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July 7
Joan of Arc's acquittal, and two important treaties for the Earth's well-being.
David Barnhart
July 07, 2025
Street scene in Huntsville, Alabama, 2025. Own photo. (I was the passenger, not the driver!)
Today in 1456, at a retrial demanded by her family, Joan of Arc was acquitted of the charges of heresy for which she had been put to death 25 years earlier.
On today’s date in 1911, the United States, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom signed an agreement ending open-water seal hunting. This was the first such international treaty signed to preserve wildlife.
Today in 2017, 122 countries signed the International Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in New York. None of the countries who currently have nuclear weapons, including the United States and Russia, signed it, but the document reflects an overwhelming consensus by the rest of humankind to reject the threat of nuclear war.
Reflection:
I shared this quote last month, but it is so good and so relevant for the present moment that it bears repeating. Mark Twain wrote of Joan of Arc:
"She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one; ... she was full of pity when merciless cruelty was the rule; she was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly true in an age that was false to the core; ... she was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation..."
Prayer: God, the wheels of justice and liberation turn slowly, but they do turn. Give us patience and tenacity to keep pressing for freedom for all you creatures and for abundant life. Amen.