Institution

[Random_White_Guy]

Institution
Gausim al-Marain

If one we to describe Institution, it would be best framed as the simplest municipal tool. A granary comes to mind. The ideal granary is an elevated space, raised on high, in which large quantities of grain may be kept free of the worries of moisture, rodents, and in such quantities as to preserve a family or if larger a settlement for the foreseeable future.

There are preparations in place and an understanding that the ill handling of the grain would lead to woes - Moisture, Heat, the growing of mold, inevitable fermentation. As the quantity ebbs and flows additional techniques considered to ensure that it remained dry and tenable. Some going so far as to spread it out for a time upon the floor to be stirred and flattened before returned to its bundled urns. In simplest exchange the granary tends the grain, and the grain gives purpose for the granary to exist. They move in harmony, until needed.

In barest metaphor such can be applied to any institution.

If one were to consider a Temple a granary, an institution of repository and tending, it would not be a stretch of the imagination. A cool kept place, raised on high, preserved and tended in the pursuit of curtailing that which would lend to tainting and spoiling of charges. Ensuring things remain tenable, the simplest exchange - Purpose given, and purpose returned, ever there in harmony until needed.

For it is the goal of the Temple to be so unneeded. That when a populace is tended, raised, and devout that in common practice a Temple sits until required. A happy populace may still seek a Temple's services for occasions of joy - Rites of adulthood, Rites of Ceremony, Unions of Wedlock, Celebrations of faith, and more. To arrive for a call to prayer in routine and humble ritual for the barest time to think on not just the self, but the community at large.

The selfsame may be said though too, of Governance.

That when matters flow smoothly, when the Granary stores what it must store, when it is tended by caretaker, when threats abated, when all is well - So too is it rarely considered. A peaceful people going about their day, tending their matter, uncaring for the minutiae unless they so choose that investment as hobbyist, scholar, or merely enjoying the sense of community. Affairs are tended, peace kept, their needs satisfied, and they may like sands from an hourglass flow and drift at peace with the institution tending, as it should, until needed.

One may need think no further than a Martyr's Maqbara. While some wish such a thing does not exist, it does. And it is there ready when needed, though most hope it comes to pass no later than required. For a Graveyard a solemn place for memorial, memory, and tending. But in each waking moment one ought not think of the grave, of what come, unless they are themselves a hobbyist, scholar, or merely enjoying the sense and reminder of mortality.

Yet a poorly managed Maqbara, where the dead take to fester, where disease comes, where Necromancer may defile as they please - this is a thing that sows doubt in institution, and lends an inordinate amount of distress to a community.

And a Granary beset by rot, by mold, by rodent, by bandit, when what is placed in public trust begins to falter - lends to an inordinate amount of distress to a community.

And in such instance it is the Temple's duty, as Institution, to act as it may.

• If food is beset by rot then charitable works undertaken to secure of soup, to make of lesser millet and sustenance. While it may not be lavish - it will prevent famine.
• If a house is beset by rodent then the humble work of trapping undertaken to secure peace, to prevent disease festering, to offer safe space in sleep free of bites and scratches and other malady that disrupt.
• If a people are beset by bandit then the pious charge of offering Sanctuary undertaken to uphold peace, a calm and soothing place one may dwell free of woe under ward and watch, to offer a secure location where community may gather and speak and play and feel of ease.

To rebuild the public trust.
To buttress against faltering distress.
To return a sense of communal peace.

This,

This my fair reader -

This is why last evening four peoples came to my Temple. Janissary in crisis of conscience on what it means to be a soldier in trying times driving away the unhoused refugee. Magi of such wisdom and skill and scholarly works feeling untethered and ill safe. Artist feeling maudlin over the state of affairs wishing to know how she may do more. And a young man, a refugee himself, new to these lands wondering what all the commotion is of, seeking to learn more.

For it is the goal of the Temple to be so unneeded save for celebration and times of prayer.

But it is the purpose of the Temple to be present, in times of crises, when needed most.

This is what it means to be Institution.

To honor the public trust given.

To safeguard such quantities as to preserve a family or if larger a settlement for the foreseeable future.