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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... cc&d magazine (v211) (the August 2010 Issue) |
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Worship
Sarah Deckard
Once the people had a god, an infinite sky god. He produced the rain so that they could grow crops and not be hungry. He filled the rivers so they would not thirst. This god made the sun to shine so that everything on the earth blossomed and grew, including the people. He gave them the wind to cool them and clouds for shade for when they were hot. All good things flowed from him and were said to return to him in the end. But, he was also a jealous god. When he was angry he wreathed himself in lightning and sent tornadoes and floods as messengers of his displeasure. Or if he chose, he might wither the crops with too much heat, making the people and their animals lean with hunger. He could also strike in wintertime using the cold as a punishment. Snowstorms sent by his wrath could cause the people to die frozen or else starve because the men could not go hunting. Theirs was a very impulsive god. So the people both loved him and feared him. For many generations they tried to please and mollify their god.
Finally, a man was born who claimed to know the mind of the incomprehensible god. He told the people he was sent as a messenger from the sky god to explain to them the contradictions of their deity. He claimed to be divine. At first, the people thought this was blasphemy. How could a human understand their mighty god? But the man showed himself to be a good man, very humble for one who claims to be divine. He could prophesy and perform feats of magick. The man told tales that represented aspects of god’s love and hatred, stories that explained to people how they should act in order to please the sky god. And the people, wishing so long to have something tangible yet holy, reached out to him with their hearts and their hands so that they too might touch the sacred. The people wished to make this man king but in modesty he refused. Still they worshiped him until long after he had died and rejoined the mystery that is god.
Now they had no source originating from god. So they looked among their fellow people to the ones that had known the man best, those who had walked with him and spoken with him. They asked these men what they should do now. The men told them, but they were many men and each one had a different story. Still the people sanctified these men and worshiped them after their deaths. After many, many years since the man and his followers had lived and bestowed their cryptic knowledge, the people searched again for a renewed sanctity. They found it in people who had revelations of god, the god whom they had almost forgotten about, and the man, the good man whose life was now clouded in mystery, and his followers, the men who were inexplicable. All these were the domain of the chosen people who saw the divine. So during their lives or, sometimes, after their deaths the people looked to these prophets for guidance.
After a long, long time, these seers stopped being born. So the people began to carry talismans of them. They prayed to drawings, statues, and amulets, seeking the great mystery in this art fashioned by human hands. Even though people had crafted these items, the masses still revered them as though they were the essence of divinity. They consecrated these objects to help them to remember the spirituality of millennia before. They carried holy beads and blessed them over and over like a rhyme. They hoped that the beads would bless them too through the power of the dead people’s names that they repeated a thousand times. They had not entirely forgotten the sky god. But he seemed infinitely remote, as he was before the good man had come to them so long ago. They still remembered the miraculous man but he was also too close to divinity. Eventually, everyone he had known was too far removed from human experience. So the people contented themselves with the images of his faithful believers. For, in this way, the sacred was more like themselves—human, attainable. Besides, these symbols could be carried as wards against evil. They could be seen, touched, held.
Perhaps it was because the sky god was angry with the people. Or perhaps it was because of the many wars fought over whose icons were true. Either way, the apocalypse came. The people looked into the sky and saw god’s wrath bearing down on them in the form of giant fireball of power that hit the earth and destroyed everything in flame. It melted the religious objects. It charred the people to less than cinders on the wind. All that had been created by the people was lost and most of the people were killed. They were plunged into a dark winter for what seemed like ages. They lost all knowledge of the before-time and they put away faith. After all, who would want to worship any power that had done this to them?
When they finally emerged into the pale light, they saw that the land was blighted and scorched. They scrounged through the ruins. Finally, someone found an object from the before-time that had lasted through the darkness. It was round and black, tough yet flexible, and had grooves carved in a tread pattern on its outside surface. Everyone was in awe of this miracle. They set it up on a rock, sure that it must be divine to have survived what had destroyed all else. The people knelt in front of it and began to pray for salvation from this tormented life. They brought it any food they could dig up and adorned it with symbols of wealth and fertility. They gave it their most precious belongings for they needed something accessible to believe in. The people worshiped the object like they had once idolized their icons. They praised it as, long before, they had lauded the people who had blessed visions. They hailed it as, even longer ago, they had revered those who had walked with the good man. They adored it as they had loved the man who in turn had once been praised because he was the deliverer of messages from an ancient sky god who had long been forgotten.
