"Go Get Silk!" The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 12 Oct 1999 https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/680 Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. ============================================================================== Jim Jordan — 12 Oct 1999, 14:23 Look at all the Christians who want Jesus to return soon and bail us/them out of all their problems. I suspect that's part of what Wolfe has in mind when the leaders say they want Silk back. They don't need Silk back, any more than Christians need Jesus back. Christians have the Bible, which is the Word of Christ and tells them all they need, and Christians have the Spirit, who puts them in touch with Jesus personally, and they have the sacraments. They may look forward to seeing Jesus in the flesh someday, but they (we) have everything we need right now, all we need to do what we are called to do in this world. The same is true on Blue, I suggest. They have the Book of Silk, which if they read it would tell them how to rule and serve wisely. But as long as they keep slave girls for sex, they are not exactly following the Book of Silk, are they? As for sacraments, that seems to be a problem, but is it? They think their seed is bad, and that they have got to go up to heaven to get better seed. Maybe that's what Wolfe intends: that prayer is needed before we get the food we really need. Or maybe they don't need to go back to the Whorl for better seed at all. Maybe they need to learn how to use what they have. We'll have to wait and see. One thing is for sure: They don't need Silk, and the search for Silk is just a cop-out; even as Christians who keep thinking Jesus is about to come back are frequently coping out on their responsibilities in this world. Nutria. *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------