This story is a response to the Friday challenge for 7/10/09. Please forgive my lack of Greek letters, but my computer refuses.
Supersubstantial
For Robert
Martin Luther sat at his desk ostensibly working on his translation of the Lord's Prayer from Greek into German. Even after comparing the various texts available to him, the more times he went over that center phrase, the more frustrated he became. His quill lay unmoving next to the ink bottle.
Surrounding his hunched figure were an astonishing number of unseen demons, and an equally astonishing number of unseen angels were present, waiting expectantly in the background. This was an important moment, and none of them wanted to miss it. It was so important that the Evil One himself had been hovering in the vicinity for days, sending faint thoughts from his mind into Luther's, trying to influence his decision without being noticed. And it was so important that heaven opened a window so all the angelic beings could watch. God Most High watched from his throne with a sad look, for he was the only one who knew what was going to happen.
By contrast, Satan was busy at work, expertly inserting confusion and tiredness into Luther's feelings, adding just a touch of “I really want to do this right.” Steadily he nourished the attitude he had introduced many years earlier, that of viewing the common people as not quite able to understand the deeper, more complicated ideas in Scripture. After all, most of them couldn't read or write. Their lives were full of the mundane tasks of getting enough to eat and a place to live for their families. They had neither the ability nor the desire to study these ancient writings in an unfamiliar language. That was why it was so important to Luther to give these people the scripture in a form they could understand and remember.
Luther's usual routine when he came to a difficult passage was to go back to "How would the people say this?" He had spent many hours walking in the villages, listening to the conversations, wanting to absorb the words, the turns of expression, every nuance of current German language. He didn't want any part of his translation to sound like a monk or priest secluded for years with only other clerics to talk to and dusty, outdated writings to read.
This time that wasn't helping. He couldn't put a phrase into the common tongue when he didn't really know what it meant, himself. It was that one word in the center, "epiousian", that had him stuck. The problem was that no one really knew what it meant. It could not be found in any other Greek text, not just Biblical texts, but any writing whatsoever.
Eleven centuries ago, Jerome had translated it from Greek to Latin, phrasing it “Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie,” or “Our bread supersubstantial give us today.” Luther had even consulted Wycliffe’s translation from Jerome’s Latin to English, but it wasn’t much help. Wycliffe put it “yyue to vs this dai oure breed ouer othir substaunce.”
It seemed obvious to Luther that Jesus was speaking of some bread that was out of the ordinary, perhaps symbolic, or more likely a reference to Jesus’ statement that he was the bread of life, a bread that ended all hunger. But how to translate that into an idea that the common people would understand?
All the spiritual beings grouped around Luther intensified their focus, waiting for this man’s decision upon which so much would hang. Satan no longer sent thoughts into his mind, feeling perhaps that his work was complete. Luther’s head hung over the desk. There was no sign that he heard any tiniest whisper from the Spirit of the Holy One within him. Was he listening for it, or was he distracted and deceived by the swirl of conflicting goals in his heart, planted there and nourished devotedly by the father of lies?
At last he sat up, his decision made. The people would never be able to understand something so esoteric. It would cause them to hesitate, even to stumble in the center of this most important of prayers. He would exchange the difficult phrase for one they would feel comfortable repeating. The prayer asked God for bread this day. Therefore it was daily bread. “Give us this day our daily bread” would remind them how wonderfully God provided for their needs, and how dependent they were on him. Luther nodded once, satisfied at last.
Satan and the other demons danced wildly in celebration of stealing one word from the mouth of God. They didn’t yet know the whole result of their deception. God alone could see hundreds of years into a future where people would demand rather than ask, where they would portray him as Santa Claus, a jolly elf whose function was to give them everything they wanted, where materialism reigned, where food was distorted beyond any recognition and worshipped by its slaves, where almost no one knew God as the provider of a bread that satisfied the heart and the spirit for eternity.
Creation groaned.
Romans 8:22-23 (New American Standard Bible)
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
MS Open Window
Entry for The Friday Challenge for 6/26/09
MS OPEN WINDOW
"Roberta will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young assistant; "in the meantime you may look over any of the brochures on the side table, or you may try out some of our products on the computer wall."
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the assistant of the moment without unduly discounting the H.R. Director that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nervous breakdown cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
"I know how it will be," his therapist had said when he was preparing to migrate to this new city; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just have your recruiter set you up with a series of interviews with all the companies in the area likely to be hiring at the moment. You should have a job in no time."
"Are you familiar with any of our VR products?" asked the assistant.
"Hardly at all," said Framton. "My sister talked about buying one, but I don't believe she did."
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
"Then you know practically nothing about our company? Have you met Roberta yet?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.
"No, I have not even talked to her. The only information I have about the company is what I was able to find on line.”
"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the assistant.
"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this modern, bustling building tragedies seemed out of place.
"You may wonder why we keep that computer displaying a window with an unmoving, empty scene," said the assistant, indicating the wall-sized screen showing a large French door that opened onto a lawn.
"It looks like a security camera," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"
"Three years ago to a day, Roberta's husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting in beta VR Shoot. They never came back. All the engineers and VR architects searched through the code and the video for weeks, but they never found the virtual hole they fell into." Here the young woman's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor Roberta always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that door just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open around the clock. Poor dear Bertie, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window--"
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when Roberta bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.
"She has been very interesting," said Framton.
"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be back directly from beta testing in the shooting VR, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they'll make a fine mess over the virtual carpets. Or at least they should, if the VR is doing its job."
She rattled on cheerfully about the testing and the scarcity of good VR developers, and the prospects for VR Shoot becoming a best seller. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his interviewer was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window on the computer screen. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have scheduled his visit on this tragic anniversary.
"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but not to what Framton was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the assistant with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The young lady was staring at the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening virtual twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the building, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"
Framton grabbed wildly at his keys and briefcase; the lobby door, the concrete walk, and the parking lot were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A car turning into the entrance had to run onto the grass to avoid an imminent collision.
"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"
"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."
"I expect it was the spaniel," said the assistant calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere in VR Vampire by a pack of wild dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."
Romance at short notice was her specialty.
MS OPEN WINDOW
"Roberta will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young assistant; "in the meantime you may look over any of the brochures on the side table, or you may try out some of our products on the computer wall."
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the assistant of the moment without unduly discounting the H.R. Director that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nervous breakdown cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
"I know how it will be," his therapist had said when he was preparing to migrate to this new city; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just have your recruiter set you up with a series of interviews with all the companies in the area likely to be hiring at the moment. You should have a job in no time."
"Are you familiar with any of our VR products?" asked the assistant.
"Hardly at all," said Framton. "My sister talked about buying one, but I don't believe she did."
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
"Then you know practically nothing about our company? Have you met Roberta yet?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.
"No, I have not even talked to her. The only information I have about the company is what I was able to find on line.”
"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the assistant.
"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this modern, bustling building tragedies seemed out of place.
"You may wonder why we keep that computer displaying a window with an unmoving, empty scene," said the assistant, indicating the wall-sized screen showing a large French door that opened onto a lawn.
"It looks like a security camera," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"
"Three years ago to a day, Roberta's husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting in beta VR Shoot. They never came back. All the engineers and VR architects searched through the code and the video for weeks, but they never found the virtual hole they fell into." Here the young woman's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor Roberta always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that door just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open around the clock. Poor dear Bertie, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window--"
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when Roberta bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.
"She has been very interesting," said Framton.
"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be back directly from beta testing in the shooting VR, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they'll make a fine mess over the virtual carpets. Or at least they should, if the VR is doing its job."
She rattled on cheerfully about the testing and the scarcity of good VR developers, and the prospects for VR Shoot becoming a best seller. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his interviewer was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window on the computer screen. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have scheduled his visit on this tragic anniversary.
"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but not to what Framton was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the assistant with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The young lady was staring at the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening virtual twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the building, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"
Framton grabbed wildly at his keys and briefcase; the lobby door, the concrete walk, and the parking lot were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A car turning into the entrance had to run onto the grass to avoid an imminent collision.
"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"
"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."
"I expect it was the spaniel," said the assistant calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere in VR Vampire by a pack of wild dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."
Romance at short notice was her specialty.
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