"Who Would Sing For Us?"

Wonder Woman is a projection of my heart on a screen. I know that many of my fellow Warrior Women feel the same, and I imagine that many of us cried at the same scenes. I never anticipated crying tears of recognition in the middle of a battle scene or feeling my heart cramp with resonance as Diana faces down the ultimate evil: half truths about herself and mankind. I never expected to spend the action portion of a super hero movie in tears, not because characters were dying but because my heart finally saw it's reflection in someone beautiful, powerful, and kind. 

Diana is an Amazon Princess - given life by Zeus, raised by the Amazon Queen, trained by the greatest general the Amazons ever had. Her mother led the Amazons in a war against depravity before Diana's birth and is aware of how easily corrupted mankind is. Antiope, her aunt and trainer, is realistic as well, pushing Diana to be stronger than anyone before her. Diana witnesses her people, her family, being killed by the first men she's ever seen, but she still holds to the idea that mankind is good, simply corrupted by Ares, the god of war - the god the Amazons were told to eliminate if he ever rose to power again. 

So, Diana leaves, despite her mother's warning that "Man does not deserve you." She goes and witnesses the horrors of four long years of war: cities enslaved, soldiers wounded, children without mothers, armies with no hope. But instead of accepting the fatalistic, realistic idea that there's nothing that can be done, the idea that all the men around her seem to espouse so easily, Diana follows her heart - her need to protect. And she proves the type of warrior she is. She leads them across the battlefield and into the captive town.

After breaking through enemy lines and liberating the small town from their captivity, Diana experiences for the first time, the joy of having made a difference. She finds peace in the quiet moment, taking time to laugh at her first snowfall, learning how to dance with Steve, and smiling as she listens to Charlie, one of their companions, sing for the first time in years. 

When it is time to leave again the next morning, Charlie, a sharp shooter who is haunted by those he has killed and freezes up often, says that they would be better off without him and tries to leave. Despite the grief she'd given him when she first met him, despite the disdain she felt for his drunken stupor that day, she simply looked at him with kind eyes and asked, "But Charlie, who will sing for us?"

I sob a little every time I hear her say that. His three male companions didn't say anything to keep him - they didn't know what they could say. Charlie wasn't doing the job he'd been brought along for, so how could they encourage him to stay even though he was their friend? Diana on the other hand? She saw the piece of him that was most true - the Scottsman who loved bringing joy through song, the man who craved peace from the unending war and from his personal demons. 

Women are not simply utilitarian. Our empathetic nature helps us see the hidden value in each heart. This is what Diana saw - a man of peace forced to be a man of war. A mercenary hiding his pain behind his scotch and carefree attitude. A man who wanted to help, but who didn't know how to. So, true to the nature of her creation, she spoke to the heart of him and called for him to follow her. And he did. He followed her into a battle he didn't know if he could survive. He, a mercenary, was willing to sacrifice his life to follow the woman who saw his heart. While a man may see the most prudent course of action, Woman has the task of helping raise those to a higher call - an acceptance of their true self. 

Diana saw a heart in need of a purpose, so she sang the song to him until he remembered it. She accepted him where he was at, not asking him to take up the gun again, but offering him the chance should he decide to. How much more beautiful would our world be if more of us did as Diana did and saw into the hearts of people and called their inner selves out? How much more peaceful would we be if we didn't see our strengths and weaknesses but saw ourselves as people. While men and women both are called to do this, Woman is especially created for this ministry. This call is written in our very nature, and to deny it is to deny part of what it means to be woman. 

"Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see with their hearts. They see them independently of various ideological or political systems. They see others in their greatness and limitations; They try to go out to help them." ~Pope St. John Paul II