Well done, thou good and faithful servant

It's all over the web this evening, but just because everybody else is honoring the passing of the heroine Irena Sendler doesn't mean I shouldn't join in as well.

Stop right now, by the way, and go read the article I just linked to. The only reason I'm not spending an hour writing Ms. Sendler's story is that I could not hope to do it as well as Gavriel Horan already has.



There are several articles marking the passing of Irene Sendler; this one is as good as any.

It is characteristic of all truly heroic servants that they are too focused on those whom they serve to think of their own heroism, and thus one can't be surprised by the following:

Yet Irena Sendler sees herself as anything but a heroine. "I only did what was normal. I could have done more," she says. "This regret will follow me to my death."

Well, she should be at peace now. Indeed, if that picture is anything to go by, she found peace and joy long ago -- only a lifetime of smiling can leave a 97-year-old woman with a face like that.

But you know, I especially like the fact that Ms. Sendler's justly deserved -- but shamefully long delayed -- fame received a dramatic boost in 1999 from a group of Kansas high school students who discovered her story, and were so moved by it that they wrote and performed a play -- which has since been carried on over 200 other stages worldwide, and which single-handedly brought Irena's story back to the world's attention. The kids have been called "the rescuers of the rescuer." As Irena herself put it in a letter to the girls, "My emotion is being shadowed by the fact that no one from the circle of my faithful coworkers, who constantly risked their lives, could live long enough to enjoy all the honors that now are falling upon me.... I can't find the words to thank you, my dear girls.... Before the day you have written the play 'Life in a Jar' -- nobody in my own country and few in the whole world knew about my person and my work during the war ..."

Why not go order the DVD of Life in a Jar? I defy you to find a better cause than the one to which 100% of your donation will go.