Into the Mysterious Dark

To all the men actually reading this post, keep on reading. To all the women reading, hop on in. Although addressed to one, this is meant for both ends of the romantic sphere. I have recently begun reading Outlander  by Diana Gabaldon, a quite fetching read about a woman falling through time from WWII Scotland to its 1743 past, and having quite the run-ins with British Redcoats (deliciously called lobsterbacks, which cracks me up to no end) and Scottish Highlander warriors, fighting for their respective clan and their homeland. (SPOILER ALERT!) In the midst of her journey, Claire becomes entangled in the life of one Jamie MacTavish, a young Highland warrior, adrift from his clan. In a brilliant plot twist, the two of them end up being joined in marriage. Needless to say, the text is not for younger audiences (I hope that wouldn't be necessary to say, considering the violence alone would be enough to help readers differentiate appropriate ages), but it is positively beautiful a

I'll be plainly honest, I was planning on doing a bit of research for this post before writing it, because Joan of Arc is my favorite saint, my role model in my daily life, and one of my heroes who continues to inspire me. If I was going to write about her life in whatever capacity I chose, I wanted it to be accurate, and to have my facts straight. But tonight, in proper feminist indignation and outrage, I have decided to chuck that research list out the window, and write about who she was as she stood in history, as a woman, and a faith-driven Catholic woman at that, bearing a shield and making her way in a world so patently and dangerously masculine it had gotten itself entangled in a 100 Years' War over two monarchs sparring over genealogical heritage. Now, I will not make the argument here that masculinity in its true, God-given form, is evil in and of itself, but I will hazard to say that its mutations and overemphasis have created utter confusion and panic in a world alre