NEW FICTION: “My Father and the Sun” by B.T. Lowry

How far would you go for your father’s dream? What about when you don’t even know if it is yours? Where does your father’s dream end? Where does yours begin?

In B.T. Lowry’s “My Father and the Sun,” we enter into the last days of a family pursuing a literal journey of faith: following a father’s footsteps to the mythical Island of the Sun and to the very mind of God. Mensah’s father thinks he knows what’s going to happen when he gets there. Mensah wants to believe, but is doubtful — and he’s worried about his sister, Kianni, who might be too young to understand. How far will Mensah go?

Read the story here and decide for yourself.

(Also: Yes, we’re back! Sacred Earthlings will now be updating regularly, as will Third Order Magazine.)

Resurrection! Or: No, We Haven’t Died!

 

Ow! I fell victim to the Unannounced Hiatus!

I’m extremely sorry for being invisible these last few months, but after adjustment to a new job, surgery, conquering an illness (and my first real vacation in seven years), I’m finally crawling back into the blogosphere! The really good thing is that I’ve been thinking of Sacred Earthlings and Third Order since Balticon, and not only do I have tons of great articles and photographs for you, but that I have a full lineup for Third Order going through the end of the year and into January just as soon as I don’t feel like I was run over by the Starship Enterprise.

karen_in_sewardBuying books in Seward, Alaska!

I’m extremely excited about all this, and I hope you are, too. I’ll be back very soon with more story recommendations, commentary (hello, Killjoys!), convention reports, old paperbacks I picked up in Alaska, and, yes, stories for Third Order! (I’m finishing up the lineup by the end of next week!)  And if you’re going to Capclave in Washington, D.C. in October, flag me down! See you soon!

SHORT STORY ALERT: “Belief” by Nancy Kress

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God
who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect
has intended us to forgo their use.” -Galileo Galilei

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Hello, earthlings! We’re back!

Religion against science, science against religion; which one is right? It’s an old, hoary story, one that goes far back past the books of Christopher Dawkins to the well-known tales of Galileo, Hypatia and Socrates. Devotees of science say that the ordered world precludes a belief in God, while the faithful say the very same proof explains it.

We’re still having this conversation, on the same kind of cultural scale. You can visit the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY, where you can see a real, world-class allosaurus fragilis skeleton and then learn that the animal in question existed at the same time as human beings and died in the Flood. You can head to your local streaming service and rent Bill Maher’s film “Religulous,” which tries to put the screw to who people who truly believe in the power of prayer without trying to understand why they might be so devoted.

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Maher at the Mount of Olives, destroying sacred cows or something.

This conversation, unfortunately, has no room for men like Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, an actual scientist who is also a Jesuit brother. (He’s so cool we’re going to devote an entire article to his work. Stay tuned.)

Nope. The rest of us are still fighting over who’s right and who’s wrong. Who knows? It’s my opinion that we’re just adding to the fighting that’s been happening since some nameless, curious shaman discovered fire and thought it might be a gift from the gods and not just a natural reaction, not making progress. We’ll never know. All we can do is keep talking and trying to understand each other.

Nancy Kress’s “Belief,” in the March/April issues of Fantasy & Science Fiction, tackles this dichotomy on a very personal level. There is a mother devoted to the path of science; there is a teen daughter who is looking for something a little more transcendental. What I love a lot about this story is the fact that Kress allows the readers to explore both viewpoints in a parallel fashion and draw their own conclusions. And Kress’s protagonists, unlike the Mahers and the Fox News anchors of the world, actually make progress.

In an interview with The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Kress explains that “neither the rigors of the scientific method—which in some quarters is taken pretty much as a religion—nor the ‘squishiness’ of faith are completely satisfactory. ‘Belief’ is my personal way of simultaneously criticizing both–while leaving the door open to both. Talk about squishy!”

We here at Sacred Earthlings call it awesome reading.

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This is wrong no matter which side of the argument you’re on.

Let’s all keep trying to understand each other — without shouting each other down, denouncing faith or science with a broad brush or as a matter of course. As Kress’ heroines may (or may not! No spoilers!) discover, there’s only one way out of this mess we’ve made, and that’s together.

Read the rest of the interview with Kress at Fantasy & Science Fiction, where she talks more about her inspiration for the story and discover where you can pick up the March/April issue in which the story is published.

NEW FICTION: “The Weight of Years” by Jaime Babb

The earth has its music for those who will listen,
Its bright variations forever abound;
With all the wonders that God has bequeathed us,
There is nothing that thrills like the magic of sound.
– George Santayana

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Remains of homo habilis, discovered at Olduvai Gorge.

Worship of nature and the Earth is humanity’s oldest religion. Before Jehovah, Zeus and the now-nameless gods of the people of Lascaux, someone looked up at the sun and the stars, wondered what they were, and searched for answers. Someone looked around and observed leaves dying in the autumn and the miraculous, ever-present return of life in the spring, and wondered if there was a higher power out there that made it happen. Even today, with our science and our societal agnosticism, we still look up on cold nights at the Milky Way or at a grand valley from the top of a tall mountain and feel that sense of ancient, breathless wonder our ancestors must have experienced.

Every human that has ever lived has looked up at the stars from their home standing on Earth and has wondered the same things from the same perspetive. In the future, though, when we stretch out to the stars, colonize the planets and the asteroids and the galaxies, when humans exist independent of the Earth upon which we evolved, what is that perspective going to look like? What is Earth going to look like from outside? How is that ancient drive going to translate to someone who has never breathed the air of their ancestral home?

In answer to that question, Third Order is excited to present Jaime Babb’s evocative, arresting story, “The Weight of Years.”

We’ve got a wonderful slate of posts for December. Stay tuned for an interview with Babb later this month, where we’ll talk about the inspiration for this story as well as other wonderful things. We’ll also discuss ancient faiths, creationism vs. evolution, stories and novels that touch on nature religions and modern takes on the Gaia myth and nature worship. Expect a few other author interviews about what it’s like to write religion into your stories, Star Wars and more!

Read Jaime Babb’s “The Weight of Years” here, and talk about it in the comments section below. As always, Third Order is consistently open for submissions and publish stories on Third Order monthly or when we run into something we simply can’t resist.

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NEW FICTION: “A Tomb For Demrick Fauston” by Fred McGavran

“How do you know when you’re dead?”
— Demrick Fauston, “A Tomb For Demrick Fauston”

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I am so, so excited to bring you Third Order’s first — but not last! — new story in over five years.

If the name of August’s author sounds familiar to readers, it’s because “A Tomb For Demrick Fauston” is actually Fred McGavran’s second story for Third Order. The first, “The Sycamore Street Anchoress,” was published in 2008 and can be read by clicking here.

McGavran’s is the Marvel universe of Episcopal fiction, with the priest Charles Spears serving as his central axis; stories based out of the Downtown Church of Our Saviour appear in his short story collections as well as print journals and e-zines, and we’re honored to have two of them at home right here in Third Order. Spears is a very human priest doing his best to serve a congregation with very human issues — and, occasionally, some that are a little more superhuman. Anyone who has ever been to a vestry or parish council meeting will feel right at home; anyone who knows a church that does the best it can to accomplish its mission in the modern world or a priest who does his best each day will recognize the Downtown Church.

In this month’s excellent story, we revisit Our Saviour and its world of magical realism; this time, we visit the offices of mega-developer Demrick Fauston as he faces death, the world beyond, and a great and terrible secret. This is McGavran’s response to the world of the selfie and the world of the self-centered, and the world that develops around the burdened soul.

On Sacred Earthlings this month, we’ll revisit McGavran’s story through interviews with the author — and expect a lot more about death, reconciliation, atonement and what might come after this world is done, as well.

Enjoy Fred McGavran’s “The Tomb of Demrick Fauston,” August’s story on Third Order Magazine.

Fiction Alert: “Sounding The Fall” by Jei D. Marcade at Escape Pod

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
— Gautama Buddha

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All roads lead to the same place…

Might an artificial intelligence also look for God? What might it mean if it does? Does one have to be a “good monk” to be an effective one? What is the role of faith in restitution and atonement? What is the role of religion in society — to detach from the world, or to involve oneself in it?

If you’ve been following Sacred Earthlings for any length of time, you know that these kind of delicious questions make our world go ’round, and when they’re packaged in a short story with gorgeous, clear language, all the better. We’d like to thank author Jei D. Marcade for writing her excellent “Sounding The Fall,” episode 499 at Escape Pod, published on July 20th, 2015. The story takes place in a future society overcome with technology and noise, sealed against a toxic world and ruled by tower-bound artificial intelligences. Into this environment comes Narae, a monk in an appearingly-Buddhist monastery, who has sealed erself out of society after an AI experience some would consider to be a truly religious one, and others might… well, I’ll just let you read the story, because I don’t want to spoil a story so well-constructed.

You didn’t read that pronoun wrong — Marcade eirself uses a gender-neutral pronoun in real life, as does this story’s main character. It forces the listener to view Narae’s actions not through the lens of gender, but through the lens of a greater humanity, with no recourse to explain her doings as “female” or “male” reactions. The choice to become gender-neutral is a very interesting choice for someone so devoted to higher truths; one may say that, when searching for God, something like gender does not even matter. The fact that Narae is painted as a truly human character, with the kind of human failings we could expect from someone struggling to understand a profound and life-changing experience, is even better. This is a very personal story, one that touches on beautifully epic thoughts while keeping the focus on characters you come to care about.

Hear “Sounding The Fall” at Escape Pod now.

photo credit: Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial, Taiwan via photopin (license)
photo credit: Gaden Shartse Tibetan Monks via photopin (license)

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