Sacrafice

Love in Literature: Agape

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According to Wikipedia, there are 6 words for love in the Greek language. Each of them deserves to be looked at as we, that being western authors, often find our perceptions of love colored by the different categories outlined by these six words.

Part 1: Agape

Agape is the ultimate love of the West; it is selfless and cares not for itself but for others. The word is described by St. Thomas Aquinas as “to will the good of another.” God is the epitome of this love. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, down to live a perfect life and die a perfect death for us. But death did not win that day. Nor will death ever win again unless a person allows it to win.

John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The word “loved” here is translated from the Greek word “ēgapēsen,” which finds its roots in Agape.

This love is not just a religious concept; however, this is the same love that Boromir had for the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings he did not want anything from them, he knew they were, in all reality a burden on the fellowship, but still he fought to the death in an effort to save “the little ones” from the orcs. His bravery, sacrifice, and devotion are part of what inspired the fellowship to turn away from the road to Mordor and pursue the captured hobbits.

In case you haven’t seen it in a while, here is that heroic sacrifice on YouTube.

What character in your world exemplifies Agape? I want to hear about them. There is no greater love than this: that a man might lay his life down for his friends. The masculine pronouns aside, has a character sacrificed themselves? Has someone stood their ground and allowed others to escape or died trying to prevent a capture?

Interstellar Dragons, Part 1

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A Short Story by A.B. Timothy

Matthew sat in his cockpit when the nails began scraping another chalkboard. Whilst he had been traveling faster than light, there was no problem, but now that he had slowed to a total stop orbiting the Dragons’ world with his flight, he was keeled over in the pain of ear-splitting screams. Before it was just a background, headache-inducing buzz, here he could make out actual screams of rage, and… they were getting closer? “They’re coming, prepare for combat, Joyriders, open wings, bombers, divert shield energy to cannons.” He called out the commands to his squad, proving that, even in the midst of the sheer agony, he could do this. Those commanders would be proud to have chosen him, not ashamed. Just as he predicted, the screams of anger roared to a new volume—no, volume was the wrong word, intensity? That was closer—at the same time, the squad started receiving proximity klaxons in their headsets. Sarah, Jonathan, and Fred all scrambled and began fighting for their lives. Fred called in the midst of it all, “How did they find us? Our cloaks are still up!” No one had an answer for him, except, perhaps, Matthew.

The young pilot pressed a button on his command module and hurled the remains of his breakfast into a blue plastic bag, before it was sealed shut and locked in the refuse container on his little flier. “Captain, look alive!” Matthew forced up his head, took the throttle in his hands, and steeled himself. He used every ounce of fortitude he could muster and threw the throttle forward in an attempt to join the fray. The engine roared with a mighty fire as it powered up to zoom forward.

“I’m-” Matthew began to say before he cut off alongside his engines. Something was very wrong. “Mayday!” He called, “Mayday, Fred! Circle-back Protocol! Take them and get out of here now!” Matthew was running through the ingrained ship-reboot protocols whilst he spoke.

He began to panic as he watched from his cockpit, his friends fold into the fray. Slithering beasts of immense proportions clashed with Y-shaped ships only half their size that they could not see. The pilots could not possibly win this, and it was his fault. Matthew’s connection to the dragons had been what warned them of his arrival. Their only chance was a plan that was compromised when they fell out of the hyperstream. One of his ship’s three engines flared to life, and he knew he had to do what he could. Flying through the invisible dogfight, he barrel-rolled and launched three dozen flares, at the same time deactivating his cloaking device. “Come and get some, you space-whales!” He cried.

“Welcome to the fight, sir!” Fred called triumphantly.

Matthew barely had time to respond amidst the hell of flame and acid he was flying through. “Circle-back Protocol! Fred, that was an order. Get out of here!” His distraction had worked, though. The sudden emergence of a visible target and the challenging flares had called most of the beasts and their riders from Matthew’s crew and onto him. More furious telepathic voices joined the song of rage, actively burning around the young man, and he shook his head. “Please! Live!”

The pilot pulled and twisted his stick, completing maneuvers he learned in basic. The maneuvers might have been basic, but the pilot behind them was anything but. The dragons converged and swarmed him like a host of bees defending their nest from a hornet; this hornet, however, had fangs, claws, and a stinger. Every psyonic voice he silenced was replaced by two more as he held his ship’s trigger. His viewport became black with reptilian blood as more and more died.

Matthew looked at his instruments. On the radar, he watched as the signals of his flight zipped into the hyperstream back in the direction they came. He was so engulfed by satisfaction that he almost did not react when the first claws pierced his hull. The claxons were background noise, the screams in his mind enveloped nearly every thought, and the air was sucked out of the cockpit. The last two thoughts he remembered having were that they got away and that they were safe.

The stars rose from the horde of dragons as he was vacuumed into space and above the mass that was ripping apart his ship. One voice in his mind rose above the rest. It spoke with words he could understand. “Rest now, warrior, prepare for what comes next.” As the words were finished, his entire world was engulfed by the void.