Aramansch Cross

Please, keep any criticism restricted to solely artistic grounds. If you can help me work better with Paint.NET or to draw more effectively from a technical standpont, that is certainly welcome. Criticism or attacks upon my belief, theology, or the basic concept I have used to represent it is not welcome and will result in commenting privileges being lost for everybody.

Filed under "Mixed Media" due to the extensive computer-editing work required...the original scan, which I'll post soon, didn't even come out well on professional equipment, so it took HOURS to make it usable and once into such an extensive editing project, I decided to modify it further, for the first time using digital editing to bring the drawing more in line with my original version than even the original was. (It actually doesn't look bad under a bright light--but I think perhaps the paper I was using is not the best for colored pencil.)

Based on a design I worked out early this year for the ...Aramansch War Medal, the Aramansch Cross is not only a common representation of the Church in the world of The Way of the Shadow Blade...it has also become an intensely personal symbol of my own Christian faith. I am Methodist by denomination, but one's denomination simply cannot hope to contain it all. The history I will give you of this design is a combination of the in-story background and the theological beliefs that I represent in both my novel and this drawing that originally inspired it.

In an Aramansch church, the Cross is depicted in a multitude of ways--it often appears as a motif in tapestries, which take the place usually assigned to stained glass in modern cathedrals in our world. Another cross is seen behind the altar, which is typically unadorned except for the three nails and the ropes used to lash the two wooden beams together, and in many cases is even subjected to the full fury of the elements for three days at a minimum in order to allow it to take on a weathered appearance. It is very much the "Old Rugged Cross" described by our world's hymn, and serves much the same purpose that a crucifix might in a Catholic church: to remind one of the Passion. (The tapestries, however, tend to be more evocative of joyous occasions and miracles, of which the Resurrection is certainly the greatest.)

This third cross is one of the sort you would expect to see in many town churches and cathedrals (though sometimes greater finery is seen in places frequented by the nobles): it is used in the entering processional at the beginning of the service, as well as any occasion in which the church comes to the people. This is the cross you would be likely to see in a festival parade, or that might be taken by the priest to a house of illness or suffering...in its mobility it is symbolic of the Church's presence in the world, not just inside its buildings.

This cross is made of wood; unlike the cross on the Aramansch War Medal (which combined both the altar cross and this form), it is carved out of a single piece of wood rather than two lashed together--it is a complete entity in and of itself. The lily symbolizes the new life and redemption granted to humanity through Christ's death and resurrection; the artisan has framed it with a brilliant silver and worked in numerous embellishments sure to catch the viewer's eye when this cross is brought out into the sun. The three gold beads framed in copper are symbolic in number of the Trinity as well as evocative of the rising sun in the east on Easter morning. This three-stemmed lily is a common Aramansch representation of humankind's restored nature: the green stem is representative of the natural life we were originally given--that life which God originally deemed to be good, before the Fall, and through Him can become good again. The red stem represents Christ's blood in which we are washed, which provides immortal safety and nourishment to the soul within that body--though it may appear the more unnatural one on the outside, cut this one and the flower cannot be sustained...our relationship with God dies and then when the body expires, to dust we return.

You may notice, of course, that the double-stemmed lily also evokes the double helix of DNA. This is a choice I made for reasons I expect to be highly controversial in some quarters yet it is a central piece of evidence for why I believe, not for disbelief: it is the sheer wonder I see in the processes of evolution, which I believe to have been orchestrated by our Lord over the course of billions of years on a scope and scale utterly unimaginable to us, right up to the cosmic level and right down to the quantum level. I believe that what may appear to be chance is in fact not, and in its sheer magnificence it points to the hand of an Artist. That we were formed through many intermediate stages does nothing to diminish the care or artistry that went into forming us--indeed, we should be grateful for the long-term diligence and precision that shaped the vessel into which He has breathed the souls that echo, in their tiny way, His image. For me, in times past when I had an uneasy relationship with the organized church and Christianity as a whole, the closest I came to a church was the math or science classroom...I could not look at the wonders of the universe as described by mainstream science but that I be compelled to bow before my Creator. What has assailed the faith of some has in fact impelled me to stay true in mine. Hopefully, should the Aramansch of my novel in their future progress down a technological route, this (by then) age-old symbol will evoke wonder in them and allow them to observe God's universe without fear of what they might find, and thus allow them to escape the false conflict between these two branches of philosophy (science and theology) that has done so much damage to the Christian faith in our world.

The blue stem of the lily represents a healthy relationship between humankind and God, which flows to the three large glass beads which each describe a Person of the Trinity. Humankind, of course, is not on par with the Trinity--but is invited to be in relationship, to echo in our own way that connection between the three Persons contained within the triune God. The bead on the left arm of the cross represents the Father: in its swirling colors are represented the spiral of a galaxy. How the Aramansch might have become aware of such a symbol is unknown...perhaps it occurred to someone in a vision or a subtler prompting of the Spirit, or perhaps it was something witnessed somehow by a white-mage (a mage who has submitted his gifts to the guidance of God). For me, it evokes a contemporary hymn titled "God of Wonders Beyond the Galaxy," which taps the previously-mentioned reverence instilled in me by the wonders God wrought in nature.

The bead on the right arm of the cross represents the Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, who, as it is said in our world's Apostle's Creed, "sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty--from thence he shall come to judge the quick [living] and the dead": it is, in a somewhat abstracted sense, evocative of an iris and pupil. Were I going for true historical accuracy, we can be fairly sure Jesus would have in fact had brown eyes, since no remarkable features of his were pointed out in the Bible. Similar to how Jesus is commonly (and technically incorrectly) depicted in Europe and America as a white man, I figured the Aramansch would be likely to choose blue eyes...not to mention how it lends symmetry to the bead on the left. The starlike design in the center is evocative of the Spirit of God that Jesus was imbued with. In technical terms, what I represent here is termed in Christian theology the hypostatic union--that Jesus is fully God and fully human.

The third bead appears the most straightforward of the three--it is a flame, first symbolic of the Holy Spirit as it appeared when the tongues of flame descended upon the apostles at the first Pentecost, giving birth to our world's church. Some Aramansch, however, see an alternate symbology in this as well: in our world, some denominations' version of the Apostle's Creed state after the line, "He [Christ] was crucified, dead, and buried," that "He descended into Hell." This is the way I first learned the Apostle's Creed myself, when our family could not find a Methodist church in one state we lived in, so we instead attended my grandparents' Christian Reformed church, a Calvinist denomination. While it is not said by Methodists, I do tend to think that the wounds and torments Christ bore for our sake were of more than just a physical nature--thus where we believers are concerned, this version of the cross can even be looked at to show that even Hell has been conquered for our sake.

Thank you for bearing with me, and I hope this sheds some light on what I have done from a symbolic standpoint.

[For free photo-editing software if you, like me, can't afford Photoshop or find it overwhelming, please try Paint.NET, the program I used to edit the drawing. It is available at www.getpaint.net.]