Weekend Entertainment #1 - September Test Drive Meme

[havetubawilltravel]

It's way too hot to be September right now where I am, but we're verging on October right now, and that means it's an app_this_plz weekend, and you know you've got characters you want to try out.


H O W T O P L A Y:

-->Reply to this post with any character, new or old, you wish to app into Milliways.
-->Scan the post and respond to any characters you'd like to interact with.
-->Milliways members: feel free to respond with your applied characters or post them
--> Have fun! Post is open until Monday's DE and/or until the next Test Drive Meme!

Comments

[witchfinder_general]

"Yes, I can, Brother," the priest-like man says. "It's the bar at the end of the universe. The inn at the end of the known cosmos, you might say. When you came through that door, you left the world and time you live in."

[a_rare_benedictine]

"1139", he supplies, "and the abbey at Shrewsbury. I would ask why and how, but I suspect that will remain a mystery."

[witchfinder_general]

"Yes," the priest says. "People step through the door seemingly at random, but all of us tend to have something of an unusual story. Here, you'll meet people from very different times and worlds. I'm from London in 1998."

[a_rare_benedictine]

"Unusual?" He tilts his head in something like a shrug. "Well, I did come late to the cowl, but there's been nothing so exceptional in my life."

He understates.

[witchfinder_general]

"What did you do before you became a monk?" he asks.

Pause.

"Oh, by the way, I'm Father Pearse Harman of the Jesuit order -- not yet founded in your time."

[a_rare_benedictine]

"I was once a soldier, in the Holy Land, then I joined the brotherhood in my fortieth year. My name is Cadfael."

[witchfinder_general]

"Yes, that's probably unusual enough," Father Harman says, smiling. "You're a Benedictine?"

[a_rare_benedictine]

"Indeed!" He smiles, broad and real. "You know the order, then."

[witchfinder_general]

"Oh yes, of course, and a number of its members in my time," Father Harman says. "It's basically still the same."

[a_rare_benedictine]

"That's a reassurance, that some things at least remain the same."

[witchfinder_general]

"The pope is still in Rome," Father Harman says. "Liturgy is still largely the same, even though people everywhere say in their own language now."

[a_rare_benedictine]

"Not in Latin?" That's a surprise.

[witchfinder_general]

"No," Father Harman says. "That was changed in the 1960s, because people wanted to have a service that means something to them, rather than mysterious ritual."

[a_rare_benedictine]

He thinks about that, seriously.

"I've never heard anyone wishing away the ritual, in my time."

[witchfinder_general]

"Nobody doubted it," Father Harman says. "In my time, there are several Christian denominations that have branched off during the long history of our faith, and most of them had mass in their own language for centuries."

[a_rare_benedictine]

He nods. "The church of the East are already moving in that direction, I think."

[witchfinder_general]

"Yes, it was, in your time," Father Harman says. "To say nothing of the church in the orient -- the Coptic church in Egypt, the Aramaic church in Syria, and so on. They all use their own language."

[a_rare_benedictine]

"I've never travelled as far as Egypt, but as a young man I did spend some time in Antioch", he says with a nod. "Aramaic is an older language even than Latin, they have every reason to use it."

[witchfinder_general]

"It was the language Jesus spoke, after all," Father Harman says, smiling. "Latin was the language of the Roman oppressors."

The smile hides his amusement at who this man is likely to be, once he says 'Antioch'. Milliways loves its bizarre coincidences, so of course the ex-crusader monk will be Olivier's father.

[a_rare_benedictine]

He is indeed, and he's even met Olivier and liked him, but they haven't yet had the conversation that leads him to realize that.

"And so the one that spread, where Aramaic did not."

[witchfinder_general]

"Yes, it was the language of the realm," Father Harman nods. "That, and Greek, the language the New Testament was written in. By your time, nobody speaks Latin as their first everyday language any more, but the church and education still uses it as the language to connect them all. But it excludes the simple laypeople."

[a_rare_benedictine]

"In a sense. In another, it draws them in."

[witchfinder_general]

"It gives a sense of mystery, yes," Father Harman says. "But it puts a haze of necessary education over the relationship between humanity and God."

[a_rare_benedictine]

Cadfael smiles ruefully.

"Yes, I've never been quite fond of that. Others, I know, like it very much."

[witchfinder_general]

"It gives them power over the souls of faithful people who are nevertheless unable to study the bible and understand the sacred texts, having no Latin, and no time or chance to learn it," Harman says. "I don't like that at all."