“Of course I do.” He grips his own arms, as though he were cold. “I’ve seen it, time and time again. Even in the depths of man’s own self-made purgatory, I’ve seen it. Doctors and nurses, squeezing out every last drop of their ingenuity, their energy, their sanity, to make the same effort to save every patient on their table. Clerks and corporals coming to their aid above and beyond the call. Soldiers going home wiser and kinder.” His eyes begin to well. “The way the human… rises, over and over again.”
Still fraught, he lets his tears fall. He means it. Every word. He believes, so, so very much, in his neighbors.
He's within arm's reach, eyes utterly fixed on Mulcahy.
"You are broken, Father Mulcahy, and that does not disqualify you from anything. I can see it in your eyes. You've beheld miracles, wrought by the power of mortal spirit. Would they have been anything worth noting, if you did not come from a place of brokenness? Would it be as inspiring, if such resolve came naturally? You journey with them, broken and wretched, through a broken, wretched place, to something better, and you have not gotten there yet. That does not make you less of a priest. What you are feeling, in your agony and in your grief, is the pain of growing and wanting to grow. A tree does not begin in the heavens. It starts its journey in the mud, lower than low, sometimes covered in the filth of a bird's droppings. A priest that only ever lives on high has no roots to hold fast when his faith is shaken. And I have seen a lot of shaken faith."
(There was no convincing him that he wasn’t a shattered man. But to be told that it makes no difference, that the world is still open to him because he is not done…)
There’s a creeping, hurt, hateful animal in him that bucks and thrashes against those words, against any kindness offered his way; but no animal can stop the rain from meeting the ground, and those words burrow into the soil of him, seeping. Feeding what grows.
“Almost fifty years and one war of growing in the dark,” he sighs, craning up to meet this strange spirit’s eyes. “I don’t know if I’ll ever reach the sun at this rate.”
Come back from breaking by growing, grow by changing… can he even do that, when he feels so spent? It’s been a long time since he could imagine the future. He can’t even imagine next month.
"You are not dead, father, buried though you are. If your growth does not push you towards the sun, that can only mean your roots are digging deeper. What untapped riches will you find, after your long journey through the depleted shallows?"
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branchandroot
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Date: 2025-02-01 01:18 pm (UTC)Still fraught, he lets his tears fall. He means it. Every word. He believes, so, so very much, in his neighbors.
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Date: 2025-02-01 04:17 pm (UTC)He's within arm's reach, eyes utterly fixed on Mulcahy.
"You are broken, Father Mulcahy, and that does not disqualify you from anything. I can see it in your eyes. You've beheld miracles, wrought by the power of mortal spirit. Would they have been anything worth noting, if you did not come from a place of brokenness? Would it be as inspiring, if such resolve came naturally? You journey with them, broken and wretched, through a broken, wretched place, to something better, and you have not gotten there yet. That does not make you less of a priest. What you are feeling, in your agony and in your grief, is the pain of growing and wanting to grow. A tree does not begin in the heavens. It starts its journey in the mud, lower than low, sometimes covered in the filth of a bird's droppings. A priest that only ever lives on high has no roots to hold fast when his faith is shaken. And I have seen a lot of shaken faith."
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Date: 2025-02-01 11:08 pm (UTC)From anything.
And you have not gotten there yet.
(There was no convincing him that he wasn’t a shattered man. But to be told that it makes no difference, that the world is still open to him because he is not done…)
There’s a creeping, hurt, hateful animal in him that bucks and thrashes against those words, against any kindness offered his way; but no animal can stop the rain from meeting the ground, and those words burrow into the soil of him, seeping. Feeding what grows.
“Almost fifty years and one war of growing in the dark,” he sighs, craning up to meet this strange spirit’s eyes. “I don’t know if I’ll ever reach the sun at this rate.”
Come back from breaking by growing, grow by changing… can he even do that, when he feels so spent? It’s been a long time since he could imagine the future. He can’t even imagine next month.
And so I emerge from the depths of Sheogorath to return to the depths of Sheogorath
Date: 2025-05-28 04:26 pm (UTC)