Dear Reader,
My original transcription project had a long term goal. It was to gather as much of the wisdom texts and related texts to Filianism and Déanism that I could get together and work on cross referencing them. Then copying the parts that were present in all sources in gender neutral language (which some of my research had shown that the Madrian community was beginning to move towards before they fell apart in the 80s).
Sifting out some of the false archaic language from one edition resulted in something that correlated with the other two texts that I have. Cleaning up the grammar in another edition made it easier to read and very similar to the third edition that I have. I've found myself leaning heavily upon the New Celestial Union Version and the Eastminster Critical Edition as I have been working. Just because all of the scholarship that went into those two books is astounding and each serves to help clarify the other. The Gospel of Our Mother God is more like a condensed version with vast chunks of really important information missing.
It's really frustrating because that was the first version of the Clear Recital that I had my hands on. I have some pretty strong emotional attachments to that version. At the same time, I want to be as complete and sensitive in my handling of the Clear Recital as the editors of the NCUV and the ECE were. I don't want to take away from the text. At the same time, I recognize that this edition I'm working on is going to be distinctly different because of the focus on gender neutral language and some apocphryal text that is based on things that were revealed to me. (The Elder Kin and the rise of the Dark Queen, to be specific.)
A part of me is really nervous about putting in the account of the Elder Kin and the rise of the Dark Queen. This is something that's been consistently left vague and been a point of major discussion across all branches of Filianism and Déanism. I fear that my contribution to the discussion will be a point of great contention and distress. I fear that my adapting the language of the Clear Recital to gender neutral is going to create a great deal of discord in the community. Even so, I can't shake the feeling that this is as much work that Déa wants me to do as the prayer books were. When I'm not working on this, I can't stop thinking about it and contemplating the passages that I were most recently working on transcribing. I have dreams where I kneel in a chapel of Déa, begging her for forgiveness in what I am doing here. In those dreams, I am surrounded by light and I am told "All shall be well."
I just have to trust my Queen and do as she has directed me.
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