“Oh my God, this is actually happening.”
--Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, February 24th, 5:09 am
“Oh my God.”—that’s as appropriate a response as any to Russia’s invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine a week ago today. “Oh my God!”—as in God help us all, for war has once again visited its ugly and violent visage upon Europe and this time a strongman bully is waging it. He, who claims the invasion is necessary for “self-defense” and to protect its citizens in Ukraine. Sound familiar? It’s a justification used by too many violent bullies in present times and past times too.
“Oh my God.”—as in God help the 44 million Ukrainians who are now at risk: for death, for injury, for displacement, for fear, for hunger, for all the horrors that accompany twenty first century warfare. Imagine going to bed one night in a land at peace and then waking up the next morning to war, in your home, in your neighborhood, in the land you love. I cannot imagine that and yet, right now, folks in Ukraine are living that nightmare, and all because of the autocratic aspirations of a despot.
“Oh my God.”
The scenes and sounds coming out of Ukraine are both all too familiar and all too depressing. Every war is, in a way, the exact same war. Air raid sirens wail as empty streets give witness to the thousands sheltering in basements and bomb shelters, as bombs drop from the night sky and illuminate the horizon in an eerie yellow and green glow. Cars and trucks stand backed up on highways as thousands of families and neighbors and the very old and the very young flee—to anywhere but this war zone that just yesterday was a beautiful European city. Buildings lie in ruin, with windows blown out and piles of debris everywhere and black smoke rising in the distance.
These are the images that are coming to us now daily, that always come when the bombs begin to fall. It is Ukraine. It is Syria. It is the Gaza Strip. And it was also war…in the Ardennes Forest. And on the ships at berth in Pearl Harbor. And on the cold and desolate plains of Korea. And in the rice paddies of Vietnam.
“Oh my God!” The lesson is that humanity never seems to learn that war is always ugly. That war is a sin. That even when war is fought for the “right” reasons, still it is finally immoral, for war drags down both the aggressor and the aggrieved into a maelstrom of death. No turning around or reversing course. Once the genie of warfare is let out of the bottle there is no way to put it back. Something tells me that Russia is going to be learning that truth in the weeks and months and perhaps even years ahead, as it seeks to conquer and subdue a people and a culture. It will also be paying for that truth in pain and suffering, and not just for the Ukrainians but for its own people too. What a waste of life.
“Oh my God!”
So, I’d ask first, that no matter what your belief
system, no matter what your faith or no faith at all, still say a prayer,
especially for the most vulnerable in this war.
Pray for innocent children that they might somehow escape injury, death
and becoming refugees. Pray for the brave souls seeking to be free and to oppose
tyranny. Pray for the leaders of this
world that together they might somehow be able to end this war as quickly as
possible and to do so in a just and fair way.
Pray for the world, especially Europe, that this part of God’s Creation
would not be swept up again in a worldwide conflagration. Pray for Ukraine: that this sovereign nation might somehow be able to still be free.
“Oh my God.”
Sometimes that’s all we can say, all we can feel, and all we can pray. God knows and God hopes that humankind shall one day, “beat their swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.” The prophet Isaiah proclaimed that holy vision some 2,700 years ago. We still haven’t gotten it right.
Oh my God. What more can be said?
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