Friday, November 30, 2018

The Quest for the King, Scene 19


(Forgive the brevity of this week's installment; the busyness of the season is catching up with me. Nevertheless, we're approaching the climax of the story, with just a few installments left to go!)


       A cascade of drumbeats broke out over the plains, pounding out the rhythms of the Prince’s return. All across the fields of Arrens they could be heard, from every corner where the supporters of the royal house had pitched their tents. And in the center of those fields stood the great city itself: the walls of Arrens, shining amber in the morning light, and the tall, gleaming citadel at its center. The thick lumber of the doors and drawbridges stood tight against the walls, drawn up and fastened. Along the ramparts, in the spaces between the stone battlements, were the bristling forms of the Steward’s army: thousands of spears, javelins, and arrows, sharpened and ready for the fight.
            Prince Halbrinnon regarded the city with a quiet gaze. Joe didn’t think he looked much like the leader of an army in that moment. He looked like a mother, tense with the danger of seeing one’s child on the verge of a heartbreaking mistake. His eyes showed the soft strain of compassion and disappointment, backed by the fire of a love that seemed to hold everything together.
            “What do we do now?” asked Sim, looking up at the Prince. They had all walked together to the edge of the encampment of his supporters, and from that vantage-point the leaders of the army were all looking out toward the city.
            “Now,” said Sir Mack, “we lay a siege around the city and starve the Steward’s men into submission.”
            Prince Halbrinnon shook his head. “Those men are my men, too,” he said. “And those people in there, my people. I did not come to starve them, but to set them free.”
            “It wouldn’t work anyway,” said Sir Kobi, as the captain of the guard tugged thoughtfully at his chin. “We’d need an army at least twice this size to mount an effective siege. We have a lot of men, it’s true, but Arrens is perhaps the largest city in the world. If we tried to encircle it, we’d be strung out too widely, and the Steward’s men could break through at almost any point.”
            “To say nothing of the fact that the vast majority of your supporters here appear to have fled the city with no armor, no weapons at all,” added Captain Drave. “It would be a stretch to call it an army, save for the troops you brought across the sea yourself, my lord.”
            “Truth be told,” Kobi continued, “the Steward has the stronger hand here. He has the fortress, and he has the larger army. If he knows that we’re lacking in weapons, he’d be well advised to drop one of those drawbridges and send his cavalry out after us.”
            Prince Halbrinnon was silent through the end of this discussion on tactics, his eyes still fixed on the city walls. Then he motioned toward it with a nod of his head.
            “Perhaps your prediction has come true, my friend. The Shepherd Gate is opening.”
                       

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Photo of the Week

He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day.

- Psalm 91:4-5

Monday, November 26, 2018

Quote of the Week

Truth, Lord: my conscience 
meriteth damnation, 
but no offense equals Thy compassion. 
Spare me therefore; 
because it is not unbefitting Thy justice, 
nor unwonted to Thy mercy, 
nor difficult to Thy power, 
to spare the penitent.
Blot out the number of my crimes, 
renew the multitude of Thy compassions. 
More canst Thou remit, than I commit; 
more canst Thou spare, than I offend. 
However unclean, Thou canst cleanse me;
however blind, enlighten me; 
however weak, restore me; 
yea, though dead, raise me. 
Of what kind soever I am, be it good or bad,
I am ever Thine.

- from the private devotions of Lancelot Andrewes, an Elizabethan-era British clergyman and scholar, and one of the translators of the KJV Bible

Part 2 of the Evangeliad Now Available!

I'm happy to announce that Part 2 of my Evangeliad (Come and See: Jesus Begins His Ministry) is now available in book form. It can be purchased from Amazon.com, as can the book form of Part 1 (To Love and to Save: The Story of the Nativity), which I released last year. Click the pictures below to be taken to the Amazon pages for each book.

https://www.amazon.com/Come-See-Begins-Ministry-Evangeliad/dp/1729654282/

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Save-Story-Nativity-Evangeliad/dp/1978283156/
 

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

A Two-Week Break from Blogging






I'm taking a two-week break from blogging while I produce the second installment of my Evangeliad in book form (available in early December). I'm also plugging away on a self-published re-release of my Hidden Kings trilogy. The normal schedule of blog posts will resume here on Monday, November 26.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Saturday Synaxis

Our God, may we lay hold of thy cross, as of a staff that can stand unshaken when the floods run high. It is this world and not another, this world with all its miseries - its ruin and its sin - that thou hast entered to redeem by thine agony and bloody sweat [...] O holy, merciful, all-forgiving redeemer, teach us more worthily to repent of the terror and horror of our fall, by the memory of that innocent gladness with which we should have gone with thee to the altar of God, to offer there [...] the unshrinking homage of a spotless heart! Amen.

- Henry Scott Holland

Friday, November 09, 2018

The Quest for the King, Scene 18


            The sun shone down on the fields of Arrens with blazing glory the next day, and the children awoke to a world cast in emerald splendor. The long green grass beyond the river whispered in calm serenity, and the boughs of the trees overhead murmured a soft reply. Choruses of birdsong flowed around them like rivulets from the stream, sprung from a thousand cheery sparrows and finches who clung to the bending grass-stems as they sang. But amid all the beauty of that moment, the sight of the Prince standing at the edge of the wood commanded the center of their attention. He stood tall and still at the mouth of the West-wood highway, his traveling-cloak tinged with dust but his royal helmet shining with brilliant luster. His gaze, sharp and focused, traced over the lines of the walls far ahead of them: the battlements of Arrens, where the banner of the Steward now flew.
            Then suddenly, he broke his meditation and spoke: “Squires, knights, commanders! We march!”
            Out burst the royal army from beneath the shade of the forest’s edge, out to the banks of the swift-running stream. The Steward’s men had made repairs to the floodgates and closed them, so the water was easily forded. Joe remembered with a smile the drama of their earlier crossing, with Mack’s heroic burst of strength to stem the flood long enough for them to make it across. They slung their shoes over their shoulders and let the cool water wash over their feet as they made the crossing, and then they were up the far bank and in plain sight of the city walls.
            “They know we’re coming,” said Sir Kobi, casting a keen eye toward the city. “The gates are shut and the watch is set.”
            “And I believe we’ve been spotted by others,” Mack added, nodding toward a great sea of tents thrown up against the foothills to the northwest of the city. From this wild arrangement of colored cloth and makeshift huts poured a stream of people, rushing down toward their position.
            “Arms at ready!” one of the prince’s commanders shouted back to the soldiers of his column.
            “No, stand down,” said Halbrinnon. “These are not enemies.”
            The soldiers fingered the hilts of their swords nervously, but obeyed. They watched as the mass of people poured out of the encampment and came running down through the fields toward them. As they drew nearer, it quickly became clear that the Prince had been right. This was not an army coming out to meet them: no, these were ordinary men and women, young and old, the residents of the city, who ran with joyful haste to fall at Prince Halbrinnon’s feet. There were thousands there, their eyes bright and their faces beaming as they drew up to the Prince’s column.
            “My lord!” said the man at the fore, gasping for breath as he knelt down in the grass. “My lord, we heard you were coming! We are with you, O Prince! Let us join you in retaking your throne!”
            Halbrinnon looked at them with calm intensity. “Do you know what it means to follow me?” he asked.
            “If it means laying down everything we are and everything we have to render you service, then, behold: it is already done!”
            “Well spoken,” smiled the Prince. “Come and join this company of friends!”

Tuesday, November 06, 2018

Photo of the Week

Full of kindness and compassion,
Slow to anger, vast in love,
Thou art good to all creation;
All Thy works Thy goodness prove.

- Verse 3 of "God My King, Thy Might Confessing," Hymn #191 from The Augustine Hymn Book, 1866

Monday, November 05, 2018

Quote of the Week

"It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and a wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians…and I am one of them."

- Cyprian of Carthage, an early church father

Saturday, November 03, 2018

Saturday Synaxis

Almighty God, maker of all things, thou hast placed thy creatures necessary for our use in diverse lands: grant that all peoples and nations, needing one another, may be knit together in one bond of mutual service, to share their diverse riches; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

- Anonymous prayer from the 16th century