Until This Instant

I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
If they’ll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we have,
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Henry V, Act IV, scene vii
by William Shakespeare

A friend sent me a text today. I read the article in the link, and I was hard-pressed to continue working just then, I was so full of rage. The article is here, and it describes the modern Globe Theatre’s plans to stage a production about Saint Joan of Arc, portraying her as “gender neutral, with ‘they/them’ pronouns.”

I generally let the news of the day flow past me, trying not to pay too much attention to current events, aware that the the big news items are never truthful, that they are largely manufactured for effect, and that they are explicitly and intentionally created to sway, mislead, manipulate and drive to anger or despair or indifference the very people who feed regularly on such things.  I watch the evil people growing bolder and more entrenched in their filth, and I watch the weak, slack-jawed pansies who are supposed to be the opposition doing exactly nothing different from the satanic bigwigs. I watch the rich children of powerful politicians being allowed to do whatever they please, and I watch the reeking government agencies who are fattened on my peoples’ tax dollars presuming to lecture us about right and wrong. These things, these observations do not truly anger me. They annoy me, but they do not anger me.

Today was different.

I have a deep devotion to the Maid of Orleans, a devotion rooted in personal reasons that I will not disclose here. I have tried to follow the Catholic faith, but I have not been a very good Catholic, just as I was never a good Protestant, just as I have never been a very good Christian, period. My attempts to cultivate a love for the Virgin Mary have fallen flat, just as if I tried to grow a genuine affection for someone I’ve never met, never seen, never spoken to, never heard from. My devotion to and love for the Maid is different. It is a natural, genuine, and abiding reality in my life, flowing from something I have no need to explain. And today, reading this article, I felt as if I had visited the cemetery where my mother’s body rests and discovered a leering pervert urinating on her tombstone.

The Christians of this world rolled over when the Lords of Covid assumed the throne, closing their churches and toeing the line. The Catholics have slumped around, hands in pockets and eyes downcast for nine years while a Christ-hating Argentinian puke has systematically degraded their Church and humiliated the few faithful ones who still cling to the church of Rome. So it’s clear that there will be nothing but perhaps — perhaps — a tiny moment of anemic outrage about this desecration of the name and legacy of the holy French maid who led her own nation’s army and cowed another’s in the name of Christ.

None of the Christians will say a word.

I remember a dozen years ago when the bloated and pathetic singer Elton John, every bit as appealing and admirable as a used latex glove, announced a concert date in a large city one state over, and eight out of ten of my then-coworkers announced their intentions to buy tickets and go to the show. During a lunch meeting, I asked the group –fully 100% of whom were self-described “serious” church-going Christians — if they really were going to pony up $150 or more to attend the concert of a sad, myopic little man who once declared that Jesus was a homosexual. There was some sputtering and some grumbling, and none of the women answered my question, but one of them said, “I find it hard to believe Elton John said that.” Within a few minutes, I had found the article in which the former Reg Dwight made the statement to the press. I held my phone up to her face and watched her read the item.

“Well?” I said.

She shrugged. “He shouldn’t have said that.”

“Agreed. But are you still going to pay a couple hundred bucks to go see someone who said that about your Savior?”

“You’re an asshole,” she said, and walked away. I had my answer.

The media doesn’t report all the Catholic churches that have been defaced and vandalized in the past year (interesting that it’s overwhelmingly Catholic churches singled out for this hateful treatment, but then again, as Bruce Lee said, they only tackle the one who’s actually carrying the ball). Catholics aren’t going to rise up and shut down London’s Globe Theatre. They’ll keep paying money to see plays and shows at the venue, just as Americans keep voting for a system that openly tampers with elections and then laughs in the voters’ faces.

The article about the despicable Joan of Arc play contains this quote from a Globe Theatre spokesperxyzn: “History has provided countless and wonderful examples of Joan portrayed as a woman. This production is simply offering the possibility of another point of view. That is the role of theatre: to simply ask the question ‘imagine if?’” Such a naked lie. We know very well that these freaks would never ask anyone to imagine MLK Jr. as a white woman, or Ghandi as an explosive, warlike Celt who likes him some beef.

For myself, I like to reimagine the mothers of all the Globe’s staff as drug-addled, scabrous, venereal disease-ridden, insane, toothless, alley dwellers. If I said this to any of them, they’d want to fight me. But would they fight me? No, not unless they had fifty armed friends with them, because they won’t defend the honor of anyone, even their own bloodline, unless there’s public status to be gained and 100% chance of winning. They are happy to mock a saint like Jeanne d’Arc, but they understand nothing of truth, of the genuine right side of history, of the crush of time’s vengeance.

“To simply ask the question ‘imagine if’.” Very well, Globe Theatre. Imagine if the day were to come when the silent ones would rise up and drag you out into the piss-filled streets and cut your ugly heads off and hang your bodies from street signs. That’s just another point of view, right?

But these scum know they have nothing to fear. They know that the Christians whose faith they mock will never show up at their door and demand a reckoning.

I am unsure whom I hate more: the filthy wretches who mock the Maid, or the Catholics who will not speak a word against them.

My heart is full of wrath. Melodramatic, yes.

And I am bereft of apologies. No taste of mercy — go and tell them so.

~ S.K. Orr