Intergalactic Summit

"How did you find God?"

This is a question that has been haunting me of late. Not because people have been asking it of me, although some have. More that it seems to be the driving force behind the winds that are tearing through my life at the moment. Winds that are a struggle for me to weather. A struggle that I'm not sure I have the endurance to win.

Some, like the Amarrians, have a simple answer to the question. They were born into God's Light and raised hearing his words and could not imagine a world without Him.

Others, like the Matari, have a more painful answer to the question. They were brought kicking and screaming into his Light.

But, what about myself? I was nominally born a Caldari, but even as a child, I was ignorant of The Maker. After all, why teach an experiment about the solace that belief can bring, especially when they were trying to be gods themselves?

One has to assume to find God, He has to want to be found. The Scriptures and Amarrians make it clear that He does.

So, when did I find God?

Was it when I met those Amarrians that I cherish as friends? No, for I already recognized God working through them.

Was it when I fought for the Empress against the Republic? No, for I didn't do it out of any sense of Faith, only for selfish, personal reasons.

Was it when was a young, fresh capsuleer filled with pain and hatred from the horrors visited upon me by makers, and Garion and Nico showed me kindness, wisdom and strength? No, for I didn't recognized God in their actions.

Somewhere in the middle, then. When I was in Stain. I remember.

I spent many years as a hermit in Stain, and I would lie out on a hillside at night and watch the night sky. I watched the stars wheel across the sky and take turns dipping into the Pool of Radiance. The endless depth and variety of the stars. The myriad of worlds turning about those stars in an orchestrated dance every step measured. And the life crawling across their surfaces, infinite in their variety.

And that's when I found God, His Works laid about before me across the night sky. A dance set in motion millions of years before the EVE Gate even existed. A dance that would continue long after I, an empyrean, was long forgotten.

I found Him in that moment. A moment architected so many millions years ago.

And this is why these winds tear at me so. The winds carry shouts of "betrayer" and "coward" and "monster". All of them shouted at a lonely traveller on a Sojourn. A traveller that found me on her journey once and helped set me on my path. Do you really think that you could effect in mere months what God took millions of years to effect in me?

We all come to God by our own paths. Some by birth, some by pain and some by starlight. Our paths are each like the stars in the sky: myriad and unique and following a path laid out and known to Him. Some paths are longer than others, and each path must be traveled in full. There are no shortcuts for us to take. We cannot hurry others along, only light their way and pray for them. A task we must gladly do, if we love them. For if they fail to reach the ends of their paths, their souls will be forever lost.

Thank you all who lit my way with kindness and prayed for me this far in my journey, but please, I beg of you. If you love me spare some kindness and prayers for the little sojourner. Her path has gone through dark places, and she has a long journey ahead of her.

I can relate, Jenn. Without going into detail, I found god in Anoikis. And knowing what god is and wants gave me goals and a purpose.

Now, after rebuking god and faith, I sometimes think that I may have been happier living on god's path. But god will never take responsibility for the things it wants us to do. God wants all the glory but none of the hardship that comes with it.

So I'm happy to say that I'm better off without god and wish I had never found it. Maybe you'll be able to relate with me one day.

Blessed be the one who brings me absynth and a few exotic dancers, for it is truly they who answered my prayers.

Oh you found her? Good! Please let her know she left her toothbrush at my apartment.

Tell her I'm sorry about the rash. She'll know what I mean. :(

And damned be those who openly and willfully defy Him.

You may want to speak with CONCORD; they appear to have lost some of your records.

I recently returned to Sehmy from Afnakat where my mother passed away. She had been ill for some months and had told our family of her need for ministry. We spent many days before her death in prayer together, and on one afternoon in the heat of day, she began to speak softly about the Oak. How in the spring, the fallen flesh of winter's passing gives way to the blood red shoots of new seedlings, and how the same color is in us, and the Chosen, and cast on the winds of God's heavens. The Almighty has blessed all of Creation with the seeds of Faith, she said. Several days later, reflecting together after her passing, we realized she had called us to her not to receive our ministry, but to deliver her own.

We who old the Faith must see it take root throughout God's realm, and in that must recognize, though we must defend the Faithful with the full measure of God's Wrath, that the Reclaiming is not a work of reaping, but a work of sowing. Bearing witness to Him can, as you say, occur in passing mercies in the darkness we must traverse to get from today to tomorrow.

Go with God, pilot Starfall.

It's hard for a misfit to find God. Especially hard, even.

The Empire is expert at making the Faith less of an exercise of constant thought and effort and more of a routine to be shared and enjoyed. It's easy for conformists inside of the Empire to go with the flow and believe, easy and pleasant, and nonconformists native to the Empire find other ways to enjoy it.

But for a misfit that has never known the Empire, the challenge is twofold. It's rare that a misfit values itself, so they should be doubly suspectible to the love and warmth of the Faith... No, that's not how it works. The misfit is suspicious. If it cannot love itself, why would anything else love it, if not for ulterior motives? Therefore, the natural warmth of the Faith can push the misfit away as much as it can bring in the misfit.

No matter the greater concept of God himself. Misfits have been hurt and wronged. That is, in part, what makes them a misfit. I wondered myself how a higher power could both love me and allow the things that have happened to me to happen. I know I am not unique in that my lack of understanding made me angry at Him.

I can sympathize. Once, I found myself on the wrong side of the Matari-Amarr rift. I did not know Him then; I only saw the impact of his absence. Some people I knew on the wrong side, I was fond of, but all seemed to be missing something. Some handled it with anger. Some with despair. Still others searched for it and found loves and hobbies to fill the void. All were unsatisfied. They craved, I think, what their culture told them was forbidden.

I too find myself protective of my misfits who have not come down the path yet. I pray the path of you and your own goes smoother than it has so far.

Of all the Winds my heart belongs to Wind of Storm. Because while others shout, this one demands action. Cold Wind might give you cold look. Others will whisper to you: "betrayer" and "coward" and "monster".

But you will recognize Wind of Storm when you will hear shuddering thunder of Mjolnir, when you will see blinding ultraviolet lightning and when you will feel thick unforgiving rain of lead.

Ah ... hm. Now that's an interesting thought.

It surely would have applied to the person I used to be, but ... me? Hurt, wronged, and suspicious?

I don't think I'm especially untrusting, but ...

... hm.