The Tiger, Part III

You can read Part I here. and Part II here.

Below him, heading up towards the pass was a great company of men on horses. They wore their beards and moustaches long, and their swords and bows were short and curved. Some wore iron mail visibly, some carried lances, some torches. The leader rode at their head with a lance in his hand, and streaming from the lance were locks of long black hair. Three human heads were impaled on his lance as a standard.

Edward stood watching them with hot tears stinging his eyes, feeling rage rolling through him, deep, red, hot and powerful. He looked around him. The terrain was favorable. They could not get around him to the right or the left. They had bows, but the ravine became so narrow in one spot that they would have to come up one at a time. That would negate their numbers and limit the effectiveness of their archers. If they cared to try him bow for bow, well, he had a full quiver of well fletched shafts and he would wager himself against any of them. There was no fear or hesitation in his heart, and no hope that he would ultimately be successful. There were more than five hundred horsemen that he could see, and he would not be able to kill all of them before he fell of fatigue. "Let my hand grow tired and freeze to my sword," he swore. "I will lessen them somewhat, God willing."

As the horde drew closer at a light canter he selected a shaft from his quiver and took aim at the leader. They had not sighted him yet. He knew he was going to die that day, but there was no sense in wasting it. If he was smart about this he would be able to prolong it for quite some time. Every moment he lived, every moment they died a little more, was one more moment for his little village to live in peace. He wished he had someone he could send as a messenger to warn them of the coming danger, but there was no time for that. They had to be held there or nowhere, and on the whole, maybe it was better that the people live in ignorance, rather than fear. As soon as he was dead, they would have enough of fear before they died.

They were in range, but he waited. It was only a light hunting bow, not a heavy war bow. It would not punch through decent armor. Better to wait until he was certain to hit the bastard in the face. Thirty more paces, twenty more, ten more, now. A deep breath, hold it, and release. The arrow sped straight to its mark, and Edward's practiced eye knew that it would hit before it reached the target. He backed further into the ravine watching carefully. The arrow hit the leader just below the right eye causing the man's head to snap back violently. He swayed in his seat, and then fell with a clatter of arms and armor.

The rest of the throng gathered around him, shouting and looking around to see where the shaft had come from. A few guessed it had come from the pass which they could see only as a narrow, dark passage in front of them. Four riders were sent up the hill at a gallop. Twang, zippp! The first one fell. The other three threw their shields up before their faces and kept galloping. The rest of the horde let out a yell and charged after them. Edward backed further into the alley. The first rider came through alone, moving fast, no doubt trying to ride down whatever farmer or herdsman he thought was hiding in there. Edward saw the surprise in his eyes at seeing a warrior in armor waiting, but it was too late by then. The Tiger crouched, parried the lance and lunged, slaying the horse in one lunge. Before the horseman could reach his sword, he too fell dead.

"Sorry cousin," Edward muttered to the dead horse. "I have no quarrel with you, but I needed the road held, and horseflesh holds better than human."

Two more dismounted soldiers climbed over the carcasses, and died there. The Tiger piled five more corpses in the alley before the enemy stopped coming.

All that afternoon the battle continued off and on. A few times they would rush in, tie ropes to the corpses and drag them out with horses, and then try to send as many horsemen as they could galloping through, no doubt trying to force him back into the open where they could deal with him on their own terms. Every time he would simply do the same thing again. Their weapons, and more importantly their shields, were too light to be effective against his heavier European arms and armor in tight quarters. The first horse that came through always died and blocked off the rest. On foot he was a match for any of them. Each time he fought a handful of them died and the rest retreated, giving him a minute or two to catch his breath. Then they would come again and it would start again. For hours this went on, again and again and again, until Edward thought to himself, "If I keep this up just a little more, I will buy them enough time to go to bed. Better they die in their sleep, never knowing what hit them. I pray these animals are that merciful, Lord."

Nightfall came, and the attacks slackened. He cut strings from the clothes of the fallen and made tripwires across the path so that he could not be surprised. Anyone who caught one of them would knock over a stack of abandoned arms and the clatter would alert him. His position was probed three times during the night but he held.

"If I can but hold out until dawn, they will have one more peaceful night. Isn't that worth a night of vigilance, Lord?"

At dawn the attack renewed in earnest, and for three hours he had no rest. He had not been wounded, yet, but he now knew what was meant by a hand freezing to the sword. His forearm and right hand had cramped until he could not release his grip on the hilt of his sword. "Thank-you for that, Lord." He laughed grimly. "Else, I think I would have dropped it from exhaustion."

They left him alone for about an hour, and it was all he could do to stay awake through that hour. His blood quieted and cooled, and the wind came whipping through the pass and chilled him even more, and his head nodded and his eyelids drooped, but still he stood his ground. There wasn't much else to do.

At about noon he heard something above his head, just a little scrape of something over the rocks. Glancing up he saw the toe of a boot sticking over the edge of the ravine and knew that he had been flanked. Someone yelled in front of him, and he looked to see a warrior with a beard down to his waist charging with upraised sword. He took the blow on his shield, and ducked low, lunging upwards under the ridiculously small round shields these heathen used. His blade went through his enemy's body and he lifted him up bodily over his head and tossed him behind him. He could feel the two arrows from the two archers above him stick in the lifeless carcass before he dropped it. He snatched up a fallen lance and threw it, killing one of the archers. The only other weapon at hand was a rock so he threw that at the other one, before he had to defend himself against opponents behind and in front. Before he had tried to select the narrowest parts of the ravine to fight in, but now he had to find the widest parts, places where he would have room to turn and maneuver. It was death to face enemies directly in front and behind. He set his back to a wall under a slight overhang and fought it out, attacking very little to the left, mostly covering himself with his shield. It looked like only five of the enemy had been nimble enough to scale the cliffs and come at him from behind, so he concentrated on killing those first. He got three before the enemies on the other side, discovering that they could not get him past his large, three-cornered shield, decided to push him. So they hit his shield in a rush, knocking him off his balance so he ran into the other warrior's swords. They cut him, and cut him deep before he despatched them. One had stabbed through his chain mail leggings, cutting a deep gash across the front of his leg. The other had knocked his helmet askew, rattled his head, and cut his nose so all he could taste was blood, streaming down through his moustache. There was no time to think about that. Before those two fell he was already turning and leaping back to avoid a second rush like the first one.

"This is it, Lord," he whispered. "I can't guard two sides to save my life, so I'll keep my face to the front until I feel cold steel between my shoulder blades. Then I'll probably have my face to the mud and won't care anymore."

The rush came at him as he said this and he leapt nimbly back to avoid it. The front runners in the wall of human flesh coming at him were not so nimble and they tripped over their fallen friends. Edward was on them in a second, killing the ones who were trampling on their struggling comrades, and making sure to despatch the ones on the ground before they could get up. He cried out and split a helmet with a single stroke, from crown to chin. Rage filled him again, battle lust erased all his pains and fatigue and he attacked like his namesake, bulling into the first two men, and driving them back on the ones behind them, hacking lustily, singing lustily, smiting and striving and hewing like a man possessed. He drove them back, killing any who couldn't flee, until he chased them out into the clear light of the sun. They fell back shouting in dismay and he stood out in the open, blinking at the brightness. Something was knocking at the door of his mind, very urgently, but he could not attend to it. All he knew was that it didn't stink so badly of mud and dead men out here. Then he remembered that he was in the open. He heard the swish of arrows, rather than saw them as he turned and ran back into his lair.

"The Tiger waits in his lair. Come and get him, if you dare." He chuckled like a boy. One of the dead had a wineskin on him, and he poured it on the wound in his leg, relishing the sting of it, and how it made his heart pound and his head light. He had a terrible thirst, which he quenched with the snow that lay untouched outside his narrow battleground, until he heard the steps of men advancing cautiously into the ravine and he laughed with joy. "Come, friends. Let us dance." He realized that he had not been stabbed in the back. There was no one behind him. He never found out what had happened to that second archer.

The battle continued again until nightfall, sometimes with a break of an hour or so. Maybe the enemy was deliberately trying to make him let his guard down. Perhaps they were just arguing about what they should do next. Each time the fighting lulled, the urge to sleep was even fiercer. By now they had to have realized they were fighting only one man. He couldn't understand why they didn't just rush him and finish him off. Surely they had to have at least a few men who knew how to fight.

"Lord, I don't know how much longer I can continue this. Soon, I am going to fall asleep, and then they will kill me anyway. At least I won't have to stand on my feet anymore."

Nightfall came and something crashed in front of him. Someone had thrown an earthenware jar into the ravine. He must have been asleep. The next instant he heard voices, and more jars crashing, and then everything became bright. He realized what was going on only very slowly as his exhausted mind came into full wakefulness. Of course, they had thrown wine or oil jars into the ravine and lit them on fire hoping to smoke him out. The wind was tearing through the ravine, sending foul smelling smoke into his eyes and mouth. He crouched as low as he could to get somewhat under it, and wrapped a rag over his eyes, and held his ground.

"At least now I can't go to sleep," he coughed. "Should I thank you for that, Lord?"

The fire was uncomfortable, but it burned for only about twenty minutes. Even before it was completely out, he heard the footsteps of the enemy and roused himself for one last battle.

"Whatever happens here, Lord, this is the end. You cannot ask me to keep going on like this. I can barely see, I can barely stand, I can barely lift this sword. If you could see your way to let one of them get lucky with a lance or a sword, I would be eternally grateful." For some reason this struck him as hilarious. "Eternally grateful! Of course, eternally." When the enemies reached him he was laughing uproariously and running at them like a bull.

Many times that last night, he felt like he could not go on. Every time they would draw back to collect their dead to make room for another attack, he would listen to them shouting angrily at each other outside his tunnel and he would sway with weariness, knowing, not thinking but knowing, that the next assault would be the last one. He knew he could not lift his sword for another stroke. He knew the next time a shoulder hit his shield he would fall on his back and be stomped mercilessly into the mud. And he would probably be so grateful to be able to lie down at last that he wouldn't even mind.

Then they would attack and he would lift his sword and lunge for their faces. They would hit his shield and he would fall back, and then thrust forward as he had been trained, his heavier, more solid shield knocking their shields and weapons aside, making room for his thrusts. The way would get bogged down with the dead, and they would pause and drag the corpses back out while he would recover and have time for more despairing before the next attack. How long this went on, he never knew.

Then he woke up. He was sitting against the wall with his sword still cramped in his nearly useless hand. The daylight was bright, the dead were stacked around him. He leapt to his feet in a panic and rushed through the ravine, thinking to find his enemies bearing down on him. But he was alone. He could see their trail as they headed back the way they came, a much diminished band. Far off, miles in the distance, he saw them riding away, and he could not tell how many of the horses had riders, and how many did not.

"I suppose they must have given up and decided to go by a different route. And I must have fallen asleep waiting for them. Well, that's good, Lord, because it means now I can sleep." With a sigh, he laid back down, and was oblivious in a second.

 

 

Four months later, Lady Celia received a messenger at her husband's castle who told her that her brother had returned to the family's home, and that he would be making a trip to see her very soon.

"How did he seem to you?" she questioned the old family servant who had brought the news.

"Very well, Lady. He was sorely wounded during his travels, but he will not say how."

"Thank you Peter. He will tell me, though."

However, to her surprise he never did tell her. He never told a living soul, except his wife when in God's good time he married. He refused a position as the King's advisor, and instead retired and spent his time training the young squires who came from all over Christendom to learn skill-at-arms from his hand. He never again fought in any war, but lived out all the rest of his days in perfect peace.

The Tiger, Part II

Part I is here.

When he woke up he was in place of warmth and complete darkness. As he tried to open his eyes, someone seemed to stab a red hot needle into each one. He closed them again.

He didn't know how many days he slept and woke, to drink some very strong tasting broth, only to sleep again. He lay naked under what felt like a fur blanket of some sort, and a cloth was bound over his eyes. Strange voices spoke in a strange language, softly, and that was his world. He didn't mind it though. It was a pleasant world, simple, uncomplicated, soft, and above all warm. He could smell the smoke, and hear the crackling of a fire most of the time he was awake. It smelled like they were burning dung.

Eventually the blindfold was removed and he looked around him for the first time. Many people, all very old, all very brown, with high cheekbones and serious, intent faces stared at him without speaking. He stared back. Eventually, one by one, they got up and left. It appeared he was in some sort of mud dwelling with a low, flat roof. The embers of a fire smoked lazily through a square hole in the ceiling. Whenever the curtain over the doorway was opened he could see snow, sometimes swirling in a white mist, sometimes falling lazily against a wall of stars in the night sky, sometimes lying blindingly white in the sun, sending daggers of pain shooting through his head. He preferred it when his eyes were closed.

After a few days of this, he rose, accepting the clothes he was offered. He had tried to speak to his hosts in Latin, German and French, or in the few words he knew in the Moorish tongue, but no one even answered. Among themselves they spoke a soft, guttural language that seemed more suited to whispering than to yelling. They seemed to have no desire to communicate with him at all. As soon as he was up and about, they left him completely to his own devices. Meals were served regularly and if he was asleep, he soon learned, he would miss the meal. No food was ever left when all had done eating.

In a week or two he began to wander outside the hut and found that there were about twenty such dwellings scattered around what looked like a giant flat plain, surrounded by mountains. On one end of the village was a much larger hut with a sheep pen outside it. Children dressed in fur and wool watched him curiously from afar, but the entire village seemed to share the same intent, serious, silent stare. No one spoke to him.

Eventually he found his armor and weapons. Or rather they were brought to him. They had been wrapped carefully in a leather cloth and left by his bed while he was out on one of his daily walks. After that he began wearing his armor daily to re-accustom himself to the weight. Out on the plain alone he began practicing with sword and shield. At first the exertion was almost more than he could handle, and he thought ruefully that "The Tiger" was more like "The Kitten" these days. Slowly he began to grow stronger and his speed and agility returned. The snow made it harder to move, bogging him down a bit like the heavy mud he had endured in the wars, but a lot more slippery. This forced him to work twice as hard, but he welcomed the challenge. One day he shot a cat, a large white cat that looked a little like a leopard. He carried it back to the hut, and roasted it over the fire. The entire village came and partook of the feast, accepting the meat he offered them in complete silence. At first he had thought that they didn't speak to him because they either didn't like or didn't trust him. Now it occurred to him that they might very well have no concept of people who spoke other languages. If he wouldn't speak to them in a tongue they knew, why should they waste their energy speaking to him? They seemed a very practical people.

Months wore on like this in a silent but courteous existence. Edward found himself retreating out into the wild to pray, as well as to practice his swordsmanship. He didn't know what else to do. He was not restless anymore. He was empty. He trained because that was his way, but he did so with little sense of purpose. Every day he asked God to bless and watch over his family, and every day he asked, "Jesu, why have you brought me here?" And always the only answer was stillness, the gentle whisper of emptiness, wind, and cold. It might have been his heart talking, for all it said to him.

The weather began to warm, slowly, but noticeably. The children and women began to appear dressed in bright, vivid colors, bright, sky blue, brilliant yellow, like the buttercups back home, and deep, deep rich burgundy. It made a brave show, and somehow awakened longings for he knew not what. Some of the younger children would even smile at him now, as if the warming weather had warmed their thoughts of him. Or perhaps they had just gotten used to him.

On a day in what he took to be mid spring he took his weapons and began to walk. He had a notion that if he climbed one of the nearer hills he might be able to get some idea of the lie of the land, and still likely be back before nightfall. He would shoot some kind of animal along the way so he wouldn't have to go hungry.

He began walking straight westward until he reached a trail heading into the mountains. He followed that northward until he lost it, and then continued moving upwards. There seemed to be two large mountains with what looked like a pass between them. If he could reach the pass and look through it, he would be able to have a clear look to the west for at least a good day's march, he hoped. Looking back into the valley below him, he was amazed to see how much of the snow had melted. The village he had been staying at stood out clear and brown, with little bits of color, amid a predominantly white background. He could see the river, gray, brown, and even a little bit green in spots winding its way through the valley, from where it emerged from the mountain glaciers, to where it disappeared in whiteness at the end of the valley. He saw something he had never noticed before. Along the slopes of the hills he could see patterns of ditches and hedgerows, arranged in irregular shapes, which he took to be irrigation works. Acres and acres of such fields stretched as far as he could see on both sides of the valley. The men and women of his village no doubt had constructed these fields, or their ancestors had. They had probably been living in this valley for hundreds of years, quietly handing on their fields and irrigation ditches, flocks, huts, traditions and languages generation after generation. Strangely, his heart swelled with love for them. They were so stupid and ignorant compared to his people back in Europe, but what strength! What toughness and determination! "Lord, these people are as tough as the mountains they live among. Surely, Lord, Your Love is here with them, as surely as in Christendom."

He continued on. It was a stiff climb to the top of the pass, and before he got there he could smell the smoke. Something on the other side had made a dreadful burning. A saddle between the two hills narrowed until it became a ravine, with sides so steep that no horse and precious few men could have climbed them. It was in the middle of this narrow pass that he stopped. Before him lay a valley much like the one he had come to think of as his own. In the center of it was a village much like his own, except that this one was on fire. Thick, black smoke rose from every hut and small black shapes lay motionless scattered over the snow. He could tell what they were, even at that distance.

The Tiger: Part I

Once, there lived a knight. Edward "the Tiger", he was called, for though a young knight there was nothing he would not dare and do, and nothing that he had ever set his hand to do in which he had failed. He had fought in tournaments and battles, quests and adventures and had never lost. At jousting he unhorsed anyone who came against him until many thought that Launcelot had been reborn. In the press of battle he would often dismount and fight on foot, surrounded by the press of enemies. At times his comrades feared the worst, for he had been known to move so far from any friends or allies, and to bury himself so deeply in the thick of the melee, that even from horseback his friends would lose sight of his red helmet plume. But each time they rode to his rescue he would shake off the crowd of his foes and behold, he would be standing in the midst of the press of them, utterly untouched and untouchable. His sword flashed too rapidly to be followed, and thrust and hewed too mightily to be blocked. This was how they first called him "The Tiger" for his every movement was smooth and powerful. Every enemy attack was smashed by his shield flying and swiping like the wing of a heron, and every attack was answered by an instant counter so that to strike a blow at him with lance or sword was certain death. Such was his skill in battle that wherever his red plume and gray heron arms were seen, the enemy ran before him. Only the bravest, seeking to boost their own reputations, ever challenged him, and every one was destroyed.

In the times when he was not fighting, the report of his exploits spread among the courts and castles to the delight of all who heard them. Wherever he went he was welcomed. He was tall and handsome, and every lady who met him thought him also well-mannered and pleasant, so consequently he was never short of fair admirers. Many a nobleman tried to arrange a wedding between this brave knight and a daughter. However, Edward only smiled and shook his head.

Tournaments were held in his honor. Castles were awarded him. His father was raised from a relatively minor lord to the King's personal circle of councilors. His family was made rich and powerful. His brothers and sisters all made wealthy and influential marriages. It seemed there was nothing he could not do. There was no favor the King Charles would have begrudged him, perhaps not even one of his own daughters, or at least neices, for Edward had broken the backs of the Moors in many battles.

When the wars were over, and the borders had been secured, everyone told him to come home. His father was anxious that he should marry and take up a position in court, close to the King's ear. His mother wanted him to rest and stop riding off to fight in the wars. No one was prepared for him to leave. At a rare family meal with his parents and most of his brothers and sisters he told them simply, "I'm going away. I don't know when or if I will ever return."

"Where are you going?" his family asked him.

"I am going East."

"To the Holy Land?" His father asked.

"Perhaps."

"Are you going on pilgrimage?"

He nodded thoughtfully, as if that was a new idea. "Yes. I think so."

"Why? If you wish to do a pilgrimage we can arrange that next year. I am sure some of his Majesty's ships will take you most of the way in the spring."

"I am afraid that will take far too long. I am gone tomorrow."

Of course there was a great uproar and much argument from his father and tears from his mother. He remained immovable. His purpose was fixed.

After the meal, as he was retiring to his room for the last time, his favorite sister, Celia, came to him with a lamp.

"Are you going early, little brother?" she asked.

"Before light, lady."

"Why?"

"I must."

"I know. Brother, you always do what you must, I know that you must do this. I would like to know why, though."

He sighed. "I have fought many times, sister. I have never once been free. Every fight, battle or tournament, I have fought for this land, for the King, for my Father, for my family, for the audience, for the damsels crying my name, for every reason you can think of. I have even fought for love, once." He laughed.

"I didn't know that," she smiled with interest.

"When we were children and that peasant boy threw mud at you, and I pummeled him until he begged your pardon. You were my sister, and I would not have you treated so."

"I had forgotten about that," she laughed.

"Of all the battles I have ever fought," he said, "That was the only one that made any sense."

"What of all those battles to drive the Moor away?"

"They were good and necessary, but they did not make sense."

"And that is why you must go?"

"I must learn why it is that I fight."

She looked at him understandingly. "Life has never come easily to you, little brother. Even when you were learning to crawl, I could not keep you still. You would be everywhere, in the fire, on the stove, under the cows, hanging off the bridge above the mill wheel, trying to climb the tallest trees, running off to the forest alone. I hope you find what it is you seek."

"As do I."

She stood on tiptoes to embrace him. "Go with God, little brother."

Before the sun rose he saddled his favorite horse, and rode away, taking only his sword, his light armor (consisting of a cuirasse and helmet, with chain mail and leather arm guards and leggings) and a shield and lance, with a light hunting bow to secure his meals.

Edward rode for many months. His shield had no device on it, and his helmet was bare and practical, with not even a crest. Before the first month was over it didn't matter anymore. No one had ever heard his name in these lands.

Eventually he came to wide, barren, mountainous lands, cold, bitter, swept by wind and snow. These lands seemed even colder and more bitter than the alps themselves. He didn't know where he was going, but he was driven to go there beyond all sense or safety. He could not sit still and rest at any town he came to. Sometimes he slept in a barn or house if hospitality was offered him for a night before moving onwards, sometimes he slept in the open, his back against his horse for warmth. Sometimes he did not sleep at all. He wasted a little from poor food and little sleep, but still he pushed himself on without pity. Without a destination mere movement became his only goal. Just to cover as many miles as he could, in a generally eastern direction before he collapsed from sheer exhaustion. After a few days of this, he was caught in a blizzard, which rushed up behind him with no warning. He forced himself on, knowing that to stop moving meant death, punishing himself and his horse until the poor beast, not being as driven as his master, gave up and died rather than endure the torment. Edward could not. He left his lance, bringing his shield and the hunting bow from long habit, and continued to walk. The longer he forced movement from his torn and ravaged limbs, and the more pain he endured from his blistered, bleeding feet, and the harder the cold and wind nipped and froze his nose and fingers, the more the deep relentless burning grew inside him. At times he feared he was going mad, until he decided that he already was mad. His sanity had fled a long time ago. Behind him, wherever home lay, there was a warm house and a loving family. Peace, quiet, contentment and ease lay behind him. On the road he had many times thought of how simple it would have been to turn back. He could have gone to any seaport, paid a few coins and bought passage to Europe, and once there, the mention of his name would erase all his troubles. He had not taken that opportunity. Now here, in hell, there was no such chance. He would continue to walk until he died, and when he died, he would do so never knowing why he had died. In rage and pain, he lifted his face to the heavens, only to find he could see only swirling white, and he cursed himself for a dog. Pain shot through his legs, from ankle to hip, and they came unstrung, and he fell at full length in the snow. After that his legs, which had been absolutely numb for as long as he could remember, gave him no relief. The pain was incessant and terrible. He might have stayed on his face and gone to sleep, but the pain throbbed through him too badly. He couldn't move his legs, but he put his hands under him and crawled until he remembered no more.

Another Way, Part 3

This is the last in a series of reflections on the individual warrior's approach to inter-personal violence. You can read the previous parts here, here, here, and here.

The first stage in a warrior's development is when his primary motivation is the challenge presented by the enemy. Through proper education, however, he will have other loves, and hopefully some of these other loves will supersede (without eradicating) his love for adventure. Then he can enter into the second stage, which is where he really doesn't care about the enemy at all, but primarily about what he is protecting. This is the stage described by G. K. Chesterton in the words, "The Christian soldier fights, not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." This is sufficient to make a warrior a just warrior, though it has its possible abuses. But there is another stage yet.

My first clue that there might be another stage came from the life of Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi was the greatest swordsman in the history of Japan, and the author of "The Book of Five Rings." He fought in over sixty duels in his lifetime, killing all of his opponents, and also survived four major battles. After his last duel, in which he killed his opponent with nothing more than a wooden oar he had carved into a rough sword shape, he gave up dueling to the death. Although he fought a few more times after that, he did not kill any more, and simply demonstrated his unmatchable superiority, before letting his opponents go.

According to one legend, in the later years of his life he was meditating on a river bank in the company of his friend who was a Buddhist monk. While they were sitting there, an adder came winding his way up the riverbank towards them. The deadly serpent took no notice of the monk at all, slithering right across his lap, so at one with his surroundings was he. When he came to Musashi, however, the snake reared back, hissed, and made a wide circle around him before heading on his way. Musashi lamented that for all his power, he could not enjoy the peace and unity enjoyed by this simple monk. It is said that the monk was also able to defeat Musashi in a mental duel, using only a fan.

The idea that such a masterful warrior (who certainly could never have been accused of any semblance of gentleness) would renounce his life of bloodshed and practice the martial arts only for spiritual enlightenment was astounding to me. But I saw parallels with many other stories of famous warriors (Sir Lancelot being the most famous) who, having acheived undeniable superiority over all other warriors of their time, abandoned the martial life to pursue religious life. And it made sense. Certainly it would be the most skillful fighter who figured out first that no matter how good he was, it still did not fulfill him deep down inside.

The second clue, tying into the first one, came from reading the pacifist posts of @SirNickDon here on xanga. I began to see the deep points of contact between his pacifist vision and my Way of the Warrior. Because, of course, he is absolutely right, God does love every single person in the world, including the murderers and child-rapists. He longs for their good, and works for their healing, and it is a tragedy for them to die in their sin (fortunately I cannot judge their souls.)

So the third step in the evolution of the just warrior is to see the enemy as God sees Him, which means to love him; to pray for him as he cannot pray for himself; to respect his humanity, even though he fails to respect his own; to work for his healing with all your strength.

But this does not change the charism (if I may use the word) of the Warrior. It only throws it into terrible relief. The Warrior is not charged with punishing the evildoers of the world, but only with protecting the innocent. However, in order to protect the innocent, the guilty must be restrained and sometimes they must be restrained physically, and sometimes the only way to do that is with lethal force.

Central to the position of the committed pacifist is the belief that we are not qualified to judge which human life is more important than any other. The spontaneous sympathy we feel for an abused child and consequent disgust for the abuser is essentially an illusion. In God's eyes they are both equal.

It is here that I have to broaden the view a little bit. While it is quite certain that God loves both the abuser and the abused equally, it is also quite certain that He does not treat them identically in the long run. It is also quite certain that He calls us to treat them differently, i.e. to protect the victim and restrain the abuser. There is a tension here between the eschatological reality of the Kingdom and the physical reality of the fallen world we live in. It is somewhat analagous to the role of marriage in the Kingdom. Here on earth marriage is a gift, a glory and a calling. In heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, and all Christians, of whatever calling, are called upon to remember both of these truths. The balance of the Church in some ways depends upon there being two separate groups of people, each committed to living out a different aspect of the nature of human sexuality. The vast majority are called to live in married life, remembering that it is only a temporary arrangement. The few are called to live in celibacy as a foretaste of that eternal arrangement (whatever it may be) while still remembering that marriage is a holy and beautiful expression of the same gift.

In a similar way, all people are called upon to confront the reality of abuse in their lives. For many it is not dramatic physical abuse, but the challenge remains the same. In the reality of the world we live in something must be done to stop these things from happening. They must be resisted, and sometimes physically resisting them is the only way to stop them. At the same time, n the eyes of God, the abusers are just as precious as their victims, and this too must be remembered and lived out in the world. It is from this that I believe the charism of the committed pacifist arises. It is the need to bear witness to the deeper understanding, and the promised Kingdom. So I essentially see the two charisms, the Way of the Warrior and the Way of Pacifism, not as competitive but as mutually necessary and supportive.

The contribution of pacifism to the Way of the Warrior is that it deepens his love and respect for the enemy. It makes him realize that, when he has to kill some bad man to keep him from doing bad things, in truth the man was not born to be bad. He was born to be good. He was born to know, love and serve God, called to unimaginable glory and beauty. The fact that a human being was killed is a tragedy but it is not the worst tragedy. The worst tragedy is that he wasted his life, squandering countless opportunities for good in pursuit of power, pleasure, or hatred. The tragedy is that he was wounded so fundamentally that all his choices summed up led him to this end, the wreckage of all the he was capable of. The warrior's act of killing him is simply the end of a long and heartbreaking story, and in a way can be seen as a last act of respect for the man he might have been. It prevents him from doing anything worse to himself (which in and of itself is not a justification for killing, but merely an alternate way of looking at something justified on quite other grounds.)

So essentially all wars are family quarrels. When I intervene as a warrior I am restraining my brother to keep him from hurting a younger sibling. If I had to, I would kill him, but only if that were the only way, and always with the realization that I have killed my brother.

Those are the three stages I have seen so far. I don't think that is the end of the journey, however. After all, I'm only 27.

Another Way, Part 2

Sorry these are coming slowly and painfully. Truthfully it's only partially because I'm busy. Mostly I just don't feel like writing anything serious right now. I would rather read Dr. Seuss out loud to a bunch of kids. It would be a lot more fun.

The second part of the development of a warrior is when he forgets all about the enemy. Or, to put it another way, the enemy ceases to be important to him. This is not automatic. As a very young boy or teenager (the actual age can vary greatly depending on maturity and life-experience) the enemy is the primary reason for wanting to fight. A man can go his entire life as little more than a philosophical brawler if he does not move beyond this. Fortunately, the world being what it is, there are limits placed on the use of force, both in every day life and in international affairs. This means that there are consequences for actions of violence, so in order for a man to engage in them on a regular basis (and not end up in jail) he has to have a reason and a justification.*

So if he is serious about pursuing the challenge of the enemy, he has to find a path, which in our society is pretty much limited to the military and the police. (I personally have known many soldiers who claim to have told their recruiter, "I just want to shoot M----- F-----s in the face and not go to jail.") The military, while enabling and honing these traits, also puts controls on them, and most important to this topic, provides a justification. The only problem is that it is external justification, meaning it is entirely based on the authority of the superior officers and the consequences that could be visited on a violater by society.

In order for a warrior to develop personally he must develop his own internal controls on violence. That is, he must have his own personal moral code, which he is fully invested in. This is not automatic. It cannot come to our philosophical brawler who just wants to live a life of adventure. It can come only to someone who loves something else, besides adventure. (This is the reason why training in the gentler arts of life is a far more effective and useful response to boyish testosterone than repression.) The young man who loves art, or poetry, or his family, will eventually have to make a decision as to why he really wants to fight. Is it just about the adventure? Or is it to protect something else he loves even more? The two are not entirely mutually exclusive, but eventually one must predominate. A balanced character (hearkening back to his martial education as a child) will have other loves, and if he eventually chooses those loves as most important, he will have successfully made the transition into the second stage.

This second stage is marked by a complete lack of animosity, or personal interest of any kind, in the enemy. His love is simply that which he wants to protect. As he gets older and wiser, he will learn to desire, not only to protect, but also to enjoy it himself. A young man who admires family life, and wants to fight to protect the ability of others to have such a quiet family life, will eventually learn to love that life in its own right. He will not simply want to protect the good, but also to enjoy the good. (He may still choose to sacrifice that enjoyment so that others may have it, but it isn't truly a sacrifice until he has learned to appreciate it enough that he desires it himself.) This is why he doesn't hate the enemy. He just wants this good thing to be safe, that's all. He just wants the enemy to stop being a threat to his village, or his family, or his country, and he doesn't particularly care how that happens. If we convert all the enemy and they shave their heads and live as monks for the rest of their days, that suits him fine. If he shoots them all in the face, that also is an acceptable outcome. Whatever is the most effective way to protect what he loves, that is what the warrior at this stage wants.

The most dangerous abuse of this stage of development is the business like soldier. This is the soldier who is willing to take any advantage, use any technology, break any rule or kill any number of innocent civillians (not intentionally of course) to acheive victory. The American military has historically tended to this extreme. It's not personal, it's just business, and we are good at business. From the fire-bombing of Dresden and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the impersonal snuffing out of lives via satellite controlled drones, we want only one thing: we want to win, quickly, with the least amount of damage to our side. Which is admirable, but can easily degenerate to a lack of respect for human life, if that life is not "us".





*Note: this holds true for our society, right now, but other societies in other times have not been so restrictive. While there have always been consequences for violence, historically there has often been a lot more wiggle-room in avoiding or dealing with them.

Another Way, Part 1

There is another way for a soldier to deal with the reality of his job. Thus far I think there is only one true way for a soldier to remain a soldier and not be in danger of diminishing his own humanity. It cannot be a question of a trick of dealing with something essentially bad. It must instead be a matter of finding and embracing the truly good in a vocation, while slowly, over time, paring away any evil that has become attached to it.

This other way (so far as I can see) follows three steps, or stages. The first is to be in love with the enemy. The second is to forget the enemy. The third is to love the enemy.

This may seem like a strange way of putting it, to be “in love” with the enemy, but it is the most basic and most natural reason for being a warrior. Just like the most natural reason for climbing a mountain is sheer love of the mountain, so the beginning of a call to knighthood is the fascination of the adventure. The knight rides into the forest and challenges the dragon, not because he has any particular malice toward the dragon. In fact, it is truer to say that he is passionately in love with the dragon, because the dragon represents a challenge, an opponent worthy of his strength and skill. Something in him needs to fight a fight and he sees the dragon (or the giant, depending on the myth) the same way an artist sees a blank canvas, or a sailor sees a tall ship and a star to steer her by. This is a very natural thing. I would say it is at least a part of the natural makeup of nearly every boy, though it is stronger in some than in others. The boy born with this instinct at its strongest is generally going to be a handful. He is the boy who always wants to fight or wrestle or make wooden swords and play knight or play commando in the woods with guns. Of course every boy does these things from time to time, but for this particular boy these things are a borderline obsession, or at least the deepest theme in his play. He may drive his mother crazy by always getting into fights or getting scratched and bruised in mock battles, or constantly having sharp sticks swinging in the vicinity of his eyes. Some mothers will even try to suppress this type of play, fearing their son will grow up to be a gangster, but I believe this is a mistake. In this kind of violent play there is nothing cruel or malicious. A boy like this has no ill will towards any of his opponents, and in fact seeks the same boys out to fight again and again. In his mind the competition is a deep form of cooperation in which every boy tests and strengthens himself against every boy. He is not a bully or a thug. He may indeed have an almost ridiculous sense of fair play which would be a liability to a bully.

This instinct is what you make of it. It is simply raw material. It can be a vehicle for a boy learning to use his instincts to dominate those weaker than himself, or to protect those weaker than himself. If he grows up unbalanced by training in gentler arts he will certainly end up a loud-mouthed, rough mannered, though perhaps good hearted tough guy. The experiences and guidance he is give may be able to shape and nurture that instinct but they will never be able to suppress it safely. A fighter’s instinct can remain at this stage indefinitely, as many of the higher pagan warriors of history are examples. These higher pagan warriors are marked by a deep respect for their enemy, which probably reached its most extreme expression with the samurai. A samurai considered it a great honor to cut an enemy’s head off after he had ritually disemboweled himself, to prevent him the shame of grimacing in pain. Homer’s Illiad is full of both the heights and the depths of this instinct, and with Hector even an example of something like the second stage of the warrior’s development. Anything like an in depth analysis of that basic level instinct, both at its highest and at its lowest is far beyond the scope of this blog, but should be an essential part of the education of any warrior.

Alas, there is no comprehensive training for the modern warrior.

Impersonal Warfare

In my last post I talked about sneering and mistrust as the natural way for a soldier to deal with the reality of his work. The vast majority of modern wars (with significant exceptions) are matters of masses of anonymous men seeking out and killing masses of other anonymous men. That, at least, is how it seems from the point of view of those who run the wars, and many of the people who prosecute those wars. This too, is a psychological defense mechanism. Wiping out a blip on a computer screen or a little green shape on the drone’s camera is such an impersonal thing, which, I firmly believe, is the real reason for the modern emphasis on super-technology in war. It is not because of the practical effectiveness (it is, on the whole, immensely impractical) but because of the psychological leverage it gives us.

Things are not so sterile for the front line soldier. Faced with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, a yelling voice, and the sensory reality of sweat and blood on the body, the front line soldier cannot hide behind computers. Instead he has to resort to a more primitive method of psychological distancing. He has to convince himself that the enemy is somehow less than he is. Anything can be used as leverage for this “othering” of the enemy. Skin color is an old favorite, but uniforms will do. Language is a solid choice, carrying as it does connotations of a whole alien culture. Specific habits of the enemy, can be subtle proof of inferiority. (Iraqis usually squat instead of sitting to answer the call of nature. Therefore we are superior to them.) Real or imagined wrongs done by the enemy to people I somehow identify with are the best leverage of all, because it provides not merely a psychological but as pseudo-moral justification for violence. It is justice, meted out by the soldier. This is also a useful handle for demonizing anyone on our side who proposes a more moderate course.

The end result, the goal and object of this process, is the othering, the de-humanization, the objectifying of the enemy, in order to make him easier to kill. Sometimes this rhetoric is at least subjectively sincere. The person spouting it really believes it. More often I suspect it is a bastardized attempt to cover up the psychological damage of hating another person. The louder the rhetoric, the more I suspect it is only skin deep. The really dangerous person is the one who believes it so completely he doesn’t feel like it needs to be explained.

This is a brief, rough sketch of a reaction to the impersonal violence of modern warfare (personal violence is something else entirely. It is the natural refuge of men who are no more than cogs (albeit willing cogs) in a machine that cares little more for them than for the people it wields them against. (This should not be understood as an indictment against impersonal government. That should be discussed separately, but after a certain point, all human government has to be impersonal. It’s part of the nature of government.)

But as I said, I believe there is another way, although it is not open to most people. I’ll get to it in another post.

Why I Pray for Peace

When I was a teenager I dreamed of getting into a firefight, or a standup knife-fight to the death. I dreamed of being a combat hero and killing hundreds of enemies singlehandedly. I wanted to kill a bad guy because, in my mind, that represented some sort of rite of passage into warriorhood. It is strange, a little funny, and a little sad, to look back at that and see how much I’ve changed.

At the ripe old age of 27 I don’t think that desire of my younger self was totally wrong. In fact I would go so far as to say it was tremendously right, and could not have been any other way, without weakening my character a great deal. I still maintain that it is a very good thing for a young man (such as myself) to look forward to a fight out of the sheer joy of fighting. I trust that adventurous instinct. Someone who fights for the joy and excitement of fighting is much closer to the truth than someone who does violence out of malice. It is more likely to produce courage, honor, and freedom of spirit, while malice, even non-violent malice, can produce only backbiting, hatred, injury and death.

So the blood and vinegar me was a natural part of my development, and is still a part of my character. I still think fights are fun once you get into them, but the difference is that I don’t want to get into a fight. I have much to learn, but nothing left to prove against any human being out there.

There are so many younger soldiers who are lamenting the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. They feel cheated, like they missed their chance. Some boldly hope out loud that we go to war with Iran or North Korea. Oh God in Heaven, please no! If it must be, then I will do what I must, but I pray with all my heart that it never happens. It isn’t that I am afraid of being killed or wounded. I have faced that before and will face it again. By God’s grace I have never yet backed down or failed my mission. It’s just that there would be so much killing. So much pain. So much hatred. The hatred is what really frightens me. My soul shrinks back from it, like my naked flesh would shrink back from an acid bath. It hurts. It stings and suffocates. Hatred of me by other people is not so bad. It definitely hurts, but the fighting spirit I was born with rebels and tosses it back. I refuse to be damaged by it (but might not that refusal itself be damaging?) But hatred of others is far worse. A war is always a breeding ground for hate. The Iraqis hate us, because of the lies they have been told, and all too often because of the truth they have seen. Americans despise Iraqis because they haven’t discovered sit-down toilets yet. They hate them because it was an Iraqi who blew up their buddy. They bitterly wish that we could nuke the whole Middle East. The sneering and mistrust, and the sense of righteousness in sneering and mistrusting is the drug of choice in a combat zone. How else could we do what we are told to do? There is a way, but it is not open to most.

And all the people who would be killed. I have never desired the death of any person. Even when I was spoiling for a fight, it was not the death of the enemy that I wanted. I saw a challenge (he wants to kill me) and my spirit rose in response (Bring it!) But if I do have to kill someone (and make no mistake I will if I have to) what a waste! Every human being was born beautiful, alive, practically bursting with hidden promise, called to inexpressible glory. How much good is each human soul capable of? And each one is not a nameless, faceless, number in a vast sea of other people. That is now who he is in the eyes of God, and therefore that is not who he is to me. That person, my enemy over there, has been loved into existence by the Holy Trinity. He is unique, absolutely unrepeatable. In all time and space, past, present, and future, and through all eternity, he is the only one there is. There can never be another. What a tragedy! All the good that he was capable of, gone. All that he might have been, gone. No second chance, no do-over. There will never be another one of him to pick up the slack.

How could this be a good thing? How could this be subject for celebration?

It may seem strange that it is a soldier who thinks of all of this and puts it in words, but it should not be strange at all. Who else would have cause to think about it? And how could you stand to go through life as a soldier constantly shoving it under the rug? If you have never looked at what you do, squarely and honestly, and asked what it means, then you should not be doing it.

So I look and I ask, and I answer. I will not always be a soldier, but I have been called to be a warrior, because, as much as the idea of human violence fills me with sadness, there is something else which matters even more deeply. I don’t particularly want to kill anyone, but all my life I have wanted to protect everyone. I want people to live and be free, to be happy and find the greatness they were created for, and the sad truth is that too many cannot. Especially the children, born into worlds of violence, or brutally stolen from their homes, their innocence destroyed, their futures obliterated before they had even a chance to see them; these children need someone to protect them, and sometimes to protect an innocent person a guilty person must die.

But I want him to die like a human being. Even in death I can never despise him, but I must instead afford him the respect he never afforded to himself. Hopefully that way, in some small measure, I can restore some of his humanity. At least, let me not lose mine.