A while back, I wrote about calendars and celebrations in the Empire, the country with which the Shine Cycle is most concerned. Today, apropos of my own birthday, I’d like to describe one particular holiday: the King’s Birthday. Read more…
Yesterday was my twenty-fifth birthday. I wrote a poem to mark the occasion, but otherwise indulged in little fanfare. Somewhat-melancholy reflection, yes, as that’s usual these days, but not much celebration. And my workload (as, this winter, I’m employed to clear the snow from my church’s walks—and we had a small storm night before last, and more accumulation last night), the preparations for today’s meeting of our “local” chapter of the Mythopoeic Society (discussing L. E. Modessitt’s The Chaos Balance this month; our next topic will be something by Lewis—I’ll suggest starting the Space Trilogy), and various minor illnesses going around my family didn’t help either.
As I said, my few unscattered moments have largely been spent on reflection. My thoughts at present are too scattered to easily collect, but mostly echo my Thanksgiving meditation two years ago—except more tinged by melancholy temperament now. (If you’re interested in delving further, many relevant posts have been tagged “reflection”.)
The “birthday dinner” (it’s tradition in our family to have a dinner and dessert of the honoree’s choice, within reason) is to be “sweet and sour pork” over rice (my second choice, after a tofu-and-vegetables stir fry, but this year we’re combining it with the Mythopoeic Society meeting, and tofu-vegetables doesn’t serve as many), and the “Quick After-Battle Triple Chocolate Cake.” (Recipe from Patricia Wrede‘s collection Book of Enchantments—author, book, and recipe highly recommended. When we misread the recipe the first time we made it, and doubled nearly all the chocolate, it was only slightly too much for me, but how much death-by-chocolate is too much is a matter of taste.)
Lewis’s words in the Screwtape Letters about “the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts” have long rung chillingly true with me. Yesterday was a milestone, a reminder to (as Lent in general prescribes) consider what I am doing in light of with Whom I have to do. A sobering thought …
A quarter-century has now elapsed
Since I made my first entrance to this sphere.
How swiftly all those days have passed me by—
I blink to brush a tear, and months are lost—
But oh, what joy the Lord has granted me,
What sorrows I have brought upon myself,
What evil I have done, but good have found.
Would that I had these decades once again,
To live them over—better—as I ought!
But even so, if I were to rely
Upon myself, my righteousness, my worth,
Even were all that I regret undone,
I cannot love my God wholeheartedly
Or perfectly keep even one command,
As his most holy law justly demands,
So I must place all trust in him who did.
But as these swiftly-flying years increase,
May I become more worthy of the call
Which that redemption places on my head
And in my work advance his kingdom’s aims,
That when he comes I ready may be found.
Today is my twenty-fifth birthday; I wrote this earlier this week for the occasion. I plan a somewhat more extensive post on the subject tomorrow. And, as I mentioned after last week’s poem, this might be the end of this “department” (poems on Friday) as a regular weekly feature; I’ve run out of old poems I consider presentable with only minimal editing, so future posts will depend on my more thoroughly revising rougher-edged old poems or writing new ones.
I always welcome your comments, critique, suggestions (perhaps of a real title for this poem?), or any other feedback on this poem or any other part of my work. (In other words, if you like it, if you don’t like it, if something “works”, if something “doesn’t work”, if it makes you think of something or someone, etc., please comment and say so!) If you like this, you can follow this blog, which includes one of my poems every Friday; you can also read other poems I’ve written here on my blog (or if that list is too intimidating, I’m posting more manageable subsets each week, such as yesterday’s installment, so you can just start with those). I’d particularly like to know which poems you think are my best.
This poem is also mirrored as a Google Doc and on WEbook. If you like it, you are also encouraged to share it with others, subject to my sharing policy.
Since for the most part I’ve had minimal response to my pleas for feedback (though I do thank those of you who have commented so far) and, more to the point, my archive of poetry I’ve posted here has grown to daunting size, each Thursday I present you with (links to) a smaller selection of my poems. Please read each poem and tell me which poem or poems you liked best (and if possible why, as well as any other comments you may have, such as possible improvements).
Again, please comment and tell me which poem or poems of these you liked best, and if possible why. And any other comments you care to give.
Ashes.
For dust I am, and to dust I shall return.
For of myself I am dead, and without any hope; indeed, my only hope lies in the death of what semblance of life I have, by participation in the death of the Christ.
And I am not my own; I belong to Jesus Christ, for I have been bought at a price.
Because of this, I ought not to live lightly, or flippantly, according to the pattern of this rebellious world and the sin to which I once was bound, but rather to pattern my life after its Maker and rightful Master.
And so it is fitting to, in the forty days each year before the anniversary of the Resurrection, reflect and meditate on these truths and on the sufferings of the Christ by which our—my—redemption was accomplished, setting aside lesser things in favor of the eternal and important.
There are two kinds of werewolves in the Shine Cycle. Each kind is the result of arguably unwise experimentation in applied metaphysics, and a cautionary tale of “be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.” Read more…
Our time on earth is limited; our time shared in corporate worship even more so. Why, then, do we spend this valuable time on inanities? What each does in his or her “own” time is of course between him or her and God, but the seriousness of corporate worship is a matter for the concern of every member of the Body. Today I’ve identified a few areas where far too many churches accept—and even promote or insist on!—mere inanity when profound, meaningful forms of worship are readily available. Read more…
Each time it seemed to me that fire fell—
And to my eyes bright glory seemed to shine—
On some young woman I’d begun to know,
I knew from whence the glory always came—
For glory in a human face and form
Is borrowed, mere reflection from above—
And knew my right response—as always, love—
But not which kind of love was asked of me.
(I listed, once, the different sorts of love
That I could name, and counted seventeen.)
But after countless lines of secret verse,
And as the years went by, events made plain
That I’m to be to each a brother, friend—
And though, when with them, I must overflow
With joy and gratitude, and, when they’ve gone,
I eagerly pray blessing on their heads,
I still bewail, lament, my loneliness
And ask of God: Who shall my helpmate be?
And when shall I be ready to be hers?
I wrote this poem late last year, probably in the contemplative season leading up to the end of the year. At the moment it’s the last poem in my backlog that I’ve labelled “presentable,” so this department of the blog may become less consistent in the next few months if the current somewhat-dry spell continues.
As always, I earnestly welcome your comments, suggestions, questions, critique, or other feedback about this or any other part of my work. (In other words, if you liked this poem, or you didn’t like it, or it made you think of something, or … please leave a comment to let me know.) If you liked this, you can also read other poems I’ve written here on my blog (starting with yesterday’s archive installment, since the full archive is by now, at well over a hundred poems, somewhat daunting); I’d especially like to know which poems you think are my best.
This poem is also archived on WEbook and as a Google Doc.
Since until very recently I’ve had minimal response to my pleas for feedback (though I do thank those of you who have commented so far—the recent response has been quite gratifying) and, more to the point, my archive of poetry I’ve posted here has grown to daunting size, each Thursday I present you with (links to) a smaller selection of my poems. Please read each poem and tell me which poem or poems you liked best (and if possible why, as well as any other comments you may have, such as possible improvements).
Again, please comment and tell me which poem or poems of these you liked best, and if possible why. And any other comments you care to give.
There are several approaches that a player of Strategic Primer might take. Today I’ll describe several that I’ve thought of, which I divided into three categories.
(I note that these are not all mutually exclusive, and that they are generally orthogonal—only indirectly relevant—to the player’s dealings with other players, independent towns, and villages.)
The first category for which I thought of possible approaches is the defense of the player’s territory, fortresses, and people. I came up with four ideas.
First: camouflage and “security through obscurity”. The goal is that an enemy “could pass through and never even know they’ve been here”, or to at least never be, or leave a trace, there when a potential enemy arrives. How you’d go about this could vary, and would depend on the terrain, the available resources, and the skill-sets of your workers—in a forest you could (after inventing the necessary technology) live in the trees; in plains you could move from temporary fortress to temporary fortress, never building anything permanent and always leaving the land as you found it. But there are a number of other ways. This approach is probably one of the most difficult, but I can see great results if a player managed to pull it off.
Second: enforced isolation. Much like Japan before Perry negotiated its opening, or Lothlorien in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, you could simply firmly deny any untrusted outsider access to your territory. In extremis, this will necessarily boil down to treating deliberate trespassing as an act of war, and this would require a great deal of manpower (more and more the larger the territory) to police the borders and the interior and (unless you want to become totally isolated, or only send trade or diplomatic missions but never receive them) to ferry goods and messages to and from your few open ports, but every one of the approaches I’m outlining today carries its own costs.
Third: layers upon reinforced layers. Walls upon walls, and more than walls. The idea here is that if one defense fails, or one wall falls, the enemy may take some small part of the territory, but the next level is more likely to hold—particularly once it’s reinforced by the survivors of the fallen defense. The main downsides to this approach are the sheer quantities of resources needed to build and maintain all the walls and other resources, and the labor needed to build and man them.
And fourth: watchmen and fields of fire. With this approach, you’d eschew walls almost entirely; instead, you’d build large towers and man them with watchmen and (as needed) archers and other ranged weapons. The towers would be placed not too far apart, enough that they couldn’t be used against each other if one was taken but close enough together that getting to them, let alone by them, would be prohibitively expensive for any enemy. The reason for avoiding building walls is, of course, that they would just get in the way—there’s no sense in building cover for one’s enemies.
The second category is “economics”—which includes, well, you’ll see. These can probably be combined better than the military ones, for the most part, but here I’m thinking mostly of emphases. I had five ideas on this front.
First is technological bootstrapping. In this approach, you’d conclude that most problems can be addressed by sufficiently advanced technology, and so focus on advancing your tech level as quickly as possible to build the tools necessary to build the tools necessary to … This approach would only work well for a player who knows what technology he or she wants to use to solve the problems, and what intermediate steps are needed to get it, but (it would seem) has its advantages for such a player.
Second: “Build, borrow, or steal.” (I mention this approach for the sake of completeness, as it’s one an “AI” villain “player” might use but I hope no human player would.) Instead of buiding infrastructure, applying available labor to the fields, or otherwise trying to solve problems directly, a player could train his people as soldiers and send them to his neighbors to demand tribute or steal their resources and technology.
Third: Bottom-up or pyramid development. In this approach, you apply resources to the problems that most directly limit you (food production in the beginning), on the theory that the surplus you thereby produce will provide sufficient margin to tackle the next problem. This seems to be a popular approach in the current campaign, though it should be less necessary in future campaigns as they’ll provide each player with a stable position to start with.
Fourth: “A city on a hill.” You could try to make your single fortress as glorious, advanced, powerful, and large as possible, so that it can never fall, and its “shadow” spreads across the land.
Fifth: “multiple redundancy.” Contrariwise, you could build lots and lots of fortresses, allowing none to grow all that large or more powerful than any of the others. Some of the fortresses might fall to an enemy, but a few fortresses wouldn’t be any great loss if you had many fortresses, especially if you had replacements for their functions ready to take their place in your system immediately.
And the third category is priorities. Each of the four priorities that I identified is important, but any resources spent on one can’t be spent on the others.
First: “Keeping up with the Joneses.” In other words, economic growth. There are hard limits in place on how quickly your population and economy can grow, at least at first. (You can only harvest so many acres in a turn …) To “keep up with the Joneses,” you would try to stay as close to that limit as possible each turn.
Second: “securing the borders.” In other words, the military. Each player is, after all, the commander of a military outpost, which is why I call them “fortresses” rather than “towns”. But (at least in the current campaign) the military position at the beginning is not very good; only the knowledge that everyone else began in the same position makes you secure from immediate danger. On the other hand, improving this position through intensive training wouln’t be all that difficult …
The third priority is technology. To improve your situation, technological advancement is crucial, but some players consider it more important than others.
And the fourth priority is morale. (See my previous posts about morale and culture, which are being added to the game.) Too low morale could ruin your position; high morale can make things easier. And some players simply like thinking about it.
Are there any approaches I’ve missed? Or any other questions or comments?
A Christian Worldview of Fiction
Rewrite, Reword, Rework
The Bard on the Hill
