Chapter X
The Korean War

 If the suddenness of liberation was puzzling, the outbreak of war in 1950 is more puzzling yet. The war which began on June 25, 1950, and the Japanese invasion of 1592 have something in common. In both, no one anticipated war until the very morning of the outbreak, nor were there any preparations. Both were national disasters of great magnitude. Each time, the other side had been thoroughly prepared, but this side so unprepared--why so? But now it is fully clear that all along we favored peace and that the other side was in the wrong in both wars. Yet it is humiliating for a nation to have had no defense against the invader.

The course of the two wars, was similar. The Japanese had within a few days the bulk of the land and only then, with a counterattack beginning in the northwestern corner of the peninsula, did we re-take it. In the 1950 war too, most of southern Korea was lost in a short time with the troops pushed into the southwestern corner, where we then began our counterattack and regained it. The role that Ming China played in the earlier war was played by the United States at this time. If we owed survival to the navy in the Japanese invasion, this time we owed it the U.S. air force. At that time volunteers came forward in great numbers. This time, there was an upsurge of national spirit, although the same kind of volunteers were inconceivable because of the nature of modern warfare.

Similarities do not end here. Both wars drained the national strength. More important, the cause is not very clear for either war. Why did the war break out? At first, you may feel you can see the cause very clearly but thinking it over you realize you cannot. For both wars were one-sided. On the side that started war there was no question because they meant to invade. On our side we had no desire or intention to invade or pick a quarrel. That is why we say the cause is unknown. That it is unknown is what we should ponder.

Earlier, I said that Korean history has been a scenario that was changed in the middle, and here we come to another change. We were now called upon to make war without preparation because history had entered a new era. The war came not quite five years after the liberation because our history was not yet world history. There was a time in the past when affairs of one country were settled by that country and the destiny of one nation was worked out by that nation alone, when a given cause led to a given effect. If it had happened in such a time, liberation would not have come like a thief, nor would war have come like a bolt from the blue. Now a matter is settled not by a nation, a people or a class, but by the world. We are approaching an age when a matter is settled not by circumstance or law, but by spirit. A far cry from former times.

Although this war exacted a toll in life and materials greater than did World War II, it was conducted without a formal declaration or even a name. It was a war known by the name of "cold war" or "hot war," names previously unheard of. It was a war where the atom bomb was available but you could not use it even if you wanted to. It was a war in which the enemy might be hiding on our side and a friend on the enemy's side. This strange war was not one between two kings as in the past, or between nations or between classes. This war was not fought over territory or interests like the wars of imperialism. Although war began to change with World War II, the Korean War was not a continuation of it; it was different from the world war. When the second world war was over, the war criminals were punished. When will this war come to an end? And when it does end, who will be held responsible and punished accordingly? General MacArthur is said to have called it a war of theology. If so, are Christians responsible for the war? Or Buddhists? Or Muslims? Interesting, isn't it? War in primitive societies was fighting among tribal deities. Is it perhaps that history, after four or five thousand years of civilization, has reverted to conditions of primitive society?

Yes, it is a war of gods, not of men, only these gods do not dwell in the forests or in stone buildings. They are in the hearts of men. Now it is not over food, clothing, land, money or rights that they fight. It is not physical fighting with fist and sword, or with tool and poison. It is a spiritual fight by means of thought. For this reason, while men are fighting they often forget what they are fighting for or the meaning of the fight. The two warring sides have had little realization of who on the other side were being killed, what or how the whole affair would turn out.

It was a war between the north and the south. And this, when neither side had reason to attack or take on the other. It was only that we Koreans, held in the grip of the United States and the Soviet Union, were fighting their war for them. But when you think about it, there was no reason for the United States and the Soviet Union to fight. There is no reason to fight where all should try to live and let live, and when the world is on the way to becoming one. The people of these two nations, as human beings, have no grounds to bate each other, but they differ in their respective ways of thinking. The two countries only represent different thoughts and different principles. What then is this which we call thought and where does it come from? Why does anybody think in the first place? We do not know.

Human beings are possessed with thought. Therefore, I say that this is fighting among gods. Ask a people at war why they are fighting, and they have no answer. But then, the men who did the actual fighting saw those on the other side as their enemy. The war was made even more cruel because they had no clear idea of why they were fighting, the cause or its goal. In fact this last war in Korea typifies all wars: as in all other wars, strangers killed each other without any reason to hate. Do men fight each other because it is their nature? No, they fight the fight of gods whom they do not know. But then to tell the truth, it is not fighting among gods either, because there is only one God. It is a case of fighting between man and God. God seen as life is a fighting being; fighting is father to all creation. The creative wake left in the path of God's passing is war. Man, ignorant of the passing of God, resists the change, hence war. On the day when man awakens to the meaning of the course of history and ceases resistance, peace and freedom for all eternity will come. To learn the meaning of all this, an age of the universe is approaching. The Korean War was the clarion call heralding the arrival of the age, the 38th parallel the first faint light of a dawning day.

The Korean War was fought over the 38th parallel. What is this line? Who drew the line? Was it Roosevelt and Stalin? If so, then it was just coincidence. But the creation of the 38th parallel was a historical necessity. The 38th parallel is nothing but a line dividing our land in half; both coveted the land and both would not yield, so they divided it in two. The land of Korea itself was nothing to them. All they had in mind was their own national interest. They would have acted differently if they had truly wanted world peace and our liberation.

Why did the two countries want to take our land? Because of our country's position, geopolitically and strategically. The same position that caused us two thousand years of suffering again pulled us into the tribulation of the 1950-53 war. He who gains control of this land of ours will gain the entire Orient, and he who gains the Orient will gain the world. The Soviet Union needs the communization of the world for its own survival, and its communization effort must begin with the Orient. Isn't that why the road to Paris is said to go through Peking? Communization of the world begins with Korea. Once Korea goes communist the rest is no problem--Japan, the Philippines, Annam, Thailand. On the other hand, as long as Korea stays within the free world, even if Manchuria were to be under communist control for a time, that will give the Soviet Union no rest, and if Manchuria were to be set free, China could not hold out.

Stalin must have insisted on placing Korea under his control when he was about to free Korea because he understood this. Roosevelt for his part must have been unwilling to let the Korean peninsula go because he knew full well that, if his country were to retain suzerainty of the free world, it had to keep control of the Pacific. This meant keeping Japan and the Philippines in the free world, and the key to this goal was Korea. Our failure to hold the command post, leaving it in a vacuum, incurred a whirlwind of suffering. Therefore, it was a historical necessity. It is a line drawn by history.

To say that history drew the line will not free man from responsibility. Roosevelt himself cannot have any excuse for his mistake, to say nothing of Stalin the aggressor or ourselves who failed to hold the line. Roosevelt struck a bargain out of concern for his nation's momentary ease and comfort. If instead he had worked for the salvation of humanity, staking the destiny of his country, the Soviet Union would not have been in a position then to resist. A Korean war would not have taken place and we would have faced a different turn of fate. An easy out for the United States, erroneously pursued in reckoning overly much with public opinion, gave China away to the communist camp. This was what made things go wrong for Korea. Lives and resources of not just this country but also the many countries acting under the United Nations were wasted. In this light, the 38th parallel is a line bearing on world history. On this line American democracy and Soviet communism were weighed and found wanting. It is a line along which modern history failed.

The significance of this line does not stop here. History drew the line, and God had a hand in it. Why the puppet empire of Manchuria ("Manchukuo") and the Kwantung army of Japan? Why the corrupt Chiang Kai-shek regime? Why Vladisvostok in the Maritime Province? In the 19th century Czarist Russia seized Siberia, bringing its maritime province face to face with Hamgyong Pukto on the northeastern tip of the Korean peninsula. Little did we expect Siberia to provide the passageway for the Soviet army on the day of liberation.

When Korea's ancient regime fell, many patriots sought asylum in Vladisvostok. Later, as Japanese pressures grew, more Koreans fled to Manchuria or Russia. Grateful Koreans did not dream that their own children would be the cat's paw for the aggressor in splitting a newly emerging country. Manchuria declared itself an empire under Japan, and thoughtless Koreans settled down in all parts of Manchuria in the belief that things would go on the way they were. That mounted brigands would overnight turn into a liberation army making a great deal of trouble was something they never even imagined. China under a less corrupt Chiang Kai-shek might have not gone communist. A free China would have saved Korea most of the difficulties now facing her. Even with a line of division fixed along the 38th parallel, there would have followed less misery and 9 physical conditions would not have been so different. Nevertheless, all these conditions were arranged long before the 38th parallel came about. In looking back, there is no denying that the line was established for a purpose.

The 38th parallel is a test given by God, perhaps the last one for this nation. Pass this test, and Korea will live. Failing in this, however, may well lead to its end for all time.

At a time when the world was becoming one and human civilization was plunging into an era of the universe, no nation could be allowed to remain in bondage. So Korea, like Samson, was freed from the prison. Not only we but other nations as well were freed. Small and weak nations came out in a freshet of liberation, putting an end to their lack of human dignity and to being objects held up for ridicule. Their representatives swarming in Washington, New York, Moscow and Geneva, the whole scene is reminiscent of the three thousand women of the Shih-huang-ti's harem at his death, of the wild beasts caged in the Coliseum released at the fall of Rome.

Still, even on the day of history's amnesty, basic moral principles are not to be defied. There is no forgetting that the law of life demands acting oneself. The 38th parallel was put as the test question. Our failing is that we have been unmindful of freedom and unity. We have been inadequate in exploring ourselves. We were not just handed liberation, but were released to take part in a joint field meet of history, to see whether we could cross over the line which runs along the middle of the country. After such an extended period of maltreatment and contempt, Koreans should have learned to appreciate freedom. If they appreciated freedom they should have realized how essential national unity is. After so many centuries of tribulation they should have known that it affects one and all, not just a few. In fact, lack of unity was a cause of all suffering. Conversely, suffering is meant to prod all into unity. Through all these centuries of suffering, Koreans should have done some thinking. Then they could have developed a philosophy of affliction unknown to other nations. The 38th parallel was put in to see if the Korean nation had trimmed and tidied up its character. Aside from the fifteen hundred years, at least during the thirty-six years under Japan, there was suffering enough for Korea to have burned off all dross and impurity of history in the crucible of affliction. Korea should have emerged as a new nation with the belief in one nation.

But Korea was split in two. The 38th parallel is a crack running clear across Korea's heart. Is the seed ripe? Or is it just the shell? God split it with trembling hands. The Soviet army that marched into the north and the American army that came into the south with all their guns, bombs and aircraft--this was nothing but the trembling hands of God. If there is one ripe seed inside the nation, it will please God. Otherwise, there are two dead shells.

The 38th parallel is an absurdity from every angle, contrary to reason, something inconceivable. There is every reason that it ought to be eliminated, and it should in fact be easy to do so once one's mind is set on it. The 38th parallel is not a line to be resolved by the sword but one to be settled by reason, principle of right, the heavenly way and human character. What is required is a will to life, with the realization of what life is and what the path to life is. This is a line that can be lifted in no time.

No army however large and powerful on either side of the line can possibly keep a nation asunder, a nation which says, "We are one! Water which you cannot cut can be cut when it is frozen. Our true nature has been frozen, our thought departed from life. The split came as our minds rambled away from life over to unfruitful thinking about philosophy and principle, policy and action, communist, middle-of-the-road and pro-American. If Koreans have failed to see simple truths like water or like fire, then they are bound to go through water, through fire, again. There is no escaping the God of truth and principles of history. A nation defying reason has no choice but to undergo a trial of absurdity. That was the Korean War.

The meaning of the Korean War goes deeper yet. Both the 38th parallel and the Korean War were a failure and tribulation. Yet, in the process there have been growth and increase in knowledge.

There was no comparable tribulation throughout the five millennia. The two invasions by the Japanese in 1592 and by the Manchus in 1637 were bad enough, but they are like nothing to this one. Nevertheless, we survived. As a tree keeps growing in spite of the damage it sustains, so we have grown as a nation in the new age despite the blows suffered, the division of the country and failures experienced. Even as late as the civil disturbance in Taegu, in Yosu and Sunch'on (October 1948), in Chejudo (April 1948), the nation wavered in thought and groped for decisions. But after the Korean War some sort of unity took shape, if not to the point of bringing north and south together. Popular thinking has been gaining direction. The people began to wake up. Beneath surface commotions--the Syngman Rhee regime and his Liberal Party to his fall occasioned by the April 19 uprising, then to the military coup of May 16 of the following year--the masses kept growing, if at the slow pace of a glacier. The fact of disturbance itself has been a sign of their awakening.

Foremost of all these happenings was the Korean War, which represented a giant step forward. It was like jumping over a stream, faltering though the stride was. There were many instances of deplorable behavior by politicians, generals and soldiers. The national militia scandal, the Keoch'ang massacre, and the pillage of South Korean soldiers in North Korea perpetrated in the name of fighting communism are some of those infuriating incidents. If one believes in capital punishment, quite a few who should have been executed still walk the streets. (They deserved to be executed even more than Yi Cheong-jae [kingpin thug] and Ch'oe in-gyu, Syngman Rhee's home minister.) But that is not the point. The masses go their own way, looking past those beneath their recognition. Such flotsam of bygone days will soon all disappear from view. We should avoid war at all costs, but even if there is another war, and it will be worse than the last one, the masses do not stand to lose. Those who would perish are government functionaries, the generals, the business magnates, all steeped in a sense of privilege. A baby continues to grow through pains and illnesses, and the nation goes forward toward a new age. There may be still more suffering in store for this nation; there is sure to be. But this nation will never be pushed off the stage of history. Now we have gained at least the confidence that we will survive. This is the first gift of the Korean War.

Another gift which the Korean War brought was a strengthening of the United Nations. In international terms, the war tested the strength of the United Nations. Until then the world body had had only limited success in Pakistan, and how capable it actually was in maintaining world order was in question. It was doubtful how committed member nations would be in dealing with global issues. We know too well what happened with the League of Nations. Much was expected of this organization when it came into being as a result of the surging pacifism that followed World War 1, but the organization soon collapsed, a victim of the chauvinistic ideas of the major powers. Would not the United Nations perhaps go the way of the League of Nations? At the news of the Korean War, the United Nations passed a resolution to settle the conflict by sending United Nations troops. Troops of many nations came to Korea on an unprecedented scale, and managed to repulse the aggressor, though falling short of a full solution. This was a significant development without precedent in world history--a signpost on the path of the new age.

The United Nations symbolizes human reason. A United Nations victory, even if incomplete, was a victory for reason. Reason is what lifts man above the level of the beast and places him on the stage where he can achieve spiritual growth. In individuals, reason has achieved heights so that already thousands of years ago great masters of moral principles appeared. On the collective level, reason has not achieved much. The nation which at home has had dignity, character and high moral standards has regarded war as an act of righteousness and has praised aggression as a virtue. Then, as communications developed, voices began to be heard calling for humanism, national self-determination, and international cooperation, by appealing to reason and suppressing all excess of nationalist sentiment. It was barely a few decades ago that the nations of the world got together to debate public issues, creating an international forum for this purpose. The Korean War was of great significance in this, for in dealing with the Korean problem the United Nations enhanced its prestige and added to its strength. If the United Nations had not taken the Korean War seriously, Soviet aggression would have become more and more disdainful of neighboring countries. If that had happened, there is no telling what might have happened to the whole world, let alone our own country.

The United Nations action, however, was more than a victory for reason. If there was reason at all, it is the reason that has existed from the beginning. Many countries of the world did not spare human and material resources for a Korea whose existence they had hardly been aware of. That was not out of a sudden rise of reason, nor did the aggression of the Soviet Union and China signify a sudden death of reason. It was because they knew it was their own affair that the member nations of the United Nations sent their troops into Korea. They realized that the world was now one.

The noise of bombing during the Korean War was a sound heralding the arrival of a new era. The Korean War clearly testifies to the error of Russo-American confrontation. Confrontation cannot bring solution to problems facing mankind. If the United States has a case for itself, so does the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union is determined to push ahead no matter what, so is the United States. If the Chinese army supported by the Soviet Union pushed its way to the banks of the Naktong River, our side pushed all the way to the Yalu. But neither side could do more. Not that it lacked the will or strength to do so.

We wonder why the People's Army, coming down as far as Waegwan, marked time there. Did not American military experts themselves say that if the enemy had continued to push southward they would have been doomed? Was not MacArthur reined in as he was about to cross the Yalu? The way we see it, it does not seem likely that the Chinese army would have been in a position to defeat the United Nations troops if this side had marched into Manchuria at the risk of broadening the war. Well, this is all idle speculation. Reality turned out to be otherwise, and with good reason.

What was the reason? Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union should have been allowed to win. Leaving the two powers locked in confrontation, and thereby grinding down outworn ideas and forces of old, fostered something new. Both American capitalism and Russian communism appeared in human history to play their assigned roles. Now capitalism came to flower, and communism brought frost over it. But the flowers fade and the edge of frost dulls. Both will eventually vanish, and in the meantime, a new seed will go on ripening within them.

It is folly to watch the U.S.-U.S.S.R. confrontation to see which one wins out, and what is worse, to think of joining whichever side wins. That is absolutely not the way history works. Neither side will win. The Korean War was nothing but a war of attrition demonstrating the meaning of the confrontation of the two camps. Both will surely spend themselves to exhaustion by competing in technology, policy, strategy and propaganda. Thus putting up the edifice of a new culture will not begin until both sides start scraping the bottom of their store of material wealth and philosophies. The two sides are locked in a fight matching money with sword, although each claims democracy for public display. Only when money and sword have both disappeared will true democracy be brought to life.

In human history, after all, thinking man, homo sapiens, has been attracted now to money, now to the sword. The day has to arrive when wisdom can come into its own. When that happens there will prevail true freedom, true civilization. For that day to come there is this confrontation, the Korean War. The current war of attrition will continue, be there World War III or not. This is because all existing institutions and philosophies in support of them are doomed on account of contradictions in themselves. This is an inexorable law of history. A new thing will come about on the passing of these institutions and philosophies.

What is this new thing? A middle course. A choice between the two will yield no solution to problems of the world. It is only a puerile writer who ends his story by having the one win over the other. In real victory there is neither winner nor loser. Salvation will come only when both end in failure. Saving one's enemy is true victory. He who kills his enemy is the loser by that very act. If that is the way in novels, how much more should it be so in the universe conducted by the all-powerful God? There can be no winner or loser. Both must lose. A third party must emerge soaring above the two. This higher position of the third party is the middle course. God places himself not above nor below but inside. The inside signifies heaven. The middle is not intermediate but the center, the heart, the ultimate. Neither this side nor that side; it is "I." Neither before nor after, nor some other time; it is now. It is neither materialism nor idealism it is life. Not this, not that; it is one. Let us then call the middle course th highroad, the highroad all countries, all people, all gods should travel.

To you returning servants of the Soviet Union with a claim to diplomatic victory, and to you who scatter flowers to welcome as heroes those Koreans who have pledged to do America's bidding--I say: Is that the way we should behave? Wearing a sword, is that not an order to draw your sword? Cutting the country across the middle, is that not an order to join the two parts together again? Pitting brother against brother, each with sword in hand , is it not an order to throw down the sword and embrace each other, in tears? Is it really a call to fight? The United States and the Soviet Union are vying with each other to show off their strength. Do not be deceived. Is it not a warning to us not to be distracted? How can it suggest that we take sides with either one of them?

Is it not a pity? When the armies of the two countries arrived, one in the north and one in the south, how splendid it would have been if we had come out with a firm declaration, "We are one nation, one people." When the two got together to draw a line across our unscarred middle, the one thrust on us communism, the other capitalism, we should have said, "We are neither communist nor capitalist. We are one nation. We know only of being one, not two. We would sooner die as one than live as two."

What glory that would have been, if we had stood up to the two nations, each believing itself to be the greatest. Staring unblinkingly, with contempt, at all their wealth and armament, we would have put both out of countenance. All the small nations of the world would have cheered us. But we missed the opportunity to vindicate the two thousand years of our history of suffering and exonerate our shame.

Just think of it. At a time when ideas of neutralism were in such favor, we could have made friends with Japan if we had taken such a middle course. The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam may well have followed suit. Would not that have caused peace to prevail from Southeast Asia to India, to Arabia, to Egypt? Then would not the Pacific Ocean have become a pacific ocean, true to its name? Suppose that happened, would the Russo-American rivalry be a problem? This is the very meaning behind the establishing of the 38th parallel and the outbreak of the Korean War, but the point was missed setting us off on an entirely mistaken interpretation. What should be done?

Even now the middle course is the one we should take, grasp the oneness and bring it to light. It is non-violence, pacifism, world state, ecumenical unity. Having undergone the Korean War, we should realize the futility of armed force. We should renounce war. We should awaken to the need for doing away with national boundaries, with the realization that the life with which we are endowed is directly linked to the whole universe. But this cannot be done without faith.

Muddied waters are now behind us. The whole purpose of this war was to clear all that away, although it involved great destruction, clean the aging whore from top to bottom, inside and out by removing every bit of the things outward, filthy, impure and torn. Nothing should have been spared. All of what we hold dear, all that we felt necessary, has to go. New faith cannot come until we are stripped of everything we own. It is not without reason that we are under attack from the communists who uphold brainwashing in denial of property rights, tradition and even heredity. Once we are spiritually purified, communism can no longer pose any problem. Conversely, as long as we hold to our old possessions, we cannot be exempt from its curse.

We did not presume to prophesy but we have ended up doing some prophesying. We have now pitched our tents on the foothills of Mt. Halla, symbol of new history. As soon as new houses are built, all the tents on the north and all those on the south will come down. We are building a new house for, God, freed now from our Babylonian captivity. In building it, all traces going back to the days of captivity must be left out, all' memories of Babylon forgotten. No matter how magnificent the shrines of Babylon seemed, and although at one time we made use of them for worship, we should not copy them in the least. Forget it all. Renounce it. We have to reach for and seize new words that come up and new forms that emerge in our heightened emotion. In order that we may regain our strength, that we may gain new knowledge, that we may explore new technology, that we may understand the voice of soul, we have to spend more time undergoing the rest of our suffering on these shores.

Did we not say a new battlefield is calling us? Sure enough, a new war has broken out. At the command, "To the right, march!" we will be marching at the head. And indeed we are at the head of the procession of world history. Did we not say that the man of truth has his mission? All religions today are actively moving toward a new religion. Did we not say that world peace will surely be achieved, just as the Bible predicts? Indeed, mankind is debating world peace with such sincerity and such intense anticipation as never before. Now all countries, all nations, are going forward toward "one world.'

We need to ponder deeply a few things: that we are originally a people with good, warm hearts dedicated to peace; that we were given a land open to suffering; that we have failed to be a major nation; that we have been made a colony of somebody else; that we became a winner through defeat; that a line dividing the world has been inscribed on our back. We have to think it all through until we find in ourselves a religious experience.

Our peninsula with its scenic beauty has now turned into a graveyard for the world. China once gobbled up our land only to throw it up. Manchuria did the same. Even bold and clever Japan swallowed it but had to throw it up. Wicked Russia smacked its lips but could not swallow. To this land China came again, so did Manchuria and so did Russia, then the United States, which had been the first to open our doors to the world. Moreover, many countries of the world picked the cream of their youth, chose the sharpest of their weapons, and sent them to Korea. These soldiers wandered over the land fighting for three years, some falling and being buried there. This country was now an altar for mankind, for the United Nations, for the union of nations. just as Abraham offered his own son for a sacrifice before God, this son from whom sprang the ancestors of the nation, so did people offer their sons in order to bring about a new age, a new country, and a new tribe. This "land of one" became the altar of the "one world . " After undergoing all suffering and tribulation as required of it, humanity will send its illustrious sons to a Moriah of today, Mt. Halla, to dedicate to the Creator the land of Korea hallowed by the blood of its ancestors as an eternal Gettysburg, and they will join in shedding tears of gratitude.

History is prophecy as well as judgment. Being prophecy, history can pass judgment on the past. In the light of today's world history people should see themselves as they stand before God today. It is also required of them to see themselves as they will stand before God tomorrow. No history can be without some idea of what is to come after. No history can be without prophesying. A nation trying to find solutions to today's problems only in terms of present reality will perish before God's judgment seat. The Korean War predicts "that day." When He appointed Moses to be deliverer of Israel, God is said to have told him, "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground " This means that Moses then realized that all problems rested with him. The ground we stand on is one greater and deeper in meaning than we know. The whole question comes down to this. Therefore it is holy. Being holy, you are required to take off your shoes, which means: abandon all your methods and all your ways. Your shoes signify wandering, and wandering means running away from God. The way will be open before you the moment you quit running and stand squarely facing Him. That is the highroad, the middle course.

Something new is about to emerge. What day will that be? The day the child is born, the day of delivery. The Korean War, the April 19 uprising, the May 16 coup are waves of labor pains of the one--be she queen of suffering, aging whore or a beggar girl--who is to give birth to the king of the new day. She is ready to deliver and she complains she is too weak to do it. Woman, if you are indeed too weak, as you say, you and your child will surely die.

Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.

Isaiah 66:8 and 9. AV