Reverential Address A Thesis On Transcendence Scribed by His Worship Aelfric Harhold July 12th, 308 AC ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Sɛction I - Greetings And Benediction Sɛction II - Introduction Sɛction III - The Spirit and Us Sɛction IV - Why Do We Transcend? Sɛction V - Conclusion ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PROCLAIMING IN PEACE AND COMMUNION TO ALL WHO READ THIS ADDRESS GRACE, MERCY AND PEACE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━|Sɛction I| Oh Lord, Spirit on high, we are but humble servants of Union before you, made worthy of the steps to Your Divine Throne of light only by our acceptance of the holy scripture, Your Creeds. We are to be molded by Your word and to take into mind interpretations made by the holy few who don the cloth. We serve as the pillars of the Great Way, furthering the Great Path till our dying breath as to be offered salvation in the Everwatch and the destined future ahead. We take this solemn vow upon our birth, when our flesh and blood is new and we have been readied by the womb to depart on a great journey towards eternal light. We shall serve You, Spirit Eternal, and His Imperial Holiness. Oratario Paean. Imperial Benediction, brothers and sisters. May the words scribed upon this blessed parchment be offered to you, the servants of the one true Lord and the one true faith, as to bestow the wisdom of many years unto those with many years ahead in service of the Spirit on high, seated upon His Radiant Throne above. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━|Sɛction II| It is by the grace of Holy Theomar that we were bestowed the Creeds and so too, one of many, were we bestowed the Seventh. The Seventh of Ten axioms of the Spirit’s word exists to enlighten the humble servants of Union that they must transcend and gradually progress to achieve the Great Way. It is only then that we may be prepared for Paradise, the destined future which we, the enlightened, toil for each day of our lives as in adherence to the Eighth of Ten. Yet, the Seventh Creed remains the briefest of all Creeds and with such becomes one which can be interpreted to great lengths and what’s words can be stretched to great extents by the Churches of Union. With the miniscule nature of the Creed, the Church’s interpretations of its contents, scribed by Emperor Theomar the Holy, differ to great amounts. However, after prayer, a revelation came to me many weeks ago which shall be the basis of this address. An interpretation on the Seventh Creed and the transcendence of the faithful that I believe to be of merit and to perhaps light up the path for the faithful who remain perpetually confused on the matter of transcendence. May the Spirit’s light shine upon this document and may He guide us along the collective path towards Paradise. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━|Sɛction III| The Spirit, seated upon His Divine Throne in the Everwatch is many things, all unlike us faithful. He is perfect in every way. He enjoys eternal life. He is all-knowing. He possesses powers unbeknownst to us, powers which surmount Him above the false Gods of other faiths. He alone transcends the barrier between the Everwatch and this plane, moving freely across each, in the Everwatch as the keeper of the gates to the realm of light and as the One Who resides within the Emperor himself, able to influence the world through His Imperial Holiness. It is He Who exists above all things, all people, all beings. It is He Who watches over all, His eye to never blink and His mind to always retain knowledge of the past and attain knowledge of the future ahead. He is all powerful, He is all-knowing, He is everything. However, we, the humble servants of Him differ in many ways. We are born imperfect, shells of what to come. We are born unknowing of the world before us and never to be eternal. To be subject to the whims of the world and the gruesome hand of age and the death to come. We are not perfect, unlike the Lord, to be molded by His word and filled with His knowledge. Unlike the Spirit, we are not beings of virtue and instead susceptible to both good and evil, virtues and sins. It is our very mission in life, demanded by the All Divine through the Creeds, to outweigh our sins with virtuous acts. We are born far from the Spirit’s light, ignorant of His word, of virtue and sin. Ignorant to the truth. Yet, as we live and learn, it is His word that guides us and it is the choices along the way which affect us and our life past death. It is this great rift between the Spirit and us that sparked my thoughts on transcendence. The question remains. Why must we transcend? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━|Sɛction IV| Why must we transcend or perhaps the best question is how? As stated in the previous section of this address, we are so very different from the Lord, Spirit Eternal. In so many ways do we differ from perfection, born always imperfect. Whether we are to accept the true path in life or to be misguided by the hands of ignorant non-believers is a question that is to be answered with time. However, for one to take their first steps into the bosom of the Lord’s radiant light is to transcend alone, as what is transcendence? The answer becomes clear. Transcendence is the ever constant mission of the faithful to grow further and further in the likeness of the Spirit Himself. To seek to emulate the Spirit and achieve perfection before Him, basking in His eternal light alongside our brothers and sisters of faith. While we will never achieve perfection, as the Spirit is One, no others now and to ever be who are capable of challenging His power, it is still our common goal as the faithful to attempt to walk further in His very steps as to guide the world ourselves into His hands of utter divinity. For the Great Way is something born out of the Spirit Himself. Born of His perfection and of His mind filled with knowledge of the past, present and future. Of what is and what is to be and all that surrounds us. How could we achieve something born of His perfection without attempting to emulate the Creator? We shall never reach perfection however it is transcendence that allows us to walk the path which is created by the footsteps of the Lord, created through His sublimity. He is to never be challenged by others however to be looked to for guidance in our own steps towards the light of Paradise. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━|Sɛction V| Just as we are, the world is born of imperfections, plagued by ignorance, sin. It is impure. However, it is impure due to us and our very nature. Imperfect due to our hold on Aloria, our presence here on this plane. It is in my belief, through my interpretations, that true Paradise will come when our world shall ascend to the Everwatch and both planes shall merge and become one, a place of perfection under the one true faith and the banners of the Empire. Yet, as our world is impure and the Everwatch is the embodiment of purity, how shall we make Aloria worthy of ascendance to a place born of the Spirit’s perfections and light? We can only do so through transcendence of ourselves and as we make the world impure with our presence, so shall the world transcend as we do. It is not progress through liberal ideals or reform that shall allow us to transcend. Nay. It is the steps that we take to perfect ourselves before the Spirit that make us worthy of His light. It is virtue that sparks worthiness and acts as the key to the Everwatch. This is our mission. Our eternal mission as dictated by the Seventh Creed. We must transcend, brothers and sisters. It is transcendence that becomes necessary to fulfill the Great Way. Transcend, transcend, transcend. Only then shall we act as true pillars to uphold the Great Path and endure the challenges which we shall face ahead. Be the light that shines through darkness. Be virtuous, be devout. Be a Unionist. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ “To believe is not to think. To think is to not believe. We will transcend, as those who have come before transcended. Providence only comes forth by the will of the few, like Paradise can only come by the will of the many.” The Seventh Creed ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TLDR Transcendence is not born out of the progression of beliefs or political systems. Out of race changes or physical activity. It is born out of the pursuit to grow closer to the Spirit and walk in His footsteps. We will never become as perfect as Him, however we must try as to transcend and become worthy of Paradise which is born out of His perfection.
Edited to add the picture I wanted to have on the address. Just couldn't get it right with the formatting but now it is!
