CHAT: Visible planets (was: Corpses
From: | Estel Telcontar <estel_telcontar@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, November 12, 2003, 6:01 |
> Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 22:33:23 -0500
> From: Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>
> Subject: Re: CHAT: Visible planets (was: Corpses)
[snip]
> >Out of pure curiosity, how much has the Orthodox
> >faith been an influence on Nidirino or even
> >Cwendaso religion?
>
> I notice that you didn't ask about Trehelish :-) Obviously, there's
> no influence there. On second thought, there is, but it's not
> direct. Classical Trehelish religion, when the Death cult was
> strong, is the antithesis of everything Orthodox. The Trehelish
> Death cult is the antithesis of everything good. Even Trehels who
> do not openly and actively worship Death (and many modern ones
> don't) still do worship him, because it is so embedded in everything
> that Trehelish culture believes. There is a tiny minority who
> actively *refuse* to worship him, and the presence of this religious
> sect in Trehelish society is a result of my Orthodoxy. The clash of
> the Trehelish Death cult and the Nidirino Sun cult is also a product
> of my Orthodoxy. The whole idea of the struggle between Life and
> Death in the religions of my concultures is something that has a deep
> meaning to me because I am an Orthodox Christian.
>
> The prophecy in Tovlm that "in time, a certain one of the great gods
> would come and men would cease to die from that time on" is very
> definitely a product of my own Orthodox faith. Christ is the God
> who conquers death. For Protestants, Christ frees us from our
> sins. For Orthodox, Christ frees us from death. To Orthodox
> Christians, sin, death, and the devil are all roughly the same
> thing, and Christ took flesh of the Ever-Virgin Mary, ascended the
> Cross, and descended into Hades in order to free us from death. At
> Pascha (Easter) we sing, "Christ is risen from the dead trampling
> down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." I
> could explain more, but you probably get the idea by now.
> Of course, Tovlm has it very wrong. Tovléis taught that there were
> many gods and that men would cease to die when this god comes (which
> we all know was not the immediate result of Christ's resurrection;
> physical death still occurs.) There is also no talk of the dead
> being raised, only of death ceasing; it's not retroactive. But you
> can still see the clear influence. I have always (or at least as
> long as I have been Christian) been fascinated with the prefigurings
> of Christianity that are so often found in pagan religions. This is
> one of those. They are obviously waiting for Someone.
Is/will there be an analogue of Christianity at some point in your
world? If there is, is there some sort of analogue of the Jewish
people, as God's people before his mystery is fully revealed to the
world?
> Immediately following the prophecy that death would cease is the
> instruction that "until that came to pass, we should place a portion
> of cooked food at the graves, hoping that they may suffer neither
> hunger nor thirst in the lands where they now wander." Perhaps
> there is some influence here, perhaps not. Being Orthodox, I am
> used to praying for the departed. Of course, *we* pray for the
> repose of their souls and forgiveness of their sins, not for
> anything so material as what the Cwendaso ask for. And I should
> clarify that the Cwendaso do not believe that they are *feeding* the
> dead with this offering; the food is a prayer, not a funerary
> offering. They leave new food every day; everyone in the village
> takes turns bringing the food. They often leave a cup of sheep's
> milk or water, even though it is not prescribed. Orthodox often make
> koliva, boiled wheat with sugar and often nuts, when a pannykhida (a
> memorial service for the departed) is said. I'm not certain that
> there is any connection here, unles it's a subliminal one. I don't
> think that there was any intentional resemblance on my part.
>
> The general feel of Nidirino devotion, with daily prayers at the
> right times of day, etc., does seem to be influenced by my own
> experience of Orthoxdox Christianity. The idea of everyone who is
> literate having a standard prayerbook is another influence.
> Everyone in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) has
> the same Jordanville Prayerbook, which will fit into a large pocket
> (I keep one in my purse.) The Prayerbook comes in either red or
> blue, and they keep tweaking the English translation in little ways
> every time they reprint it, which can lead to problems if you've
> been using an older edition. If you're Russian, you're lucky, as
> the Slavonic text never changes.
The more I read about your concultures, the more I am intrigued by
them. I recall that at one point, you said you'd send your website
address off-line to anyone who inquired. Well, I now inquire. :)
> The last influence that I can identify that my Orthodoxy has had on
> my conculturing is that the religions are so deeply implemented.
> (And they aren't yet implemented as deeply as they eventually will
> be, but the basic form is there.) You would think that, as a
> Christian, I would shun dreaming up pagan religions, and I do wonder
> if it's really good for me, but I see religion as being a very
> important part of who a person, or a people, is. When I became
> Orthodox, I decided to stop being entirely American. Seriously.
> You cannot think like an American and think like an Orthodox
> Christian at the same time. So I had to learn to think like an
> Orthodox Christian, rather than like a Westerner. In converting to
> Orthodox Christianity, I actually changed ethnic group. (And I think
> that it's really got to be a difficult trick to pull to change
> ethnicity, but I did manage it.) I am not talking about the fact
> that we go to a Russian Orthodox Church; when we converted, we went
> to an Antiochian (Arab) Church. (A side effect of this is that I
> don't think of Arabs as all being Muslims, because the overwhelming
> majority of the Arabs that I personally know are Christians.) I was
> raised Presbyterian. I was raised as a White, Anglo-Saxon
> Protestant. I will always be White; I can't change that. I am
> predominately Anglo-Saxon, although I am one-quarter Danish, and
> there is some German and a little bit of Scots mixed in. But I am
> no longer Protestant, and I no longer belong to the same culture
> that my parents do. (They took it pretty well. We have known
> people who lost all their family and friends by converting. We
> consider ourselves blessed.) I have joked that I am now a WASO. In
> any case, in my own life, I have seen how a change of religion can
> profoundly reshape who you are culturally, and I know how deeply
> Orthodoxy has affected any culture that has ever adopted it, so my
> concultures are greatly shaped by their religions.
I'm curious about Orthodox Christianity. Would you be interested in
telling me more me about it off-list? Especially as you mention some
things that I have recently come to believe, which are not widely
accepted by my fellow protestant christians - such as the resurrection
of our bodies.
Estel
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