[LMB] Sacrifice, was An Early TSK Review Surfaces

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <CatMtn at aol.com>


>
> In a message dated 7/27/2006 10:46:45 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> kikibug13 at gmail.com writes:
>
> I've  done giving up things for Lent... but it would take - how was it
> - four  strong men with hand tracktors to take my hand [off a book].
> Foolhardy  strong men... I just... can't imagine my life without
> reading. Desperate  measures have included reading obituaries in public
> places, and reading  romance pulp fiction (that was when my Grandma
> dragged me to some spa  resort for elderly people, and both the
> libraries she talked to me about  were there... but closed - one for
> repairs, the other for a summer break).  But I seem to find reading
> sort of compulsory, for some  reason...
>
> M:
>
> Me, too, both done with Lent and a compulsive reader.  I don't know  how 
> my
> mother conned me into that one, probably by stressing that what  I gave up
> should be a Real Sacrifice.  And yes, I read the ingredients on  cans and 
> boxes if
> I can't find anything else within reach.  The romance  pulp magazines call
> back some mercifully forgotten memories of reading some  belonging to a 
> neighbor
> when I couldn't find anything else.  I think I was  eight or nine, and was
> extremely puzzled by some of the things I read in  them. <g>

The sacrific for Lent cultural value has a certain worldview perspective and 
outlook on life, value system, etc.  When Henry II proposed Becket to be was 
it the Archbishop of Canterbury and Becket was accepted as candidate, the 
world changed for Becket, Henry II, and the world--Becket had been fond of 
his vanities and possession, suddenly they meant nothing to him--he gave up 
his clothing, his possesssion, gave up everything almost everything 
temporal, honing himself down to his  faith, and pledged himself to his 
religion and its values.  He discovered could not serve Henry King of 
England anymore as a servant to the kingdom of England, his pledges and 
fealty to the Church and its views of the universe and how things should be, 
had primacy over all for him--he was the supreme religious authority in 
England, beholden to his faith and its tenets, and not to the goals of the 
King of England who held secular, not religious power, and whose goals were 
based on what was good for England and Henry, not was religiously correct.

Sacrificing for Lent has the view that religion and religious goals and 
values are paramount, and have primacy over temporal interests and 
tastes.... it was a state that Becket achieved, albeit at the eventual cost 
of his life, that he put his religion and his faith to it over all, it asked 
sacrifice from him, and in giving himself over to it, became a different, 
more powerful person--but that was Becket, most people are not Thomas a 
Beckets, and do not give themselves over to religion.

In the Chalionverse the saints do do something of that ilk--Caz put himself 
into the hands of whatever god or gods would save his men's lives...