Love your Enemy: A Novelist's Dilemma

If I had known what it would be like to pore over and over historical accounts of military strategy and weaponry and then attempt, imaginatively, to place myself in the midst the horror and chaos of battle, I might not have planted a certain hint in Volume One of The Maeve Chronicles. Now I am reaping what I sowed: the child Maeve bore (and had taken from her by force) grew up to be Queen Boudica who led several Celtic tribes in an uprising against the Roman occupation in 61CE. In Volume Four, Maeve is in the thick of it.

Apart from my determination to complete Maeve’s epic adventures, what keeps me going is the knowledge that this almost two thousand year old story is also contemporary—a fatal clash of interests and cultures, betrayals and humiliations, violent retaliation that spins out of control, slaughter of the innocent and not so innocent, and the costly victory of an invading, colonizing force over a native population. Sound familiar? It may not be a timeless story. (ie, there may have been times on earth when warfare was intertribal and did not involve significant imbalances of power, wealth, and technical prowess.) But it is timely. The news tells us this story in one form or another every day.

There is an old adage: write what you know. I do not know about battle first hand. I have never lived in occupied territory. But then I have never lived in a whorehouse or witnessed a crucifixion either, and I have already written about both as though I have. A better adage might be: write what you want to know. In the case of writing about battle (at least for me): write what you are afraid to know.

Yet in order to brave this undertaking, I must also call on what I do know: I do know what it’s like to see both sides of a conflict, to love people on both sides of a conflict. I know what it’s like to want desperately to fix something, to change something, and to feel that it’s my fault if I can’t. I know rage and blame. I know grief and anguish. Maeve’s position in this deadly conflict between the Romans and the Celts involves all these emotions and conundrums.

Seven years ago, I began to study Tai Chi Chuan with a traditional teacher who insists we at least understand martial applications, if not employ them. A sometime pacifist, I have found it challenging and fascinating to try to understand a warrior’s point of view. My teacher has told me that I lack killer instinct. I am afraid Maeve does, too. She was the lover and beloved of Jesus. When she shifts shape, she takes the form of a dove. On the eve of a battle she could not prevent and cannot escape, she must ask herself: what does it mean to love your enemy?

For Maeve it means she cannot fight someone unless she knows and loves him. (There is someone who qualifies, but no plot revelations.) Her particular solution can’t be generalized. But her question continues to haunt me as I write her story. And because I am writing this story, the question haunts me when I think about what happened on the Flotilla bound for Gaza. How unknown and threatening the soldiers who boarded the vessel must have appeared. The soldiers also believed, rightly or wrongly, that they were confronting the unknown and threatening. In that moment, no one knew anyone. No one had a name or a story. Neither side was even in the same story. And yet each side had a story of which they were convinced, for which they were willing to die—or to kill.

If there needs to be a reason, maybe that is why I have to write this story, because it has come to me, and I can’t escape it. Because it demands that I do more than have opinions or pass judgment about who is right and wrong. It demands that I place myself imaginatively in the midst of current battles and see myself surrounded by friends and enemies, challenged each time to find a way to love both.

A Letter from Maeve

Dear Everyone who reads this blog and travels through time and between worlds to share my adventures in the first century CE

(That was a long greeting, but not as long as Paul of Tarsus' in his even longer epistles. Don't worry this is a letter, not an epistle.)

I don't know if you remember Elizabeth's six week experiment, during which time I was banished to the comment section? Well, the results are in. Elizabeth has been accepted as a Huffington Post blogger. She is apparently allowed to post her blog here as well as at Huffington Post, so her Tuesday blogs at this spot will continue. And I will continue to COMMENT on them! I also expect to advise her on her blogs and perhaps achieve some mention in them on occasion. I will also communicate with you directly from time to time just as I am today.

How are things in your century? You don't have to answer that question if it's too upsetting. I am more or less up on your current events, and am aware of various catastophes in your current events. Catastrophe is also brewing in my time, as you may have gathered if you've been following my tweets. (Outside a tree limb just broke. The wind is, excuse the cliche, howling. Better finish this letter quick before the power goes out, something we didn't have to worry about in the first century).

It is an odd thing to live in and outside of time (maybe everyone does, but we just don't know it). I know about your supreme court ruling last week, and Elizabeth and I both know what history of the Boudican rebellion, but when we are in the middle of a scene, neither of us knows what will happen next. We have to live it. I have finally told Boudica the truth about who I am, who she is. Now I am waiting to see what happens next. And I will have to wait till Wednesday your time, because of all this blogging and platform building. That is something about your century that I find trying. I didn't have to have a platform in my time. I just stood on the bare earth, opened my mouth--and well stood on one foot while I inserted the other one.

Elizabeth has to do some research for her blog tomorrow, so I will close for now and post this letter before lightning strikes. Please do keep in touch. And do visit Elizabeth at Huffington Post. She'll keep you posted on the postings.

Be of good cheer, laugh as much as you can, cry when you need to, and call my name as much as you like, in or out of vain. But if you ever ask yourself WWMD, and you actually do that thing, I really can't be held responsible!

Love,
Maeve