As dizzyingly beautiful as stained glass, your riotous confusion of light and colour yields at distance to profound meaning. For what else can our anxious clamour represent but the sublime stirrings of concern and gratitude for the shared miracle of Creation? And so it is with concern and gratitude that I address you, not your teacher but your erstwhile student.

If every story has a beginning, does it behoove us to pause and savour the pages we are given, lest we reach our conclusions in haste? Some of us, gripped by enthusiastic curiosity, seem willing, at times eager, to skip to The End. And we are moved by the tragic examples of those who read too far, too fast, only to find their beloved characters reduced to rot by some nameless villain.

Underlining this existential threat, mighty Mhaldor stretches to a thin black band of heroes, forever besieged and always too few. As poor and lowly as church mice, we rouse the sleeping rector with teeth meant for biting, claws meant for clawing. For who shall open the doors of His chapel? Who peals the bell? Lift your head and rise; His service calls us all.

Penned by my hand on the 11th of Miraman, in the year 656 AF.