Amorella reflecting on the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett. This photo was taken two years ago on orndorff’s second visit to England’s Canterbury Cathedral. This is the exact place the murder took place, supposedly on a misunderstanding of an uttered wish that was not King Henry II’s explicit command. Here is a side note orndorff found in Wikipedia:
“Edward Grim was a clerk from Cambridge who was visiting Canterbury Cathedral on Tuesday 29 December 1170 when Thomas Becket was murdered. He subsequently researched and published a book, Vita S. Thomae (Life of Thomas Becket), published in about 1180, which is today known chiefly for a short section in which he gives an eyewitness account of the events in the Cathedral. He himself attempted to protect Becket, and sustained a serious arm wound in the attack. Whilst there are four other accounts of the events of that day, Grim was the only eyewitness to actually observe the killing itself. Little else is known of his life, before or after the murder.”
The first thing that came to mind when Amorella picked out the picture for the day was T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. When I did a quick Wikipedia check I spied some lines from the play that I really like:
“Becket . . . specifically addresses the immoral suggestions of the fourth tempter at the end of the first act:
‘Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:
Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.’”
You favor the last two lines orndorff because they already rest in your heart for personal reasons you cannot deny.
Why do you confront my very sense of being so, Amorella?
Because you need to be conscious of how very level the playing field is. Your greatest personal wish is to remain an honest man, or as nearly honest as possible in a world such as the one you live in. You discovered in the last line that holding onto self-honesty for the wrong reason takes the glitter away.
Indeed, it appears impossible to get through this world honestly.
Why do you think that is?
I do not know other than for self-survival.
Do you think it reasonable that the Dead are an honest lot?
They have no fears, except as you say, lack of reason and lack of dignity.
In the books both lacks (of reason and dignity) demand self-honesty to fill them.
Such a wonderful sense of humor, the more honest a person in life is the better off sheorhe is dead.
It does have a simple ring to it doesn’t it?
I’ll have to think on it, but it seems to have an underlying punch built in. Very clever, Amorella.
Now you have shifted your thinking: 'putting all this online might give other people ideas to use instead of you.'
Not a very nice thought, but yes, it just did occur to me. This outline or background material for the next three books could be used by someone else. I don’t think you can copyright ideas and concepts for books in advance. Besides, it already happened to me once back in the late seventies.
You need not concern yourself about that, orndorff. Just as the first three books are original so will the next three be. An honest person will not take and use any of this material or the material in the other three books either. Dishonest people have their uses in the Place of the Dead. It is a very ecologically friendly place to be sure. The seven deadly sins as well as the seven ancient virtues will also be put to use.
This sounds more like Dante than Milton. Or, perhaps it is even more like a classical representation of Elysium and Hades as seen in Virgil.
The description of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither needs to fit in context with the general concept of classical thought as the Rebellion is taking place in classical times.
This is good thinking, Amorella. Of course, you are right. I had not thought that far into this. Already, this is a better set of concepts than I had drummed up in my three chapter false start.
I took Merlyn out of it. He was a stumbling block to you. Three books of Merlyn’s dreams and you were ready to continue on. I have a place for him in the books, for continuities’ sake. But for now, Merlyn can relax a bit in the twenty-first century. Besides, he is more closely connected to the second Rebellion in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither, the one that occurred mid-twentieth century, the project of Book Six.
Yes, of course you are correct here. I cannot absorb all that material from those books. I have thought about creating various chapter outlines as reminders but have never followed through with it.
You were, as they said in the old days, in an ‘enchantment’ when those books were being collaborated between your human background and myself. It was as a Shaman’s Dance, orndorff, twenty-first century style.
At least I lived to see them in print no matter where they came from within. I don’t really care about that. If I do have another three books in me, then let them come out.
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