Boundless the sky above Murnia
Loosed from constraints of all seeming time
Clouds scud across this steady ocean
Clearly lit blue
Turning thundercloud dark
Broken by the feet of the children who run
Cut off from peace by the blood all around
Murnia, my heart’s tears soak into your ground

I think that Murnia is one of my favorite lands in the vicinity of Lonya. I don't remember if I planned it from the beginning? I don't think that I did... I think it was just Riscon-Morg and Lonya to begin with, and that Gazigway and Murnia followed not too long after. The Murnians tended to give me some of the most surprising elements in the story. They should have been a pretty predictable bunch, but then things happened. Things like the massacre stunned me as much as the characters.

The imagery is vivid in my own mind. Declan Murtagh was the original Murnian, and I don't remember all of his family's names (there were too many. I like Jethi. Hmm... they're somewhere here on Aurens... let's see.)

Jera

Keena

Lorni

Kata

Ani

Jethi

Joca

Joci

Jetha

Vera and Lorni

Veri and Ana

Kati and Joca

Um... yeah. No wonder I didn't remember all of them. But I still remember who some of them were. None of them were particularly based on people I knew, but they all seemed real.

I like writing stories. I'd love to visit Narnia, and Middle-earth... but I would also love to visit the world around Lonya. It's a messed up place in plenty of ways -- Monrag on the loose, trying to take over the world, Nic deserting to serve Monrag, Lee constantly disappearing and reappearing... but I enjoyed it. There were always places to go and adventures to have. Not so different from real life in all of that, but safer in plenty of ways. I could shut my notebook for weeks at a time. I can always rewrite it. Not necessarily who the characters are, but I can make it make more sense to myself, which is an element of control that I don't always have.

I would have run too, from Murnia, as Jethi and the other survivors did.

But eventually, I think I'd go back. If I finish writing the story, I think that they will as well.

It’s Friday afternoon. The large lecture room is mostly full; the empty seats signal students who have cut the class. The room is dimly lit -- light enough that there is no difficulty in seeing the person next to you, or your notes, or the person across the room from you, for that matter, but dark enough that the powerpoint shows up without problem. Funny things, powerpoints. They didn’t exist when my parents were in college, but you’d think that a lot of teachers couldn’t function without them. My thoughts wander, trying to capture the feel of it in words. It’s drowsy. Friday afternoon, dim lighting, right after lunch? That is an equation for sleep. Especially as Humanities 203 isn’t known for holding the attention of students. Of those who are still awake, most are thinking about things other than Faith and Reason in the Middle Ages. Their plans for this afternoon and weekend. The phone call they got last night.

The room is a subdued ocean of t-shirts and hoodies, jeans and sweats. Sure, this can be my culture. I’m nineteen after all, I can fit in at least decently well.

But it isn’t entirely my culture either. I have far too much distance from it to truly fit. I am not multi-cultural in terms of having lived in multiple countries. I haven’t even lived in different states. Yet there are so many cultures in this room, and I live with the knowledge that I can speak the language of many of them. The college students, that’s a big group. The C-1 girls, my floor of last year. We aren’t on the same floor or in the same building anymore, but that doesn’t stop us from eating together, or calling ourselves “C-1”, or relying on each other. Dag. There aren’t many of us in that class, but it is a culture unto itself. It is not so much of a clique that others can’t join -- I was a new student last year, and only last night found two Dag guys making room for me in a booth when I was planning to eat in my room -- but it is a culture. The post 9-11 culture.

All of these have their own rules. Some of them do not really offer a choice about joining. No one asked me if I wanted to live in a world where terrorism seems unsurprising, if still horrifying. I don’t get an option about being a college student, as long as I am on here. At least, not as long as I’m a traditional student. The older ones are stuck in an even odder position, a sort of no-man’s land. Others of them, such as Dagorhir, were not mandated. I chose Dag. I didn’t know the rules at the time. I knew the stated rules -- no head shots; you lose a leg, get down a knee; sword on head means you’re dead -- but I didn’t (and couldn’t!) know the unstated rules -- we will do other things than fight together; we will watch out for one another in many areas of life, on and off the field -- or the politics, the hierarchy of who was feuding with whom, who had dated whom... so many things to learn. And that is only one culture, and only a tiny glimpse of it.

So now, in this classroom, I remain vaguely aware of the fact that there are rivers and rivers of culture flowing through here. We sit in blue plastic seats and listen to cultures and philosophy of an older world. How many are aware of the cultures and philosophy around them?

Last year, for my big Greek exegesis project, I chose I Corinthians 13. I wasn’t really sure why I was picking that at the time, but throughout the semester, it was astonishing to see how close it ran to my own life. Love is, I wrote what felt like a thousand times. I did not add, And I am not. At least, not yet.

No. Now I sit here, wondering what the value of listening to a lecture that I already know the material for is. Wishing that instead I had the time to do the many things which seem so much more important -- readings, translation, conversations. (There are so many people, and so many conversations waiting to be had, and such limited time.) Or sleeping, something which I did not appreciate till I was in college. For all that, I trust God’s wisdom in putting me hear, and in guiding what I learn. I have seen many other times how what I felt unnecessary proved to be vital. So here I am, reviewing Anselm and Abelard and Aquinas, and waiting for the 55 minutes to run out.

But more than that, waiting for the day when I will know as I have been known.