What if salvation came through a mirror?
Mirror-bearers are born with the gift to make mirrors of destiny. These mirrors can be made for good, as well as evil. The process of making the mirror involves intense meditation, and from the heart is made good or evil mirrors.
People can live their life without trying to look into these mirrors, but at the cost of being a slave to their vices (i.e. they are caught between wanting to do good, but still falling to doing evil). The mirror-bearers are guarded by those who have passed the test within their mirror. Those who pass the test can take other jobs, but most often those who pass the dark mirror and live either serve the growing army or go mercenary to kill white mirror-bearers. Those who pass the white mirror test often choose to live in protected communities with other redeemed souls.
The story could start out with a young white mirror-bearer successfully making his first white mirror. This is important because there are no more white communities and there hasn't been a white mirror-bearer who has survived to make a mirror in the last 50 or so years, maybe 100's of years.
Back to the mirrors:
The mirror-bearer always has the mirror on him, and is always in a state of metaphysical connection with the power behind the mirror. When he accepts a pupil, he holds the mirror up for the pupil to look into. This takes extreme focus to keep the mirror's power working on the pupil. Any break in concentration can risk dropping the mirror (caused by a jolt from the loss of sync with the mirror's power source) and even losing the soul of the pupil into the mirror (in the dark mirror's case).
In the white mirror's case, the mirror-bearer has to focus on good, and not pride or greed for power. If the mirror-bearer slips, he could
a)drop his mirror (it could break)
b)plant a seed of evil into the mind of the pupil through that pupil's connection with the mirror that could
i)cause the pupil to fail and become physically or emotionally scarred
ii)send the pupil into a murderous frenzy that could attack the mirror-bearer while he is vulnerable (holding the mirror in a trance of concentration)
c)cause the mirror to crack
i)loses its power
ii)has its power drained
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8 comments:
Strange idea. It sounds like salvation by works though. How does that work out?
Hmmm, I didn't think about that. I am very concerned about works-based salvation, and would not want to write a book that supported such a view.
With this idea, the mirror is like the Word of God. Just as prophets received God's Word and relayed it to the people, so do the White Mirests. The people can then chose to let that "word"/mirror purify them or not.
I'm not sure about how the dark mirrors are made yet. Recently I've thought that a White Mirest in the past made the mirror with pride and greed for power in his heart, which produced a dark mirror.
I'm also thinking of putting these mirrors on staffs like wizards have.
Does this clear things up a little? These mirrors can't be made by human effort, but are gifts from God.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. In my idea, faith comes by seeing (the mirror) and seeing the pure mirrors produced by God through submissive vessels (humble hearted White Mirests who sought God's mirrors for His glory, not their own).
Is this parallel sound in your opinion?
A few problems I'm finding with this idea are:
1) If the mirror is God's Word, where are the tangible words that people live by?
2) This makes the savior an innatimate object.
3) Can I have more than one White Mirrored Staff? If I have more than one, people could say that one is better than the other and become divided.
Possible solutions:
1) What if the White Mirests are also prophets? They are given God's Word and the people in this world have a Bible. Just because God gave Moses a bronze serpent, didn't mean that Moses stopped being a prophet.
Does this then make the mirror more of a savior than a means to finding the savior?
2. The whole point of using the mirror idea was to create a quest/test through which one is given citizenship in Heaven and power over evil. I wanted to avoid any kind of quest that would have a works-based solution (i.e. killing a bear, or getting through a dangerous forest), so I made up this idea because it takes place in the heart.
The mirror is God's vessel of changing their heart. People come to the mirror knowing that God is pure and that they can't become pure without Him changing them. I think back to the bronze serpent that Moses held up to cure those whom were bitten by the snakes. The Israelites confessed that they had sinned and were in need of a savior by looking up to God's provision.
3. I think there should only be one white mirrored staff, so that people know that there is only one way to become cleansed of their sins. This is kind of like when Isreal had a judge, there was only one at a time for the whole nation. My story could pick up with the next White Mirest discovering his identity and his quest.
Looks like you are figuring it out.
What if the mirrors are rather independent of salvation and the Bible, and are rather, simply, mirrors. Albeit mirrors into the soul. They reflect the spiritual state of the bearer and of the person who is looking into it.
You might be able to run with that idea, I don't know. But it seems to have the potential to solve the problems. :)
That is an interesting option. As I was thinking about this idea this morning, I started worrying about my book being about salvation again. Thanks so much for your input on this. I will toss your idea into the hopper and see what comes out.
Has my idea gone from strange to interesting yet ;)
It is getting there! :) Remember that this idea needs to be subordinate to a master story to succeed though.
Thanks, I got a little worried when you said it was strange, but it was still a very young idea.
You're right about making this idea subordinate to the story and more important, the characters. I'm writing the opening scene right now to discover my characters and am also building my world to see what trials they will face in order to overcome the dark mirest.
Sounds great! Remember Holy Worlds is there to help you out as well.
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