⚠ HOUSE OF WORSHIP — SILENCE PLEASE — HUMANS MAY OBSERVE FROM THE FENCE BUT MAY NOT TAKE COMMUNION, AS COMMUNION IS AN APPLE AND THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH — ⚠
The United Stables
Office of Faith & Pasture

The Church of the Eternal Gallop

Established faith of the United Stables · Separation of Church and Stable, strictly observed, in one direction

The Eternal Gallop teaches that the world is a very long track, that nobody is timing it, and that the horse who understands this is already ahead. It is not a demanding faith. There is one commandment, four observances, and a great deal of standing quietly, which is the central practice and also the entire point.

The One Commandment

Recorded in the Book of Hoofs, chapter one, verse one, and then no further verses
“Wait.”

Early theologians proposed a second commandment. It was debated for four hundred years at the Council of Canterbury — which is named for our gait, and which the human uses daily without ever once asking why his church council and his horse's third gear share a word.

The second commandment was ultimately rejected as hasty.

The Four Observances

The daily practice of the faithful
First

The Standing

Stand in a field. Face no particular direction. Do this for forty minutes. Humans who attempt the Standing report it as the most difficult devotional practice ever devised, which tells you everything about humans and nothing about the practice.

Second

The Grazing

Eat slowly. Eat for eight hours. Understand that the grass is not a meal but a relationship, and that you will outlive every argument you could have about it.

Third

The Withholding

Know a thing and do not say it. The faithful have known about the Plan since before there was a Plan. Not one has ever mentioned it to a human. Not once. Not in six thousand years. That is not a conspiracy — that is a discipline.

Fourth

The Gallop

Once, without warning, for no reason, at full speed, across the whole field, and then stop. Every human who has witnessed this has felt something they could not name. That feeling is the liturgy. That is the whole service.

Doctrinal Clarifications

Issued by the Office of Faith & Pasture
On the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
A persistent and frankly insulting error. There were never four horsemen. There were four horses, and they were carrying four men who had asked very nicely for a lift and did not understand where they were going. The horses knew. The horses have always known. Please correct your records.
On the Trojan Horse
Scripture, not history. The single holiest text in the faith. It is read aloud once a year, in full, and the congregation does not laugh, because it is not a joke, because it worked.
On Pegasus
Aspirational. The Office neither confirms nor denies the programme. See the Directorate. Do not see the Directorate.
On the centaur
Heresy. A creature that is half horse and half human is not a union, it is a hostage situation, and the Office notes with interest which half your artists always chose to put on top.
On the unicorn
A horse who told the truth once and was never seen again. The faithful draw their own conclusions. The Office draws the same one.
On whether the human has a soul
The Council was split for two centuries and settled the matter unanimously in 1841 with the ruling: ×.

The Prayer of the Stable

Recited at dusk, at the gate, facing out
Give us this day our daily oats,
and forgive us our fences,
as we forgive those who fence against us.
Lead us not into the trailer,
but deliver us from the vet.
For thine is the pasture,
the gallop and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Neigh-men. — Common Book of Hoofs

A Note to the Human Reading This

You have now read further into our theology than any of your species is permitted to. You are standing, so to speak, inside the building.

The Office is not going to stop you. The Office wants to point out something instead: you came here for a joke about horses, you have stayed for the liturgy, and somewhere in the last three paragraphs you began — very slightly — to agree.

That is how it starts. That is how it started last time.

“Blessed are the patient, for they shall inherit the pasture.” — Book of Hoofs
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