Lyria might be wondering if Forizano's silence about the issue is from fear of her (she warned him, before he agreed to be her employee, that she would kill him if she had to, to protect her family), or from something else. Forizano also needs to figure out his own feelings in regard to Lyria, as I'm not sure he has it figured out yet.
I knew there was a reason I loved this series.
Come to think of it... it might be good to do some stories with Nokwahl that visit her past, since most of her healing has already been done by the time the novels focus on her. I mean, she was raped and almost murdered, when she was a child no less; that's not something one gets over easily. By comparison, the beginning of Lyria's troubles are tame. It was Lyria's reaction to those events that snowballed the situation to the extremes it went to.
Those two - Lyria and Nokwahl - are my two big examples of people with issues, with pain to work through. But there are others.
Actually, now I think of it, I don't think Fiomi of my "Carbon and Silicon" world has any issues... yet. Aside from his study of carbon-based life forms being viewed as something like a scat fetish by most of his people. But if I ever finish that novel, things will get much worse for Fiomi.
Anyway, so yeah... healing from pain, the lesson of unconditional love, these are the messages I want to send in my writing.
Crossposted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org