The role of idols in Achur faith

Life at the Achur monastery is peaceful and contemplative. It is strangely dissonant with anything I associate with Caldari corporatism. I've always mentally pictured the Caldari as a kind of "ant colony people", where the individual worker ants exhaust themselves for the good of the industrious colony. This monastery is about as far removed from that mental picture as possible. It is as if all the modernity and space technology cannot reach this ancient place. It doesn't want to build something new, or produce something tangible, it is meant to help individuals to discover some truth about themselves.

I've asked if I could be given a simple task to help my brothers. And so I've been tasked with maintenance work on the myriad of statues and idols that are on the monastery grounds. Some need cleaning of cobwebs, moss or leaves. Some wear blue knitted caps, and the caps must be replaced when they become too weathered or winds blew them off the statues.

I inquired with master Drellken about the statues. I thought that the Achur faith did not worship gods or saints, as I was told it ponders the universal truth and the redemption of the self.

He explained that while this is indeed so, common villagers don't care all that much about the deep practices of Achur faith and they think worshiping the spirits or old gods in the statues is a good deed. But in fact, the statues are just symbols, for example to pay tribute to wise men of the past who taught about the truth. They can be like images of a loved one you keep near and can look at to bring back memories. The monks don't worship them and know they cannot reach the truth by worshiping them. They use them in their rites to remember teachings and to help focus.

Something similar goes for relics, but they have in addition the property that maybe still something new can be learned from them, so they are treated with even more respect. Our discussion thus turned in a natural way to the topic of the rod of the creator shard they have in the monastery. My mentor will inquire if I may visit it - they are afraid of theft as many pieces held by various monasteries have been stolen and are still missing.