war in our world

how we are struggling to process world events from our "secure" perspectives

As we finished drafting our last post two weeks ago, the atrocities unfolding in Israel and Palestine shocked us. Meanwhile, grim headlines about the continuation of the war in Ukraine, the earthquake in Afghanistan, and flooding in India seemed eclipsed by the horror of a new war.

When confronted with accounts of rape, beheadings, bombings, and hostage taking, those of us who live with our families and extended communities in security and peace are asking: what do we say? How do we pray? What should we do?

We decided to begin a conversation here among the three of us about the questions we have and how we’re responding. We hope it’s a conversation that you can join in the comments.

Marianne: Every time there is a natural disaster or armed conflict, images and videos of suffering people become unavoidable. As Christians we are called to prayerfully mourn with those who mourn. But the volume of information can become overwhelming. I’ve stopped reading the news farther than the headlines since hostilities started in Israel because seeing pictures of suffering and dying children is almost unbearable for me, and somehow all the more with my own children so safe and loved. Other mothers I’ve talked to over the last couple days say the same. I’m also ashamed of not being able to look, because the mothers of the suffering children can’t look away.

There’s a conversation I have been thinking about in Elizabeth Goudge’s novel The Heart of the Family between a dying man whose family had been killed in an air raid and a young mother of a happy family who feels guilty about the small fears that trouble her in comparison with the other’s suffering. It’s a lengthy exchange, but one thing it suggests is that a fitting response to suffering is humility.

Norann: I resonate with what you’re feeling, Marianne, because when I look at the faces of suffering humans, I see the faces of the people I love: my sons, my students, my friends, my nephews and nieces. I am desperate to intervene and feel helpless to protect and defend.

Trudi: When I was a kid, my parents didn’t tell me too many details of world suffering. As it was, I already had nightmares associated with bears and big dogs and bulls. (Better than bombs, but it’s all relative to a child’s imagination.) My parents thought –as I do now – that children shouldn’t live in unnecessary fear.

However, a common theme of prayers in my home was “thank you that we can live in peace.” So I was always aware that there were children like myself who had none of the comforts that I had, who didn’t have a mom and dad, who were starving, who were sick without medical attention, and so on. I wanted to pray for them. I believe those little prayers sent up by a child fly like angels and somewhere, somehow help a soul.

Marianne: Times like this are a test of faith: do I believe that my prayers – which are all I have to offer for the suffering half a world away – are meaningful? I do, but it’s an effort to return to and hold to that belief. There’s a poem “Mahranita and a Million Russians” by Philip Britts that considers this, juxtaposing hearing the weeping of one mother for her child with the news of distant enormous catastrophe.

Trudi: I’ve never been in a warzone, but in my own short life I’ve had moments when I knew someone must be praying for me. I found peace without knowing how. I believe in prayer, but it’s so easy for me to forget to pray until the end of the day. So I’m trying to learn how to pray in the moments when I am working quietly, when I am not in conversation with others. It takes mental and spiritual effort, but it’s the least I can do.

Norann: My response is yes, to pray, but also to love with a renewed intensity. I think of how it’s “easier” to pray for a conflict far away, but more difficult to resolve a conflict with a work colleague or neighbour. I try to pay closer attention to the needs of those right around me – love as active prayer – and intercede for a time very soon when our church can send boots-on-the-ground help to alleviate suffering, but ultimately for the true and lasting peace that God’s Kingdom will bring.

Marianne: This week in our community meeting we talked about the Kingdom of God, and read from Revelations 21 about the coming of the new heaven and new earth, and God wiping away every tear. Reflecting on this passage, the narrator in Marilynn Robinson’s Gilead says, “‘He will wipe the tears from all faces.’ It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required…Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true.”

It has to be true: this same promise was already there in the time of the prophets: “As one whom his own mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66:13)

Late October, Pennsylvania.

We asked some other women from our church for their thoughts:

Maureen Swinger mother of three, lives at Fox Hill community and is an editor for Plough Quarterly: We’ve found that bringing up world events around the family breakfast table is helpful for our teenagers, who care deeply about happenings in the world and yet by evening are only just balancing out their lives and wanting to talk through their day. We try to keep it simple, “Yesterday we heard that there was a bad earthquake in western Afghanistan; as of now they are saying over 2000 are dead, and the count will probably be higher. Because of the timing, it sounds like it was mostly women and children who were at home. Let’s think of them and send up prayers through the day. Maybe some young people from our church will be able to go over and help.” We don’t show pictures of the devastation unless they ask. We look up photos of the area and the people, so we can somewhat visualize those who are facing this trauma and need our prayers.

We also try to discuss the importance of not taking sides. What is a Christian’s task in these complex, bitter wars? To live out peace, to point to Jesus as the source of all peace and all forgiveness. To not let hate into our lives on any level, since even in its smallest and pettiest form, it’s the root of violence.

Dorothy Hofer, mother of six, lives at the Mount community: Each morning I think on these words from Father Zossima in The Brothers Karamazov, “Remember, too, every day and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, ‘Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today.’ For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God.” I imagine the souls of the children, the soldiers, the elderly, the leaders and the followers, all appearing before God every hour.

I believe God hears each prayer of intercession. I also believe that not one sparrow falls without Him knowing and that one day He will wipe away every tear from every eye. Some mornings I can hardly bear to tap the news app on my phone for fear of some new horror that unfolded while I slept. But a new day begins regardless – my little son shuffles out of his bedroom, still warm from sleep and blinking, and I try to remember the millions of mothers who would give the world for the safety, security, and peace that my children live in. With this thought as the backdrop for a new day, I have every reason to welcome the daily opportunities to give my life in service to the people nearest to me.

Carolyn Weeks, mother of six and grandmother, lives in Parkview, a Bruderhof community house that is home to a couple dozen people in Albany, New York: The Sunday after the horrific attack on Israel I found myself in a synagogue for an inter-faith celebration for a priest who had served the cause of peace for forty years. As we walked into the building we were greeted by security and police officers. The rabbi who did the public service announcements at the beginning of the meeting, where the exits are and so forth, told us that at their Shabbat service the day before they had practiced an active shooter drill. An amazing thought, go to worship God and find some peace and instead have a harsh reality hit you in the face.

In our city we have many friends, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and you name it. One couple from Pakistan had to seek asylum a few years ago. They are Catholic, and in Pakistan they were running a school for both Muslim and Christian children. As a result of a comment made by a child they were told not to return to Pakistan and that their lives were in danger. Sitting comfortably at my computer in Albany NY one can hardly imagine such a thing. Albany is a city of refugees: here we meet refugees from the Congo, Sudan, Burma, Afghanistan, Pakistan, South America and elsewhere. At a local after-school program for refugee children it sounds like a little United Nations, or if you want, a tower of Babel.

Back to the service. The main speaker was Dr. Susannah Heschel, the daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Rabbi Heschel walked with Martin Luther King down in Selma – there is a famous picture of them together. Dr. Heschel, herself a child of a Holocaust survivor (her father was the only one of his family to survive) gave a short summary of her father’s thinking, tying it into this event for Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims. That is who we were, all sitting together in one big room, all sharing the same air, and all being kind to each other. Even afterwards at the refreshment greet and meet, Jews, Catholics, Muslims were all peacefully enjoying each other’s company.

At the question and answer period the inevitable question came up: Dr. Heschel, how do you feel about what just happened in Israel last week? In a strong simple way, she said that the attack in Israel was a direct result of the culture of hate that we live in. And if we want to end this type of thing we have to end the culture of hate. Simple words, but think about it.

In any war, in any conflict, don’t both sides pray to God for victory? How can that be? Does God take sides? To make it simple, the only way to end the culture of war is to live for a culture of life and peace. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it so well, “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”

I can’t do much about world wide political disasters, but I can do this, I can live as a blessing, I can live to be a peacemaker.

And I can long for the day that’s described in Revelation, “when all the tears are dried from the faces.”

Carolyn wrote this reflection The Last Rose of Summer a couple weeks ago. It’s about hope, so we’re ending this post with it.

There must be some poem that mentions the last rose of summer, I can’t remember it, but then I never was one for poetry. Give me good old historical fiction. However, at the end of the past four summers a certain little rose bush has caught my eye and heart.

I like roses. I like to prune roses, weed around roses and maybe even pick slugs off roses. And sometimes my efforts pay off and my rose bush blooms. But there is this one little rose I find at the end of summer that has no one to care for it. It grows along a chain linked fence between two abandoned buildings along side of a busy Albany, NY street. At night this section of sidewalk is used as a bedroom, restaurant, and bathroom for the many homeless that are in our city. During the day a few people sit on the stoops, looking up when you walk past and asking for a little help. To give you a bit more flavor for this neighborhood, the local convenience store closed – too much hassle to operate in this kind of neighborhood.

Back to the sidewalk, one of the regular fellows who sits on the stoops is called Brian. Brian has been homeless for many years – he used to live in Washington Park but “came in” to a group home in the last years. Brian is a gentle alcoholic soul. Brian needs and deserves more from life than a stoop and a place to sleep, but that’s how our society is right now. Whenever he gets a little change for his next coffee, he looks up and says, “God bless you, brother.” We wish the same for him. Brian sits about twenty feet in front of the chain linked fence, I wonder if he ever notices my little rose bush.

I often think about this little chained off garden. Not too long ago someone must have cared for it: it is full of flowers from spring to the end of summer. Today, if it weren’t for the chain link fence that catches all sorts of trash, this little garden wouldn’t be there. I ask myself, how come this rose can grow so well when no one cares for it? Why is this rose here? Am I the only one that sees it? Maybe it’s a hope rose, maybe that garden is there to give a little bit of hope in a blighted neighborhood.

It makes me think, what am I doing to shed hope to the hundreds of people that walk past “my” little rose bush. On our daily walk, my husband and I say hello to those we pass, sometimes getting a smile or a wave back. Is that spreading hope? We pass many people walking their dogs, if we say hello we just walk past each other. But if we notice their dog, well, all of a sudden there’s something to talk about – and maybe this is spreading hope. The other day in the library, as we were leaving, the librarian said that seeing someone from our community always cheers up his day. Another little bit of hope, maybe.

The Apostle says that three things matter: faith, hope and love and the greatest is love. Well that means faith and hope are pretty good too, maybe not the greatest but surely something to seek for and try to live for. Like that little rose bush, maybe not the greatest rose in Albany, but surely the most courageous. The other day, as I was walking holding hands with my husband of nearly fifty years, a truck honked its horn. “Looking good,” he called out, “Keep it up!” Guess not too many older people are walking around holding hands. Hope that’s spreading a little bit of hope.

Well, enough rambling, I got to go look at my rose and see how it is doing today.

What we’re enjoying

Norann

Discussions in our weekly women’s Bible study (after reading Ruth and Esther we’re delving into Romans) inspired me to re-read Rebecca McLaughlin’s book Jesus Through the Eyes of Women: How the First Female Disciples Help Us Know and Love the Lord. A friend gifted this book to me last year, but the McLauglin’s gospel reminders seem timely for me in this busy season before Advent: “Martha thinks she’s serving Jesus by giving him a meal. But Jesus clarifies that he’s the one serving the real food—and Mary is right to sit at his table.”

Marianne

I had a chance to talk about George MacDonald, one of my most favorite authors, on the Old Books with Grace podcast. I also highly recommend an earlier episode of this podcast about Elizabeth Goudge (another favorite author who I mentioned above). Old Books with Grace is produced by Grace Hamman, whose book Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages I am reading in galley form – it will be published October 31 and is available for pre-order. It’s a wonderful and thought-provoking book, which coincidentally connects well with a lovely short novel I just read, JL Carr’s A Month in the Country which tells about a WWI veteran restoring a medieval painting in a country church.

Trudi

I’ve enjoyed the first few pages of Elisabeth Elliot’s A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael. I’m looking forward to learning from Amy’s journey and perhaps sharing some reflections with you when I finish the book.

Some artists I discovered a while ago are Tamar&Netanel, a couple from Israel. I enjoy their lovely vocal harmony and gentle acoustic guitar and violin self-accompaniment. This week I listened to some of their songs again. Knowing where the singers come from, made me wish their homeland could be as peaceful as their music. . . .