Tea at Trianon: Imitation of Christ

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, October 8, 2007

Imitation of Christ

Has it already been a year? In the face of overwhelming evil, the Amish teach us what it is to imitate the forgiveness and compassion of Christ.

Most of us are loath to admit the real trouble with anger: anger feels good. Deliriously good. We feel righteously indignant. We feel deeply. We feel strong. We are alive, aware, on watch. And there are so many, many injustices, personal and global, worth our just wrath. It isn't until later and not much later that the anger corrodes into something more like bitterness. Prophecy becomes acrimony. Taking a stand becomes self-interested pride. Anger at an act becomes hatred against a person. And we become so attached to the power of anger, we leave no space for the power of God.