A writer and lecturer who has practiced, taught and researched local, national, and international journalism since 1971. Moritz served for 13 years as a national and Asia correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor.
Come all ye fair and tender ladies. Be careful how you court young men.
They're like a star on a summer's morning. They'll first appear and then they're gone.
They'll tell you some loving story They'll declare to you their love is true Then they will go and court some other And that's the love they have for you
Do you remember our days of courting When your head lay upon my breast You could make me believe with falling of your arm That the sun rose in the West
I wish I was a little sparrow, And I had wings with which to fly Right over to see my false true-lover, And when he's talking I'd be nigh.
But I'm not a little sparrow, I have no wings with which to fly So I sit here in grief and sorrow, To weep and pass my troubles by.
If I had known before I courted that love was such a killing thing I'd a-locked my heart in a box of golden and fastened it up with a silver pin.
In honor of a childhood friend, Richard Holbrooke, a Jewish - Quaker who combined power and ideals. "Sir Richard," I salute you -- for your courage of a lion and your heart of a lamb. In sadness for "Sir Richard" the big mouth, sometimes bullying, confrontational son of Jewish refugees.
With whom I had walked to Quaker meeting as a junior high student in Scarsdale, New York during the late 1950's.
We walked similar paths -- both part children of German Jews who sought for us to blend in by adopting Quakerism. We continued to walk similar paths -- with him at the top as ranking diplomat and me at the bottom as lowly newspaper foreign correspondent.
Focusing in different ways on the same issues.
I had not seen him since 1977 in Beijing -- where both he and I were participating in different ways in the diplomacy to bring an American-Chinese alliance.
We were both peace makers of sorts -- although we had both rejected Quaker pacifism as too parochial.
By the 1990's Holbrooke was well into rediscovering his Jewish roots, while I was beginning to study Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his concept of "costly grace" -- as well as the theological underpinnings of my childhood interest in "Christian realism."
Farewell, farewell to you who'd hear You lonely travellers all. The cold North winds will blow again The winding road does call.
******
Farewell, Farewell, my boyhood friend.
Who died December 13 (born 1941, the same year as myself) of a ruptured aorta while serving as President Obama's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In an age of bureaucrats and cautious politicians, the late "Sir Richard" swaggered through a classic role: the flawed hero.
Tough as nails with an idealistic heart and an elephant-size ego, he did not hesitate when calling for military action. But power was to be channeled for constructive ends.
Throughout his 69 years Holbrooke struggled with the challenge of how to impose American will for stability and humane rule -- first in Vietnam, then in the former Yugoslavia, and lastly in Afghanistan.
He served every Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson, and made millions as a Wall Street Banker when Republicans were in power.
"Sir Richard" was a manager of the "American Empire." He sought to combine military, economic, and humanitarian power with what today would be called "nation building" in far away places.
Often it seemed an illusive task of "squaring the circle."
A year before his death, he declared, "I still believe in the possibility of the United States, with all its will and all its strength, and I don't mean just military, persevering against any challenge. I still believe in that."
Holbrooke's greatest achievement was his lobbying of President Clinton to instigate military action during the Serbian genocide against Muslims in Bosnia when Clinton and others were timidly fleeing from an activist foreign policy.
Both inside and outside of government he unabashedly advocated the use of force when human rights issues and U.S. foreign policy goals coalesce.
Because of Bosnia, I see Holbrooke as a truly historic figure. He was militarily a hawk, but a moral conscience within the establishment.
But with lots of foot dragging force in Bosnia came too little and too late. Lots of the genocide had already been done by the time NATO air power and troops forced the 1995 Dayton accords negotiated by Holbrooke.
(See "Holbrooke: Why I Mourn," a remembrance of Holbrooke's role in Bosnia by TV journalist Christiane Amanpour. See also New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, On the Ground.)
(See this survey of how humanitarian agencies now see the use of force.)
Holbrooke also pioneered as one of the first Jews to penetrate the foreign policy establishment using non Jewish connections rather than a the traditionally Jewish Ph.D. professor route.
Instead of going on for a doctorate he chose to join the Foreign Service in 1962 -- mucking around in Vietnam's dangerous Mekong delta while contemporaries such as myself buried our noses safely in doctoral program libraries.
Today Jews serve widely in the foreign service, in the military, and in all kinds of think tanks and establishment groupings where once they would have been unwelcome. Moving deep into establishment journalism -- especially into outlets like National Public Radio.
They are no longer confined to ghettos of political radicalism -- or to stereotypical niches in law, teaching, small business, or finance.
When Holbrooke's father died young, he was, some say, partly "adopted" by future Kennedy Secretary of State, the very non-Jewish fellow Scarsdale resident Dean Rusk. Rusk's son was among Holbrooke's closest friends.
Holbrooke went on to Brown University, which was an excellent penetration point for a Jew seeking transition to the non Jewish foreign policy establishment.
His path to success was not the familiar Jewish academic one, but through mentoring relationships with gentiles such as Dean Rusk, and other establishment State Department people: Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. and General Maxwell Taylor.
His mentors were "muscular men," gentile veterans of the World War II generation -- for whom the use of massive military force was a familiar fact of life. No bespectacled agonizers on moral dilemmas were these.
I would see it like this: the U.S. failure in Vietnam and the plight of Indochinese refugees sensitized Holbrooke to refugee issues, out of a sense of US failure in Vietnam in which he was deeply involved as a young foreign service officer.
Then in 1995 Holbrooke took as his third wife Kati Marton, the Hungarian American journalist of Jewish background. She and her writing projects , helped reopen his Jewish past. For she had only recently discovered her own Jewish identity.
Thus his reawakened sense of Jewish identity and the plight Holocaust victims sat heavily on his sense of the suffering of Indochinese refugees displaced from Cambodia and Vietnam by American defeat there.
His outrage at Serbian genocide in Bosnia as both a private citizen and a government official thus stood at a double foundation: the failure of the West during the Holocaust and the suffering which came out of American failure in Indochina.
For Holbrooke the challenge was always to seize success from failure, "to make the next chapter work."
Hank Williams might be amused but not surprised to learn that a woman I recently met on an internet dating service appears to be doing a form of "sex for money."
A black woman of magnificent and towering charms, a serious "single mother" most eager to elicit gifts, money from a stranger.
Her voluptuous body seethed with hints of future sex.
For days she had been sending scantily clad photos to my cellphone: something a journalist is bound to note. As the clues mounted, I used standard investigatory techniques to locate the Jacksonville, North Carolina "double wide" mobile home in which she lived -- in a nice middle class, mixed race semi-rural area.
Driving out while she was at work, I cautiously drove into her drive circle to be followed in a truck by her polite white husband and charming six year old daughter.
He had a round and pleasantly mustashioed face, and kindly backed out his truck, so that I could drive up to him for a few words.
"I am looking for Mr. Smith, (not the woman's name)" I said.
In a cautious interchange with him in his car and me in mine, I ascertained he was the husband, they were not divorced as she had claimed -- and she had not kicked him out of the house as she claimed.
I did not wish to stay around for coffee.
Checking "Facebook" with a friend we located her wish list of luxuries she wished to own in a year.
Things she was trying to scam gently and indirectly from me. Well above my pay grade. And with no services rendered.
When gently confronted by text message and phone, she put out a fresh line, more likely true: that she was in the midst of a divorce, moneyless, facing the loss of her mobile home.
All the while, as our research indicated, in search for luxuries.
There was, of course, no sex....only a hint of it.....
The Old
We see a growing pattern of prostitution and such on the internet --- both on broader internet and and dating services. And many many escort services advertised in this area.
One other woman was a lovely black hospital worker, both slim and buxom of build.
I met her on a computer dating service. She invited me to her house in Greenville, North Carolina for a sparkling three hour chat.
And then came the text messages asking for "a favor:" could I spare $100 here and there?
She had earlier shown me her bedroom with the comment, "This is where we play."
"A friend with benefits" was what she sought.
She was stunning and charming and sophisticated -- although her bathroom toilet lacked a handle.
I felt that as a journalist of record it was not my part to participate.
I did offer to fix her toilet handle. She declined.
The combination of hard times and high tech gives new imperatives and new opportunities to the modern variety of "con women" and "sex workers."
Some are medical workers.
Some are inveterate beauties, one I met a former airline stewardess, trying to get "help" in return for sex. Many are single mothers.
In the black culture there is a long tradition of sex for gifts. With the full knowledge that a white man will be more vulnerable to a pitch. White women may be more skillful at covering up the nature of this transaction.
As a black woman friend told me, "A black man would laugh off this pitch." But a white and lustful bleeding heart, that's another story.
Many are spurred by minimum wage jobs, the crunch of not being able to meet their needs in this declining economy. Or a thirst for luxuries their incomes will not afford.
Now, it is not all black. A retired white New Bern, North Carolina nurse with many expenses, whom I met on the dating service "Matchcom," recently offered to supply sex for a regular monthly stipend.
I could not help but notice that she was "poured into her jeans."
"Maybe it's time to change careers," she confided. Needless to say I did not take her up on this -- although I did a little bargaining for journalism's sake.
***** "Moritzism" Stay "armed" young man. Stay "armed"
(When the wages of virtue can be death)
"Shit" is what you make of it. Never rely on goodness in others. Nor show excessive kindness lest that be taken for weakness. Be careful whom you trust for the Devil can come to you with the face of an Angel
It's all in how you play the game. Play for all, settle for less, and always have an exit strategy.
Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Do not expect mercy from others. Grant it whenever you can.
Laugh and Love (But above all laugh for love requires at least two)
*****
"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.
"He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all."
A personal theology in film Confronting evil with restrained firmness ("A little caution makes for a longer life")
******
A personal theology in song
Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain so I hang upon my altar and I hoist my axe again. And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began when Jesus was the honeymoon and Cain was just the man.
-Leonard Cohen
Saving a Space for Love
Love Without End
*****
Constructing a personal theology involves not just abstract theological texts, but an examination of one's entire life experience.
My own was 69 years in the making -- flowing from an idealistic Quakerly stress on the merits of kindness to a realization that weakness will be exploited, that in situations charged in power, an effort to get along can be a road to disaster.
Avoid too much "loving kindness," too much trust -- unless you hold plenty of the cards.
Stay armed young man, stay armed. My own voyage reflects my academic and journalism career, my personality, and the nature of my childhood formative times.
These reflections are based on 55 years of studying issues of war and peace, numerous years as journalist and foreign correspondent, and the sometimes searingly brutal realities of academic politics -- where the worst of human nature is often revealed.
I cannot say that I have come much farther than my rejection of Quaker idealism in the 1950's. I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust -- and learned through hard personal experience that weakness in the name of kindness is no substitute for the ability to manipulate, to hang tough.
So I end up with the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr discovering what is obvious on the streets: that the strong will bully the weak -- and that love (if it hides weakness) will not conquer all.
Experience is my teacher. It taught me nothing that prophet Niebuhr did not warn me of fifty years ago.
The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr
An idealist may choose safe venues where a veneer of respectability cloaks the cutthroat aspects of life.
But when one ventures out beyond the Eden-like garden of middle class affluence and security one must handle oneself with care.
Saintliness presupposes a willingness to be martyred.
Those of us who are not saints and who have little wish to be martyred had best stay well armed.
Set limits, be firm, do not "speak truth to power" unless you are willing to suffer the consequences.
They can be swift and brutal.
Acquaintances along your road will be exactly as cruel and ruthless as you allow them to be.
*****
In aggregate terms, good often triumphs. But evil will most likely triumph for the individual who does not cultivate strength and the ability to ward off bullies.
This is one reason why toughness and the ability to thoroughly engage in the most brutal of conflicts is essential for the maintenance of most forms of civilization.
The lawyer, the police officer, and the army are powerful and sacred instruments of "God's Will."
These can all be misused, but without them "we are lost."
We can note they are not by themselves sufficient, that they too must be restrained.
True, the advent of new technologies can spread sunlight on evil -- and help dissolve its harmful nature.
But even as we speak, new forms of destruction are being prepared by men and women who will willingly inflict massive pain and death.
Never forget the dark side of the moon.
Gandhi can be nice.
But think twice before turning in your gun.
*****
One way to protect oneself and sally forth in success is to acquire skills and property which other people need.
Then they will develop and show to you their finer points --- respond more positively to shows of reasonable virtue.
When armed with weapons or valuable commodities, one can more easily bring out the positive side of people.
But be careful. Beneath the smiles can be sharks waiting to come out. If you don't have something valued to sell, you are vulnerable if weak.
Most people instinctively know this without extensive study.
For them there is no reason to construct a blog such as this. But for some of us who are perennially tempted to be too nice, it is important to stay "on point." Label Fred "a recovering idealist."
I also have handy the .36 cal. Remington Police model.
*****
Now, to be sure, no one tries to break into my mobile home park...
Still, I believe it's unsporting to use a modern weapon in self defense.
If the old style was good enough for the guys who really needed it, it should be good enough for me.
Here is the company I kept, both of whom killed with a "Navy."
"Wild Bill:" lawman, gunfighter
******
Gunfighter, lawyer
The 1851 was the first "cap and ball" Colt Revolver light enough to be carried at the belt -- rather than in a horse holster.
But powerful enough to do real damage.
True the Model 1860 "New Dragoon" was preferred by cavalrymen -- for, as I said, army tests of 1835 concuded a minimum of .45 caliber was needed to down a charging horse.
British soldiers who used the lighter .36 during the Crimean War of 1853-56 found themselves sometimes sabered by charging mounted Cossacks.
Not something to write home about.
But I am not on horse.
Nor am I facing horsemen -- breaking into my home.
Not yet, anyway....
Just in case I hear the sound of horse, let's keep my two Remington .45 army revolvers on reserve.
It's a more reliable gun than the Colts.
(Based on an 1858 patent, the improved version was issued in 1863, in time to be the "top gun" of the American Civil War)
No doubt that backwoods boy of the 1940's would write a song -- and dance along....
The delightful Bristol Palin exactly symbolizes what Islamic extremists resent in American life: public decadence and the peddling of easy sexuality.
Ironically the values of Muslim fundamentalists are similar to the family values Sarah Palin praises -- even as she peddles glamor and her daughter does a playful form of sex dance.
She warns of a Muslim threat, promotes American military power and urges the defense and spread of traditional American Christian values. While daugher Bristol symbolizes the freedoms so foreign to traditional Islamic culture: sex and pregnancy outside of marriage merchandised to earn personal fame and fortune.
We know that some Muslims find Western "decadence" appealing -- with young men sometimes enjoying strip clubs when overseas.
We know that eroticism is present in some Islamic societies -- for example the tradition of "belly dancing" (or "Arabic Dance") in Egypt, Lebanon, and Turkey.
Still, many fundamentalist Muslims circle the wagons to prevent Western cultural infiltration of their societies.
So Bristol in her modestly sexual way is a classic symbol of the "clash of civilizations."
She is the essence of a cultural force which Islamic fundamentalists fear will seep across the world to disrupt their more traditional values.
*****
"Dominionism" is closely related to the concept of "Christian Nationalism."
Stimulated by rapid domestic change and the threat of Islamic terrorism, it sees the very rise of Islam as a Sharia Law threat to Christian life.
It calls for the assertion of Christian national power.
It is the mirror image of those Muslims who see materialism and sexual license in the West as a threat to Islamic life.
Dominionism is so prevalent in U.S. life that we rarely notice it.
It is a partner in dance with Islamic extremism.
Together they help shape our world.
Christian nationalists can fear that imported Sharia law may undermine the West.
Islamic fundamentalists can fear post Gloria Steinem liberated women conveyed by movies and internet may subvert their ways.
The Korean War raged as Hank Williams neared his death in 1953.
Who knows how this Alabama boy interpreted the seemingly simple clash between communism and capitalism.
But he would surely be "howling at the moon" if he were alive today -- as Americans debate "what to do about Islam."
In the wars of this century Americans are most deeply involved in parts of the world which they are least prepared to understand. The nuances and "remoteness" of Islam for the U.S. make it virtually impossible for large numbers of Americans to understand the challenges -- let alone respond in a rational way.
We live in rich fields for demagogues to spin history -- to enlist media to build emotion to build their political careers.
The journalistic principle of balance guarantees ideologues and demagogues will have plenty of voice.
For every person with knowledge of Islam interviewed by media, a shrill demagogue will be chosen to demonstrate fairness.
One purpose is to promote the controversy that will draw audience interest and boost ratings.
*******
Just as important there are few American Muslims in the public eye.
Unlike American Jews, they have not widely penetrated into the media, university faculties, American political races, or the diplomatic service.
Thus most Americans have little concept of Muslims other than as strange foreigners wearing funny clothing -- or even carrying bombs.
The worlds of university and scholarship are just as useless as the media world in enlightening American public. They offer little that is understandable, concrete and useful to the non-specialized reader.
Serious scholarly books and magazines are far too complex and time consuming for most Americans to understand.
Most "serious" published work on Islam is largely irrelevant except at the "elite" highly educated level. Islam is distant, exotic, full of bizarre names, leaders and sects -- ever changing, wrapped in historical nuance.
Without travel and or detailed study very few Americans can understand it.
Too many negative images already deeply enshrined by war, terrorism, 9/11, degradation of women, and the seemingly unending hostility to Israel found so widely in the Islamic world. This leaves an enormous vacuum for demagogues and ideologues to fill.
And so lots of us are "howling at the moon."
The bottom line is that dogmatic anti-Islam feelings are becoming a mainstay of American conservativism -- at the political, intellectual, religious and grassroots level.
Like anti-communism in the days of yore, anti-Islam is the current platform on which extreme American nationalism is built.
Political scientist, historian, and former CIA analyst Graham Fuller has just published a provocative book to probe the nuances of Islam,"A World Without Islam."
To help Americans grasp the nuances of this issue that raises fear and confusion among many.
Fuller, former Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council of the CIA, and formerly CIA station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, is now adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.
He rejects current notions of a clash of civilizations or of conflicts fundamentally based on religion. He calls for a rethink in some of our discussion.
He sees radical Islam as sometimes giving expression to grievances flowing from interaction of the West with the Middle East.
But he focuses on enduring "geopolitical conflicts" which might well have been there even without Islam.
Conflicts between tribes, over territory (as with Palestine), over resources, over who holds power.
"If there had never been an Islam, if a Prophet Mohammad had never emerged from the deserts of Arabia, if there had never been the saga of the spread of Islam...wouldn't the relationship between the West and the Middle East today be entirely different? No, I would argue, it might actually be quite similar to what we see today."
There are many other ways of understanding Islam's history and contemporary challenge.
Most, like Fuller, are not easy reading.
*******
Television and newspapers are largely useless for educating Americans on Islam. For many the subject is incomprehensibly "boring" -- unless hyped with images of savage violence or argumentative rhetoric.
Red hot political controversies (such as the proposed Islamic center near "Ground Zero") drive out programming with perspective.
Talking heads with not so hidden agendas spout out slogans aimed at inflaming emotion.
"In time of war the first casualty is truth."
Despite the confusion and fear, there are deep reservoirs of tolerance in the U.S which are likely to carry the country through.
But do not count on understanding.
Taliban in Battle
Americans in Battle
There's not "a snowball's chance in Hell" that Hank and most other Americans can understand the nuances of Islam's complicated history -- or of how and when it may become extreme, a threat which must be countered.
Hank could make a beginning stab by consulting "Islam" on Wikipedia. There is even a Wikipedia Site for him to check out if he wants information on Islam and Secularism. Still another Wikipedia site deals with controversial Islamic Sharia Law.
The Wikipedia entry Islamic Symbols contains a chart of Islam links and a link to Wikipedia's "Islam Portal." Would Hank really have the patience to dig further through a website on Islam and Islamic Resources? He would quickly notice many of these links do not work.
Google shows there are only fragmentary web resources on Islam. Most of them are clearly slanted in one direction or another.
There seems to be no real on the ground literature or website which brings to life the wide variety of Islamic life in terms of concrete life styles from country to country.
In human, understandable terms. The absence on the web of reliable and understandable resources on Islam is a fundamental threat to American understanding and national security.
It virtually guarantees that journalists writing on Islam will have few reliable resources.
The absence of serious web resources submitted by Americans or others is truly remarkable given the decades of American involvement in the Islamic world.
Not to mention continuous warfare with Islamic states since 2001.
A wealth of resources is scattered on many varied websites, but little systematically brought together as "links" on "gateway" pages linking to Islam-related information.
For Americans a focus on topics such as pre-emptive war, weapons of mass destruction, and the Arab--Israeli conflict appears to have crowded out focus on the cultures and histories of the Islamic world.
It is a recurring American weakness to be ignorant of the minds and cultures of other peoples.
*******
Hank would be the first to concede we are a country largely unprepared to understand the relationship between al-Qaeda and Islam.
He would scratch his head when asked if all Islam is a Nazi like force threatening the U.S. He would know little of the varieties of Islamic experience in a variety of "remote" countries, and how that experience has changed over time.
*******
It is unrealistic to expect to educate the American people on Islam.
Anyone seeking to change American views will need to manipulate them with skilled propaganda and public relations.
"In time of war the first casualty is truth."
Fuller's "A World Without Islam" can be a whiff of fresh air -- if you are not willing to be herded like sheep, if you would liberate yourself from media, if you would like to think about alternate views.
It may help you stop "howling at the moon."
But it will take work, very rewarding work -- especially if your knowledge of world history is weak.
One thing we know about Americans: they are "babes in the woods" when it comes to world history.
Does a saint about to go to war "see what she wants to see."
When a saint goes to war, it is more than her motives she must check.
Her intelligence analysis must be sound. Does the evidence require the sword -- or are there other alternatives?
"God's signs" can be misleading even if the CIA approves them.
A saint's decisions are as sound as her "signs," her visions.
Did God really mean what he seemed -- or was the data ambiguous?
Even a saint such as Joan must face her "Conscience."
Did she sacrifice for God or kill for her own "pleasure?"
Here are some eternal questions for all who go to war. Does it take a saint to wage a "just war?"
Can even a saint be corrupted once "just war" begins? Does even a saint get dragged down into cruelty once battle flames?
The Banner and the Sword
"Just War" Defined
Even if noble at the outset, can the saint become addicted to a love of winning?
Even if she seeks to inspire with the banner, can she end up taking pleasure in conquests by the sword?
A saint can lead by inspiration -- but ultimately she must take responsibility for the deaths her sword caused.
Even in Joan's day, there was no free lunch.
The Seduction of Battle
Now, let us see how it can work if you are not a saint.
When men and women go into battle -- and get dragged beyond their "just" intentions into cruel results.
Meet former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara -- surely no saint.
He died in 2009 -- not before leaving as atonement this movie, The Fog of War(2003)
In it he takes upon his long anguished self to explain how he helped kill hundreds of thousands in WWII and Vietnam.
A man who woke up one day to be a villain examines how misplaced visions and flawed intelligence led him and others to be not saints but angels of death.
Saint Joan, President Obama, be very careful where you lead us.
We would be wise not to trust you.
For in your righteousness you may be deluded.
******
Saint Joan, Is This Where You Led Us?
Ah, Saint Joan, explore thy motivation.
Here the secretly filmed hanging of Saddam Hussein reveals the final act of Bush family revenge.
George W. Bush went to war in part to eliminate a long time family enemy, the man who tried to assassinate his father, George H.W. Bush.
The leader of a great nation used an American invasion to execute by proxy a personal enemy.
Thy motive, dear Joan, keep thine eye on thy motive.
For motive can be one part of the puzzle when deciding if a war is "just."
Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc as she came riding through the dark; no moon to keep her armour bright, no man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, "I'm tired of the war, I want the kind of work I had before, a wedding dress or something white to wear upon my swollen appetite."
Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way, you know I've watched you riding every day and something in me yearns to win such a cold and lonesome heroine.
"And who are you?" she sternly spoke to the one beneath the smoke.
"Why, I'm fire," he replied, "And I love your solitude, I love your pride."
"Then fire, make your body cold, I'm going to give you mine to hold," saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
It was deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and then she clearly understood if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry, I saw the glory in her eye. Myself I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?
*******
Those Who Came Before
*******
*******
Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans (French: Jeanne d'Arc, ca. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint.
A peasant girl born in eastern France, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, claiming divine guidance, and was indirectly responsible for the coronation of Charles VII.
She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake when she was nineteen years old.
Twenty-four years later, on the initiative of Charles VII, Pope Callixtus III reviewed the decision of the ecclesiastical court, found her innocent, and declared her a martyr.
She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is, along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux, one of the patron saints of France.
Joan asserted that she had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War.
The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege at Orléans as part of a relief mission.
She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.
