Looking to Joan

Joan of Arc was born into Paradise today. Remember her and know hope.

We got up this morning and the sunlight was hitting the face of a small memento of Saint Joan in our living room. Her church evidently no longer wanted her and so for almost nothing we ended up with a lovely little statue of Joan of Arc. She was a gift to my wife, Hope, who has saved me not from the English, but myself.

Joan’s visions, courage, charisma, and generalship were remarkable enough to fascinate that old reproprobate Mark Twain. Joan rallied a country and threatened the English and the Burgundians enough that when captured, she had to die.

Yet today Joan is hopeful. Why? Joan came from nothing, no status, and as a woman in a society where might too often meant right rose to command armies. Nobody was looking for her and the cause she supported looked doomed, but Joan came. She came with her wild visions, an ancient sword found miraculously in a Cathedral, and nothing stopped her until her mission was done. After all this, betrayed by a cowardly king she had saved and false friends, Joan died and so passed into myth.

The English should have known that you cannot defeat a myth. Her life is heavily chronicled and was often investigated. Joan, this “uneducated” person, somehow lived a life that was the hero’s journey. She defied convention while serving God. She obeyed the deepest moral laws while ignoring the social rules of decadent France.

She saved France in a life that was art.

The simple hopeful truth is this: we do not know where salvation can start. God uses anyone and while careful calculations are not wrong, they can be upset utterly by someone that did not count. Joan of Arc echoed the words of Jesus to his accusers: “I am not afraid, I was born for this.”

So she was, but this is a caution to me: don’t miss God’s person. The French court ignored Joan, because she was just a peasant and a girl. The Burgundians and English saw a witch and not a saint. Every person who betrayed Joan saw her as dispensable. Almost nobody got Joan right, because almost everybody knew or thought they knew how God would work.

Before everything else, all the people she met should have seen a person created in the image of God. That is qualification enough to be remarkable, but her enemies and even her friends kept missing her humanity for her social status or sex. Joan was remarkable and people who missed this were blind or passionless. Joan is known for her Christ-like death, her heart alone surviving the fire: the Passion of Joan of Arc. Yet the passion that made her Passion possible was the very thing that the evil and cowardly men missed in this woman of God. She was called, born to save France in life and in death.

There is hope for us all. We do not have to be afraid. If Joan is needed, Joan will come, but we cannot predict where she will born or when she will arrive. God help me to listen to Hope and all those born to a calling.

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If you wish to watch something about Joan, and you should, watch a great film The Passion of Joan of Arc. 

Really.