Tea at Trianon: Myriam's Story

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, March 9, 2015

Myriam's Story

From mrcTV:

Her family has been living four months in a camp for displaced persons after they lost their home in Qarakosh, Iraq to ISIS – yet 10-year-old Myriam’s beautiful, unearthly faith and forgiveness in the face of tragedy bring tears to the eyes of the reporter interviewing her.

In August, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians fled before Islamic State militants. There are now over 2 million displaced Iraqis living in camps, and young Myriam’s family is one of them.

“We used to have a house and were entertained,” and Myriam doesn’t have that in the camp for displaced people, she explains to a reporter with SAT-7 Arabic, “But thank God, God provides for us.”

“What do you mean God provides for you?” asked the reporter.

“God loves us, and wouldn’t let ISIS kill us,” she replies without hesitation. “God loves us all, not just me, God loves everybody.”

“Do you also think God loves those who harmed you [ISIS], or not?” the reporter said.

“He loves them, but he doesn’t love Satan,” Myriam replied.

“What are your feelings to those who drove you out of your home and caused your hardships?” he asked. “I won’t do anything to them, I only ask God to forgive them,” she answered.

The reporter asked her if it is hard to forgive ISIS, and Myriam replied: “I won’t kill them; why kill them? I’m just sad they drove us out of our homes; why did they do that?”

He talks to her about the school she left, where she was first in her class, and a friend she had named Sandra. There is pain in her eyes as she explains that she cannot find her friend at the camp. But she brightens when the reporter suggests that they will perhaps meet again.

“Hopefully,” she says. “I hope we go back home, and she goes back home.”

“I hope you go back to a home that’s better than your first home,” says the reporter smiling in an effort to cheer Myriam.

She looks heavenward, “If God so wants.”

“Not because we want, but God, because he knows,” she adds. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: Still hopeful, and one trusts that the overpowering hopelessness of her world does not devour her.; March 9, 2015 at 7:12:00 AM EDT