Religion, of all things, and how fanfiction helps.
If you can believe that.
Yeah, here's a good idea. Let's post about religion on this journal. 'Cuz, you know, I've got such a leg to stand on being as my main purpose in getting a journal way back when was to follow my favorite authors and the gay porn they write in other people's universes.
But religion.
So two things. First, I just read Sacrament by Yahtzee on AO3 (actually, I listened to it, the first story, which is a podfic hosted on Jinjurly's site), and something came up that made me stop for a moment. For what it's worth, It's a piece (apparently first of four stories in the universe, haven't read the others) of X-men first-class fanfic set in an AU (still 60s) where Charles is a Priest and Eric is the leader of a Jewish charity group he works with. Charles struggles with his feelings for Eric, feelings Priests aren't supposed to have. The author talks a little bit about where she got her material, and if that's the part of the story that interests you, go read it. The struggle between personal love and Church love and duty and Faith and Happiness isn't what I'm talking about here. Go read the fic for that (which is very well done).
No, what I was captured by with a very small section on a different topic.
Charles and Eric are discussing their faith and Eric doesn't believe in God. He believes in goodwill and he believes that the the Biblical code of behavior is pretty spot on, a lot of it, but he doesn't believe in a god, because if God, then why Holocaust? rather than rehash, I'mma quote for a minute, though I'll trim it a little.
Erik sighed heavily. “I don’t believe. Perhaps that offends you, but I don’t.”
Charles frowned. “But - you keep kosher, you go to temple, and I’ve heard you talk about your rabbi.”
“Rabbi Kaplan leads a group of us who find Judaism meaningful as part of our heritage, and as a moral philosophy. But few of us believe in the god of the Torah. I haven’t since Auschwitz.” Erik’s stare took in a distant place only he could now see. “God has two names; each of them are used in Genesis. One is his name as the god of mercy, the other as the god of justice. I was taught that this was to show us that both have their place in the world. But what happened to my parents had nothing to do with justice or mercy.”
...
After a moment, Erik added, “Thank you for not telling me what happened was God’s will.”
“I would never say anything so - grotesque.” Charles had to struggle for the words. “A god who willed Auschwitz into being, who desired what happened there … such a god would be indistinguishable from any rational idea of the devil. Worshipping a god like that would be utterly morally repugnant.”
“Then where was your God when they died?” It was an accusation, but not a bitter one; Erik honestly wanted to know what Charles would say.
It took a few moments to be sure he had the words. “I believe that God was with your parents. I believe he suffered as they suffered. That he knew all their fear and pain, and all they left behind. I believe he held them close in their last moments, and that they awakened to the knowledge that - that everything had been seen. Been understood. That God and through him the whole fabric of the universe raged against the injustice of their deaths, honored their lives and welcomed them into a perfect and eternal love.”
I really like this statement. It's a question Christians get a fair bit, there's that Epicurus quote "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?"
This approaches the "whence cometh evil" bit. I believe, like in the book Good Omens, the we are here to make our own choices. It's all about Free Will. I would like to believe in God, and some days I think I do. On those days, I believe rather like Deists believe, that god is the great watchmaker, that he set it up, and left it alone. I believe that part of being Human is getting to decide for ourselves what to do. God can't inter fear with that. And by "can't" i mean "won't". When he decided we all got Free will, that was it. If he's messing about in our heads, it's not free will anymore, and it all collapses. all of a sudden, there's no point to any of it. it can't be "kind of free will" or "mostly free will" or "on Thursday evening as long as your grades have been good and your room is picked up you can have the keys to the minivan, free will".
Which means that the bad guys get free will too. (not that I believe most if any body is strictly good or bad, but that's a different and unhelpful topic). This means that when people do awful things, to each other, to animals, to children, to themselves, to nations and races and oceans and their spouses, God can't step in and stop it. He can't poke at their frontal lobes until they stop committing genocide.
I spend my summers working at a Presbyterian church camp. I like it, because it's a good group of people and their approach to faith is pretty much, to quote Eddie Izzard "Relaxed and Groovy". I normally call myself Catholic, but this crew is cool and while they are technically a Presbyterian group, they are cool with anybody of any faith or not-faith, as long as you come with a somewhat open mind and a very open heart. I'm not qualified to help some of these kids with some of their problems. All I can do sometimes is hug them and say "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I will hug you until my arms fall off, if that might help at all."
And they ask these questions. They ask where God is when they get hurt, so terribly hurt, and when their families and friends get hurt, when people leave, when there are no people in the first place. They want to know if God is a lie, or if He's gone, or if He's mad at them. They do things, sometimes, and get in trouble, and sometimes they hate themselves and think God must hate them too. And they ask me what they should do or why he doesn't answer or how they can make him answer. And I can't help.
Except that I can say this. I can say, there. Right there. That's where God is. He can't do it. It would have no point if He did it. He can only hug you, like this, like I'm doing, even though you can't feel it. He can only say "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He can only let those other people do whatever it is they feel they need to do, and hold you through the storm, and pick up the pieces after. He can only say "I'm here, and I'll hug you til my arms fall off if you'll let me, and that means forever, because I'm God and My arms don't get tired and they'll never fall off, no matter how many of my children I'm holding."
All you have to do is make the choice. Believe. Because It's just that easy. And it's just that hard.
Pretty words. And harder when You have to make that choice every day. Again and again. Even though you often, sometimes never, can see the proof.
But that leads me to the second thing I realized through Fanfiction. And this one is infinitely worse (when taken in by an elderly WASP woman) and infinitely more amusing and interesting (when taken in by someone with a bit of Humor).
SGA, this time. I was reading the infamous BDSM-verse by Xanthe, don't even remember which piece (and if you haven't read any of it, go do it. The earliest story chronologically is called "coming home" and it's Mckay/sheppard. and really good. there are pieces in this verse from more cannon SGA, and from NCIS and a couple of different authors have written in it now, I think. I believe the very first bit written was "the General and Doctor Sheppard", also excellent, and if you are and NCIS junkie, some of the stories from there can be read without any Stargate at all. starting with, I believe "First collar").
But the cool thing about it, or one of the cool things is that the stories aren't just about kink (not that they aren't unbelievably hot and kinky. because they are. unbelievably) but they work very hard to establish the relationships and explain why these things work or don't work for these characters. They don't stop with "in this universe almost everyone is dominant or submissive, so that matters more than gender in relationships, and so it's acceptable for John to own Rodney and parade him about on a leash". It's about a ton more than that, and really gets in to what the characters need, and what they need from each other, and why they need it and how and whether they can give it (while still being hot and hilarious and full of action and death-defying stunts and personal failures and consequences and stuff).
Now that I've waxed poetic, here's the bit I was thinking about in this rant.
At some point, somebody, probably Mckay, has a little epiphany, that Submission is supposed to be hard. He realists that, submitting just because you get off on it isn't enough. That's cheap. That's what you do in doomed relationships and with one-night stands. If the submission is to mean something, it should be hard. If you do things, sometimes, even though you get no direct pleasure out of them, maybe you even get a little or a lot of pain, that's okay. that's worth it. If it's what your tops wants, then it's worth it, because you had to struggle to provide it. You had to work to give him the gift of Submission, and it's okay, because you trust him. You have faith that He will see your submission for the struggle and gift it is, and it'll come back to you. maybe not tonight, or tomorrow. Maybe not all at once, but in the hundred different ways he shows you he loves you. And cares for you. And will always be there for you. and, above a lot of that, He trusts you back, that You'll have him, take care of him, when the time comes. When he stumbles. When he's tired. When the weight he bears for both of you is heaviest.
And this reminds me rather of our lord Jesus... No seriously. The reason I started this rant is because I was editing a religious studies paper for somebody. I've got a friend going to a christian school in California, taking some sort of religious studies class. She knows I'm shooting for Linguistics and English degrees (among others) and that I'm Language-inclined (don't let this rant fool you. I totally wield oxford commas with the best of them, when I'm watching for it). I don't know if she'll ask me to do another; I'm kind of blunt. Also, I strongly disagree with a bunch of stuff she said in her paper (but I wasn't editing for content, thank god, so I think it's more of a friendly challenging-type-thing right now).
But she used the word "surrender" and I started making all kinds of connections. So she said "I am so aware of myself and I care so much about how I represent myself and who people think I am or should be. I need to allow Christ to put me in a state where I am completely surrendered, for it is only when I am not aware of myself that I can be in a place to bear my cross for His sake."
To which I responded "this is a really good word, but I would take it out of the passive construction and say it more like “...where I can completely surrender...” or “...in a state of complete surrender...”, both of which are stronger and less clunky than a passive construction. Always more meaningful to have an active sentence in a statement of belief."
Which is beside the point.
No, the point is the surrendering thing. It's this idea, both in BDSM and in Christianity (and wouldn't my gram have a heart attack reading that line) that Complete surrender t what your Top (or your God) wants is this massive act of Faith. which is true. That whole "Life is God's novel, let him write it" shtick In Christianity's case, God gets to write the novel because he's omnipotent, Where in the other case, the Top gets to make the decisions cuz he's a top.
But this is where the faith comes in, the hard stuff that makes your surrender, your submission worth it. Not that I've ever been in a BDSM relationship, but as it's illustrated in the universe I was talking about, You choose your top. You know him and trust him and trust that he won't make you do what you can't. The even though the things he asks might be hard, you can handle them, he knows you can, and whether you do it successfully or not, the struggle, your dearly bought submission, is enough and he's gonna hold you after. And similarly in Religion. The hard part in trusting God isn't that he might be fallible, like a human Top, but that you can't see his arms when he holds you afterwards. You can't know for certain, mostly, if the thing you think He's asking you is actually what He's asking you. Or even if he's asking at all. You have to trust, to have faith, even when it's hardest and Darkest, because that is when surrendering to Him is sweetest. When you think you can't do it, that's when doing it is the greatest gift. When your struggle to surrender, to submit, it the greatest tribute, beyond crops and money and sheep and anything else they list in that book.
(and on the "let him write it front"... But of course he wont write it cuz he doesn't act on mortals with free will, as addressed above. Instead, I think it's more of a "when the unimportant stuff falls away, when you give yourself to him, you can hear [him/the better parts of you] more clearly and it's easier to see the right choice, and easier to exercise your will in that direction.)
Anyway. That's how I feel about it. Not that I'm gonna bring up a lot of that stuff in the middle of Church camp. Or at all. Ever.
And now I'm worn out.
Have a good night. :)
Edit: Didn't realize my default icon at the moment of posting was my harry potter faith icon. :) happy accidents.
Yeah, here's a good idea. Let's post about religion on this journal. 'Cuz, you know, I've got such a leg to stand on being as my main purpose in getting a journal way back when was to follow my favorite authors and the gay porn they write in other people's universes.
But religion.
So two things. First, I just read Sacrament by Yahtzee on AO3 (actually, I listened to it, the first story, which is a podfic hosted on Jinjurly's site), and something came up that made me stop for a moment. For what it's worth, It's a piece (apparently first of four stories in the universe, haven't read the others) of X-men first-class fanfic set in an AU (still 60s) where Charles is a Priest and Eric is the leader of a Jewish charity group he works with. Charles struggles with his feelings for Eric, feelings Priests aren't supposed to have. The author talks a little bit about where she got her material, and if that's the part of the story that interests you, go read it. The struggle between personal love and Church love and duty and Faith and Happiness isn't what I'm talking about here. Go read the fic for that (which is very well done).
No, what I was captured by with a very small section on a different topic.
Charles and Eric are discussing their faith and Eric doesn't believe in God. He believes in goodwill and he believes that the the Biblical code of behavior is pretty spot on, a lot of it, but he doesn't believe in a god, because if God, then why Holocaust? rather than rehash, I'mma quote for a minute, though I'll trim it a little.
Erik sighed heavily. “I don’t believe. Perhaps that offends you, but I don’t.”
Charles frowned. “But - you keep kosher, you go to temple, and I’ve heard you talk about your rabbi.”
“Rabbi Kaplan leads a group of us who find Judaism meaningful as part of our heritage, and as a moral philosophy. But few of us believe in the god of the Torah. I haven’t since Auschwitz.” Erik’s stare took in a distant place only he could now see. “God has two names; each of them are used in Genesis. One is his name as the god of mercy, the other as the god of justice. I was taught that this was to show us that both have their place in the world. But what happened to my parents had nothing to do with justice or mercy.”
...
After a moment, Erik added, “Thank you for not telling me what happened was God’s will.”
“I would never say anything so - grotesque.” Charles had to struggle for the words. “A god who willed Auschwitz into being, who desired what happened there … such a god would be indistinguishable from any rational idea of the devil. Worshipping a god like that would be utterly morally repugnant.”
“Then where was your God when they died?” It was an accusation, but not a bitter one; Erik honestly wanted to know what Charles would say.
It took a few moments to be sure he had the words. “I believe that God was with your parents. I believe he suffered as they suffered. That he knew all their fear and pain, and all they left behind. I believe he held them close in their last moments, and that they awakened to the knowledge that - that everything had been seen. Been understood. That God and through him the whole fabric of the universe raged against the injustice of their deaths, honored their lives and welcomed them into a perfect and eternal love.”
I really like this statement. It's a question Christians get a fair bit, there's that Epicurus quote "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?"
This approaches the "whence cometh evil" bit. I believe, like in the book Good Omens, the we are here to make our own choices. It's all about Free Will. I would like to believe in God, and some days I think I do. On those days, I believe rather like Deists believe, that god is the great watchmaker, that he set it up, and left it alone. I believe that part of being Human is getting to decide for ourselves what to do. God can't inter fear with that. And by "can't" i mean "won't". When he decided we all got Free will, that was it. If he's messing about in our heads, it's not free will anymore, and it all collapses. all of a sudden, there's no point to any of it. it can't be "kind of free will" or "mostly free will" or "on Thursday evening as long as your grades have been good and your room is picked up you can have the keys to the minivan, free will".
Which means that the bad guys get free will too. (not that I believe most if any body is strictly good or bad, but that's a different and unhelpful topic). This means that when people do awful things, to each other, to animals, to children, to themselves, to nations and races and oceans and their spouses, God can't step in and stop it. He can't poke at their frontal lobes until they stop committing genocide.
I spend my summers working at a Presbyterian church camp. I like it, because it's a good group of people and their approach to faith is pretty much, to quote Eddie Izzard "Relaxed and Groovy". I normally call myself Catholic, but this crew is cool and while they are technically a Presbyterian group, they are cool with anybody of any faith or not-faith, as long as you come with a somewhat open mind and a very open heart. I'm not qualified to help some of these kids with some of their problems. All I can do sometimes is hug them and say "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I will hug you until my arms fall off, if that might help at all."
And they ask these questions. They ask where God is when they get hurt, so terribly hurt, and when their families and friends get hurt, when people leave, when there are no people in the first place. They want to know if God is a lie, or if He's gone, or if He's mad at them. They do things, sometimes, and get in trouble, and sometimes they hate themselves and think God must hate them too. And they ask me what they should do or why he doesn't answer or how they can make him answer. And I can't help.
Except that I can say this. I can say, there. Right there. That's where God is. He can't do it. It would have no point if He did it. He can only hug you, like this, like I'm doing, even though you can't feel it. He can only say "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He can only let those other people do whatever it is they feel they need to do, and hold you through the storm, and pick up the pieces after. He can only say "I'm here, and I'll hug you til my arms fall off if you'll let me, and that means forever, because I'm God and My arms don't get tired and they'll never fall off, no matter how many of my children I'm holding."
All you have to do is make the choice. Believe. Because It's just that easy. And it's just that hard.
Pretty words. And harder when You have to make that choice every day. Again and again. Even though you often, sometimes never, can see the proof.
But that leads me to the second thing I realized through Fanfiction. And this one is infinitely worse (when taken in by an elderly WASP woman) and infinitely more amusing and interesting (when taken in by someone with a bit of Humor).
SGA, this time. I was reading the infamous BDSM-verse by Xanthe, don't even remember which piece (and if you haven't read any of it, go do it. The earliest story chronologically is called "coming home" and it's Mckay/sheppard. and really good. there are pieces in this verse from more cannon SGA, and from NCIS and a couple of different authors have written in it now, I think. I believe the very first bit written was "the General and Doctor Sheppard", also excellent, and if you are and NCIS junkie, some of the stories from there can be read without any Stargate at all. starting with, I believe "First collar").
But the cool thing about it, or one of the cool things is that the stories aren't just about kink (not that they aren't unbelievably hot and kinky. because they are. unbelievably) but they work very hard to establish the relationships and explain why these things work or don't work for these characters. They don't stop with "in this universe almost everyone is dominant or submissive, so that matters more than gender in relationships, and so it's acceptable for John to own Rodney and parade him about on a leash". It's about a ton more than that, and really gets in to what the characters need, and what they need from each other, and why they need it and how and whether they can give it (while still being hot and hilarious and full of action and death-defying stunts and personal failures and consequences and stuff).
Now that I've waxed poetic, here's the bit I was thinking about in this rant.
At some point, somebody, probably Mckay, has a little epiphany, that Submission is supposed to be hard. He realists that, submitting just because you get off on it isn't enough. That's cheap. That's what you do in doomed relationships and with one-night stands. If the submission is to mean something, it should be hard. If you do things, sometimes, even though you get no direct pleasure out of them, maybe you even get a little or a lot of pain, that's okay. that's worth it. If it's what your tops wants, then it's worth it, because you had to struggle to provide it. You had to work to give him the gift of Submission, and it's okay, because you trust him. You have faith that He will see your submission for the struggle and gift it is, and it'll come back to you. maybe not tonight, or tomorrow. Maybe not all at once, but in the hundred different ways he shows you he loves you. And cares for you. And will always be there for you. and, above a lot of that, He trusts you back, that You'll have him, take care of him, when the time comes. When he stumbles. When he's tired. When the weight he bears for both of you is heaviest.
And this reminds me rather of our lord Jesus... No seriously. The reason I started this rant is because I was editing a religious studies paper for somebody. I've got a friend going to a christian school in California, taking some sort of religious studies class. She knows I'm shooting for Linguistics and English degrees (among others) and that I'm Language-inclined (don't let this rant fool you. I totally wield oxford commas with the best of them, when I'm watching for it). I don't know if she'll ask me to do another; I'm kind of blunt. Also, I strongly disagree with a bunch of stuff she said in her paper (but I wasn't editing for content, thank god, so I think it's more of a friendly challenging-type-thing right now).
But she used the word "surrender" and I started making all kinds of connections. So she said "I am so aware of myself and I care so much about how I represent myself and who people think I am or should be. I need to allow Christ to put me in a state where I am completely surrendered, for it is only when I am not aware of myself that I can be in a place to bear my cross for His sake."
To which I responded "this is a really good word, but I would take it out of the passive construction and say it more like “...where I can completely surrender...” or “...in a state of complete surrender...”, both of which are stronger and less clunky than a passive construction. Always more meaningful to have an active sentence in a statement of belief."
Which is beside the point.
No, the point is the surrendering thing. It's this idea, both in BDSM and in Christianity (and wouldn't my gram have a heart attack reading that line) that Complete surrender t what your Top (or your God) wants is this massive act of Faith. which is true. That whole "Life is God's novel, let him write it" shtick In Christianity's case, God gets to write the novel because he's omnipotent, Where in the other case, the Top gets to make the decisions cuz he's a top.
But this is where the faith comes in, the hard stuff that makes your surrender, your submission worth it. Not that I've ever been in a BDSM relationship, but as it's illustrated in the universe I was talking about, You choose your top. You know him and trust him and trust that he won't make you do what you can't. The even though the things he asks might be hard, you can handle them, he knows you can, and whether you do it successfully or not, the struggle, your dearly bought submission, is enough and he's gonna hold you after. And similarly in Religion. The hard part in trusting God isn't that he might be fallible, like a human Top, but that you can't see his arms when he holds you afterwards. You can't know for certain, mostly, if the thing you think He's asking you is actually what He's asking you. Or even if he's asking at all. You have to trust, to have faith, even when it's hardest and Darkest, because that is when surrendering to Him is sweetest. When you think you can't do it, that's when doing it is the greatest gift. When your struggle to surrender, to submit, it the greatest tribute, beyond crops and money and sheep and anything else they list in that book.
(and on the "let him write it front"... But of course he wont write it cuz he doesn't act on mortals with free will, as addressed above. Instead, I think it's more of a "when the unimportant stuff falls away, when you give yourself to him, you can hear [him/the better parts of you] more clearly and it's easier to see the right choice, and easier to exercise your will in that direction.)
Anyway. That's how I feel about it. Not that I'm gonna bring up a lot of that stuff in the middle of Church camp. Or at all. Ever.
And now I'm worn out.
Have a good night. :)
Edit: Didn't realize my default icon at the moment of posting was my harry potter faith icon. :) happy accidents.