(Tokyo, Japan)DREAMING LIKE JOAN OF ARC?
(Est-Jeanne d'Arc un rêveur romantique?)
There will be no female President of China in the near future.
There will be no female President of Russia in the near future.
There will be no female President of North Korea in the near future.
But, who will be the first female Prime Minister of Japan?
SECTION I: LAST NIGHT
Last night, to my surprise, Mr. Heizo Takenaka, a Japanese economist and retired politician who exercised strong power as a cabinet minister of the Koizumi Administration a few years ago, made a TV appearance last night from a Tokyo TV station.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiz%C5%8D_Takenaka
After the TV program, I did a little job and went to bed to dream an interesting dream in which Japanese politicians and a female TV news caster appeared though I was very much struggling as is usual in dreams.
And, around this noon of Monday, I checked some blogs written or hosted by Japanese journalists, critics, politicians, and so on.
SECTION II: LAST NIGHT, TOO
Last night, I happened to remember that I recently bought a Japanese book in which Joan of Arc (1412-1431) of France and Rennyo (1415-1499), a notable monk of the Japanese Buddhism, are compared or together discussed as the figures who put an end to the Middle Ages to pave the way for the Modern Age, each in Europe and Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennyo
And, around this noon of Monday, I checked some contents in the Japanese book titled “Joan of Arc and Rennyo.”
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/images/4004304393/ref=dp_image_0/503-3454185-0715146?ie=UTF8&n=465392&s=books
SECTION III: A LITTLE RESEARCH ON JOAN OF ARC
The recent failures by a French female presidential-election candidate and a US female presidential contender must be telling a need to study Joan of Arc.
So, I checked some on Joan of Arc:
(1) Mark Twain
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Very few people know that Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) wrote a major work on Joan of Arc. Still fewer know that he considered it not only his most important but also his best work. He spent twelve years in research and many months in France doing archival work and then made several attempts until he felt he finally had the story he wanted to tell. He reached his conclusion about Joan's unique place in history only after studying in detail accounts written by both sides, the French and the English.
Because of Mark Twain's antipathy to institutional religion, one might expect an anti-Catholic bias toward Joan or at least toward the bishops and theologians who condemned her. Instead one finds a remarkably accurate biography of the life and mission of Joan of Arc told by one of this country's greatest storytellers. The very fact that Mark Twain wrote this book and wrote it the way he did is a powerful testimony to the attractive power of the Catholic Church's saints. This is a book that really will inform and inspire.
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http://www.amazon.com/Joan-Arc-Mark-Twain/dp/0898702682
(2) Record of Trial of Joan of Arc
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Question: Will you swear to speak the truth upon those things which are asked you concerning the faith, which you know?
Joan: Concerning my father and my mother, and what I have done since I took the road to France, I will gladly swear to tell the truth. But concerning my revelations from God, these I have never told or revealed to anyone, save only to Charles, my King. And I will not reveal them to save my head.
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http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Trial_of_Joan_of_Arc
It is said when Joan, at the age of 13, saw some sun rays coming to her over a church in a neighborhood, her mind opened to faith. She then heard voices of Angels.
http://www.joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_life_summary_visions.html
Indeed, the spiritual gap between Joan of Arc and contemporary female politicians must be desperately wide.
You cannot reach the moon by using ladders.
The Catholic Church in the early 15th century looked like a mass of ladders, while Joan of Arc was invited, beyond time and space, to a Japanese moon explorer now flying on an orbit around the moon.
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2008/04/20080411_kaguya_j.html
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The Chinese President visited the Horyuji Temple in Nara Prefecture, Japan, before going back to Beijing yesterday or so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji
But, the Dalai Lama didn’t when he recently visited Japan only to see the wife of former Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo Abe at the Narita Airport near Tokyo.
The Horyuji Buddhist Temple is truly one of the best national treasures of Japan.
Whenever I saw a genius among Japanese, I felt like seeing the same intellectual structure as that the Temple exhibits.
It is not a replica of any existing temples in China or Korea.
Even Chinese communist-party leaders would discover what their civilization could not reach and maintain 1,400 years ago when they see the Horyuji Temple today.
And, remember it is just 850 years ago that the construction of Notre Dame de Paris began.
That is why Japanese researchers can handle duly Joan of Arc and female presidential contenders in France and America.
(That is all for today.
Have a nice day.
And, have a good dream if not in love with a politician…)
Gal 5:12 I would they were even cut off which trouble you.
Gal 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Gal 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Gal 5:15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.