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There have been some recent attempts to drop motherless children here at the church. That's fine. There's a roof, we have food around, and we can keep a child out of trouble for a few hours. But we are not an orphanage, and more importantly, we are not a family.
The Erastilians - and Jaidite, yes, I see you - who have come from foreign countries to help establish a church here all have their own reasons to be free to travel without abandoning their homes and families, but they were thus free, and you wrong them if you imagine they'd drop marriages or their own little children to rush over here in the hopes of handing out channels and advice in a new place. Those of us here for the convention came out of duty to the Queen, who must indeed be in need of a great deal of sermonizing if she's inclined to let her friends kidnap ordinary men and women from their homes, and it weighs on us every day that our families and villages are carrying on with a hole carved out where we should be. The church is not a family. I have a family, and it is in Sirmium, not here.
And the church is not and does not operate an orphanage. Certainly we don't have a magical solution better than an orphanage in our pockets. We do not hide portals to the Summerlands under our pillows. We are talking to some orphanages, because if you leave a child with us and then you do not come back to get him, that's the place he has to go. Run of the mill secular orphanages not hardly pleasanter than they were under the King of Hell. There's a roof. They have food around - sometimes. They can keep a child out of trouble for a few years. They are not a family.
People ask me, Sower, how can I purge my sins, how can I live a simple goodly life, how can I possibly do good in such a complicated world? Sometimes they try to give me money. Money's fine as far as it goes and we can find things to spend it on, but do I look like an Abadaran to you? And what kind of advice would it be, if my sermon to all of you, rich and poor alike, were give the church money? What kind of Erastilian says Goodness is expensive; the poor are wicked for it? Absolutely not.
So maybe don't give us money. Keep your coins to pay the grocer, and take home an orphan.
Yes, I know most of you aren't married even to the extent anyone these days in the cities knows how to be married. You should fix that too as soon as you find somebody you could live with, could build with, who'd be a warmth in your heart and you in theirs, as soon as you're sure enough of yourself to commit. But the orphanages are packed and miserable now, and you've all of you seen it done, raising children alone. Yes, the men also! You've seen it done! You've seen it done by women and you probably shouldn't carry home an infant if you have neither breasts nor goats but you too can be a tiny family for some lost child old enough to eat gruel.
The Fourth Avenue Orphanage has kids three a bed getting by on one meal a day. And every one of them needs a mother, a father, ideally both but they cannot be choosy, to tuck them in at night and teach them their prayers and look out for them well enough to remember their names. They've got bad habits and bad manners and bad educations because their caretakers are at their wits' end, snowed under by the scores of them, barely equal to the task of keeping the little ones from starving to death and strangling each other. And that isn't their fault. No one should have so many children in their care. I'm not saying you should take thirty to recreate the problem again in a new building. Take one, or two, at least at first. You'll want to pick the lice from their hair.
Did I say doing good was easy? Did I say it was glamorous? Will it salve your pride? Will you make some kind of return on the adoption? I say no such thing. Parenting is work. It is neither prestigious nor relaxing. There is nothing less dignified than changing diapers and playing with a little tyke to cheer her up when she cries. If you want an apprentice who does your chores, and not a son who also studies the family trade, that's your business, but don't fool yourself. The children need families, and if you came here to find out how you can be Good? That's my answer.
You go over to Fourth Street and you meet all their five-year-olds and you pick one out - because she's cute, or because he's quick, or because she likes horses, or because he needs room to run around and you live in the servants' quarters of a rich man with a yard. You go over to Fourth Street and you hold six babies and when one of those babies grabs your chin you simply do not have to put them down again till you get home. You go over to Fourth Street and you bring the children you've already got and you tell them you're not leaving till they have a new brother or sister. You go over to Fourth Street with your boyfriend and you tell him you've decided you're going to be a mother, this week, is he in for the long haul and willing to say it here to Sower Soler's face or are you through. You go over to Fourth Street and you empty it, all of you together empty it of every motherless child, and they'll fill up again, easing the burden on every other orphanage in the city, and you love your new child with all your heart and if your heart fails you cling to Law with your fingernails and you give that child family.
If you came here to find out how to be Good, that's my answer. If you wanted another answer, find another church. We're here to tend things and make them grow. We're here to put in the work and the time and the sacrifice and the love and the commitment. I want to see a child in every lap the next time I stand up here to tell you anything. If you're on the fence, come talk to one of us about how you can make it work - for some reason, people keep giving us money, and if that makes the difference for you, I don't see why it shouldn't go to feed your new son or daughter. If you wouldn't know what to do, come talk to us, come see how the children are living in the orphanage with me and you'll see - you can do better than that, and your child'll teach you what they need over the weeks, the months, the years.
I am going to walk to Fourth Street. Right now. Follow me.
