"The will of God will never take you to where the grace of God will not protect you."

Fr. Eamon and I have been in discussion about how to acquire the necessary items for repairing the church. He suggested a group of suppliers (smugglers? oh dear, it is probably better not to ask) who operate out of the gas station on the bluff behind the church. It seems he made their acquaintance some time ago, and Luci confirmed that they have a reputation for securing hard-to-get supplies from the mainland (although Luci also said that their trade usually consists of unsavory stuffs, but when I put this to Fr. Eamon, he dismissed it with a glower and muttered something about the need overriding the origin. *sigh*)

Unfortunately, my attempts to contact someone have been unsuccessful. I did leave a letter yesterday in the hopes that someone would contact us, but so far there has been no word. Guin, the poor dear, has been making inquiries as well, and it seems we may have some method of replacing the glass in the windows soon, so things are slowly coming together, but I'll be so much happier when we can actually start to do something, rather than trying to ignore the empty front of the church every time I walk up the aisle.

In the meantime, however, little Luci has proved enterprising once again. She arrived at the church this afternoon, a battered old Radio Flyer in tow--I clapped when I saw it, as I had one almost exactly like it when I was a girl! Her wagon was piled with scrap sheets of wood--mostly particle board and warped plywood, but better than I could have asked for, all of it salvaged from the ruins on the far side of the island, and she even managed to find a tin can full of nails. All these items have been stored in the back room of the church for now, and I left a note for Fr. Eamon so he knows they're available for sealing off the window frames at the very least.

And Luci--bless the child! I hugged her hard and treated her to a milkshake at Zoe's!

On another note, the parish has welcomed a new member of the clergy. A young monk, Brother Lincoln, comes to us from the mainland, and while I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him, by all accounts he seems to be settling well into the life of the parish. I am so very pleased over this news, as we have been terribly shorthanded since Fr. Zelenski's... ah... vacation. The extra help will not only be a boon to the parish itself, I'm sure he will be able to help us repair the church all the faster. God's good blessings upon him!

((Written in a close, neat hand on both sides of a piece of paper.))

Dear Reverend Mother:

I write this in the sincere hope that my letter reaches the mainland, but the post from Midian is rather unreliable. I would attempt a call instead, but the phone lines in the church are down, for reasons I'll explain in a moment. I could have asked the father for permission to use his personal line, but he has been terribly distracted of late, for reasons you'll soon understand, and I could not find it in my heart to trouble the poor man further.

There is so much to tell you, but in this letter I will keep myself to the news of greatest importance.

I am writing this letter from Zoe's Cafe, a small eatery on Midian's main street, little more than a block from the church. I feel safer there, especially during the daytime, than I do anywhere else in the city--and yes, I know you read this with surprise, but you will understand when I tell you what happened in the church on Palm Sunday. The church no longer feels like a sanctuary, and even the stalwart presence of the father comforts me only a little. I am, in truth, more terrified than I have ever been. A week ago last Sunday, a young cat of the church--one of the nekos, you'll remember--was murdered horribly, and in her will she asked Fr. Eamon to give her a Christian funeral. She was well on her way to the catechumenate, and Fr. Eamon agreed. Many in our parish mourned the young woman deeply.

The father received word from the deceased's daughter that one of the woman's suspected murderers was planning an appearance at the funeral. The city's police were notified by the family of the deceased; many of her fellow cats made plans to stand watch as well. I could not attend due to parish duties in another part of the city, but from all accounts, the service started well, and the father and the attending mourners were able to make it through most of the requiem mass itself. Unfortunately, it was not long before the aforementioned suspect made an appearance, accompanied by other allies, and the funeral service spun rapidly into madness.

Oh, Reverend Mother. You cannot imagine. The woman's body was desecrated with violence. Her daughter was terribly injured, along with many others who fought hard to stop the intruders. Gas of some nature was released, and the father tried to save some of those in attendance, but a subsequent explosion and some sort of tranquilizers used by the monsters invading the church put the father out of the action. And... oh heavens, it is too terrible. The father and at least one other parishioner--there may have been more, but the father has not yet discovered the details--were kidnapped by the intruders and carried off into the night. And tortured. Yes. I do not know the fate of the young woman kidnapped with the father--Fr. Eamon would not speak of it, except to say that she survived--but the father himself has been grievously hurt. His face is battered--bruised and badly cut, his nose broken. His arm was broken as well. And when he asked for my help in changing his bandages, I found multiple lacerations to his back and a deep stab wound to his shoulder.

You may well ask who treated him initially. There are angels in Midian still--he was rescued by Guin, another catwalker, and two unnamed friends of the latter, and treated with expert medical attention as far as I can see. I was impressed with the care taken in his bandages and the setting of his arm, and you know how exacting a nurse I can be. Still, when I took my nurses' training, I did not expect to be tending to a priest. Perhaps God knew when he led me to that vocation how much it would be needed here in Midian, where the monsters are.

Everything has changed, Reverend Mother. The church has been badly damaged. I spent today cleaning the char marks from the stonework--which despite the explosion, still stands, as sturdy as ever, thank heavens--and cleaning up the shattered remains of the pews, the lectern, the broken glass from the windows (oh, that lovely stained glass!), the remnants of the burnt aisle runner... and the huge old Bible the father used at Mass. I found it, torn into pieces and stained with blood, buried beneath the ruins of the lectern. Until that moment, I had not cried, but I confess I did so then, kneeling in the midst of the chapel's destruction, the Bible's tattered pages pressed to my chest.

Praise God, the front of the church before the altar, the beautiful organ, the confessional and the holy water font--all of these are intact, so I thank God for the small favors we have. And we have not been idle with our sorrow--the church is slowly being cleaned, and the father is already making plans for repairing and replacing what we have lost. I attempted to contact one of the city's "suppliers" this afternoon, in fact, but no one was in--I shall try again tomorrow. So yes, we are working to fix what was broken, to replace what was stolen from us, but I fear there are some things that can never be truly healed. I pray and know that we must be strong, that we will come through this trial tempered by fire and greater for it in the end--as the father says, triumph is born of adversity. But I am so terribly afraid, Reverend Mother. The shadows seem longer inside the church, and despite my hard work at cleaning, I still see the ghosts of bloodstains on the floor, and the spaces were the pews once stood, where the beautiful Bible rested... they seem to mock me with their emptiness.

And the father... he has cloaked himself in darkness. He speaks little now--and he spoke little enough to begin with--but I find him now standing in silence in the middle of the night-dark church, his arm in a sling, his eyes seeming to burn in his battered face. Depression I could understand--this is a terrible thing that has happened to him--but it is not sadness I feel. It is anger I sense in his unreadable expressions, in the clench of his one good hand, and I cannot help wondering what will become of us all.

Pray for us, Reverend Mother.

Yours in Christ,
Sr. Lisbeth Dollinger

"To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come..."
~ Shakespeare's Hamlet

All is quiet in the church this evening. The only strangeness was in finding a young woman sound asleep on the floor in one of the back rooms of the church. I was surprised to find her upon entering the chapel on my way from the cloister, but I stepped around her carefully and let the poor thing sleep. She is not the first to find safety and some measure of sanctuary here, and I am certain she will not be the last. If she is still there upon my return, I shall fetch a blanket from our supplies and cover the poor thing. I did not do it before for fear of disturbing her slumber, as anyone who stretches out on the floor must have been tired indeed, but if she remains there too long, the chill of the stone beneath that old carpet is likely to settle in her limbs and make her stiff. No need to add insult to the poor girl's exhaustion.

I spent some time in the quiet of the choir loft, reading a book while keeping one eye on the chapel itself and the curtained room where the young woman slept, then when it seemed she would not be waking, I went out to take a late supper. Zoe's Cafe was closed again, although I was hoping Guin would be there, and while the sushi bar can be enjoyable, I don't like eating there alone with the Midian street at my back. So I stopped by the Sari-Mart instead and purchased a few small things for an impromptu "picnic" of sorts, then made my way toward the Ruins and the Midian City Park. There, I chose my usual bench to the left of the initial crossroads (marked, much to my interest and curiosity, by a voudou veve--I believe it is Papa Legba?), and ate my simple supper in the soft shadow of the trees. Oddly enough, for all its loneliness and gloom, I quite enjoy spending time in the park. There are interesting people to be found there--strange people, to be sure, with odd mannerisms and quirks of speech, but they have never done me harm. It's as if there is some Other watching over the park and those who wander there.

I took the long way back to the Church, and wrote these words while sitting on the grassy bluff that overlooks the gas station, the ridge of trees... and beyond that, the breathing ocean. There is no place safer than the Church, of course--at least not for someone like me--but sometimes it is good to be out in the open, with these towers of stone and sin at my back, and God's nature unfolded before me. Even here, in this hell on earth, sparse grass continues to grow, trees reach for the hazy, cloud-dark sky--not as healthy as they might be, perhaps, but there nonetheless, reminding me in their tenacity that even here in Midian City, life goes on.

"Here is the devil-and-all to pay."
~Cervantes, Don Quixote (Book IV, pt. I, ch. X)

Oh diary. Sometimes I think my heart speaks truer in these pages than it does on my knees in prayer, as if here, in this secret place, I would write my letters to God. So much has happened since last I wrote, I'm not even sure where to begin, but I must write something, if only to pour my troubled thoughts on paper so they might make some sort of sense. For all the sin and vice one finds in this city, the horror and heartache and hurt, it is nothing compared to the terrible crimes being done within sight of our church, by those who would claim to honor Christ through the blasphemy of their actions.

And I am afraid. We are so few in this parish, and the night outside so very deep.

Not long before Christmas, I was in the church, getting the chapel ready for the midnight Christmas Mass, when Father Eamon entered from the street. It is not so unusual for him--he often walks the city after dark, and has no fear of what he might find--but the look on his face was haunted, even for him. I had promised myself that the next time I saw him, I would not shrink from his blacker moods, and I went to him with the intent of asking him what was wrong and if there was anything I could do. To my surprise, he asked to speak with me first, and drew me into the quiet of the standing-room beside the doors.

He had come from a meeting with Father Zelenski. Father Z, as many of the parishioners call him, is the monk I mentioned in an earlier entry. I have not had the opportunity to speak with him further, but Father Eamon has, as well as one of the young street children, Luci, who has taken to frequenting the church. Their joint opinion seems to be that he is a good priest--albeit stiffer, perhaps, than Father Eamon, who for all his brooding and darker moods is nevertheless a relaxed sort of priest with a reasonable sense of humor. Father Z met with Eamon while he was taking care of an injured girl (named Noel) who had sought sanctuary within the church, and after Father Eamon saw to her needs and put her to bed in the community center, he accompanied Father Z for a walk down by the waterfront.

And there, Father Z told Father Eamon the history of Midian parish.