Living In an Angry World: Change Begins With Me

“Bad temper is its own safety valve. He who can bark does not bite.”         --Agatha Christie

Some advice: don’t drive cranky.  If it can be avoided, don’t do anything else cranky either. But especially the driving cranky part.

To explain--last weekend I was behind the wheel of my almost brand-new car, one I enjoy more than any other vehicle I’ve ever owned. Since I purchased it two years ago, I have been very, VERY careful with it. No tailgating. No tight parking spaces where someone can “ding” my door.  Always garaged at the first sign of snow.  I’ve babied it in the hopes of making it look good for as long as possible and to last as long as possible too.

Back to that doomed drive. Someone I was doing business with did not come through, did not keep up their end of the bargain. His failure to meet what I perceived to be my oh so important desire; it so angered me that without thinking, I got in my car, and did the quickest U-turn ever, so fast that I failed to see a pile of dirt and rocks in my path and my car slammed right into that debris, smashing in my front bumper. 

OUCH!

I didn’t realize the damage until later, when I noticed the front lower bumper was warped and twisted, that large scratches marked its exterior and that it had been pushed in by a good two inches. Oh, and that business transaction gone bad? Within minutes of my ill fated auto exit, that merchant had reached out to me to apologize and came through, even throwing in a bit extra as an apology of sorts.

Making my anger pretty stupid, a waste of my spirit and resulting in only one thing. Damage. To my car. To my psyche. To my ego. And all for nothing. But that is how it is with such anger and crankiness, at least most of the time when I express it.  My angry response is often way out of proportion to what has happened.  My anger makes me look at the world in a warped way, through the eyes of victimhood as in “WHY ME!?”  It makes me focus on what I don’t have rather than remember what I do have, how blessed I am this life if only I’d pay attention.  My anger separates me: from the best part of myself, from others in my life and finally from God.

But my anger also reminds me that I am only human. That everyone gets vexed at times: is cranky, ornery, irritated, irate, even outraged and I think especially in these emotionally heavy times that we are living in.  There is so much to weigh down upon us in 2022—everything from the war in Ukraine to the latest threatening COVID variant. Crankiness is pretty widespread among the populace these days.

From anger at a clerk who hasn’t served us fast enough (it’s not their fault the store is understaffed), to umbrage at school committee members (folks who volunteer for the common good!), crankiness is rampant. Anger on airplanes. Incivility among lawmakers. Vexation in the family around the dinner table.  And yes, getting behind the wheel and driving angry.

It’s not that our anger is always misplaced or wrong. There are a lot of things going on right now that are high stress and high pressure and so it makes sense in a way that more of us are in foul moods or feeling at the end of our ropes.  There is injustice to protest and wrongs we want to right. When anger is channeled constructively and expressed non-violently, it both acts as an emotional safety valve and can lead to change for the good.

It's the unconstructive, violent, and selfish anger that worries me. Anger that in fact masks other emotions, like our sadness, grief, or fear.  Anger at the state of the world: getting mad is much easier than feeling heartache at how the world is right now. Anger at another person for their “faults” is much more tempting than to honestly look at our own faults.

Anger takes its toll.

In really angry driving: across the United States automobile accidents and fatalities are spiking back up after years of decline. Drug overdose and alcohol related deaths are at all time highs as well, so much of that being about folks seeking to soothe their roiled emotions and broken hearts with mind altering substances. Long term anger hurts the body, causes high blood pressure, and strains the heart.  And of course, anger expressed in violence is the worst anger of all. What is a war finally, than anger expressed at the national level? Anger of one people against another people.

Whew!

Thank goodness that my faith teaches me ways to temper my anger, to tame it, even to transform it into something positive.  Anger fades when I remember I am doing my best right now and so is almost everyone else.  Anger cools when I realize how selfish it can be, putting myself at the center of all things in the universe. Maybe what I want is not the most important thing right now. Anger channeled into action empowers me to work for justice, for the best for my fellow children of God.  Anger offered up in prayer teaches me that there is a power so much bigger than myself holding everything together. It’s not my job to be in charge of everything.

I probably won’t get my car bumper fixed right away.  When I look at it, may it teach me the price of anger and the cost of crankiness.

Have a mellow week.

 

     

 

                     

 

The Amazing Grace of Being Shown and Showing Grace

"Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home."       --Amazing Grace, by John Newton

 

We interrupt this sharp elbowed, kind of wacky, certainly bumpy, world right now to bring you…. a little…. grace.

Yes, grace. 

No, not the prayer said at your Thanksgiving or holy day or holiday table, though God knows we could all use some prayers right now. Grace, but not the kind we see from a talented ballet dancer, or nimble gymnast, though I am amazed at how some folks are just so physically graceful.  

The kind of grace I speak of us is about how we are treated by others and how others treat us, especially when we’ve screwed up or made a big mistake. It’s the quality of grace folks of faith often attribute to the God they know, as in a God who loves them unconditionally and forgives them absolutely. It’s the feeling of grace we experience if someone just gives us a break when we really, really need it. When we are at our worst for whatever reason yet still, a friend or a family member, maybe even a stranger, stays by us and helps us to return to our best.

Grace.  

To say that our world, and Creation, need grace right now…. that’s an understatement.  We are living in sharp and scary, stress-filled, and sometimes traumatic grace-less times. We all know the list, right? Pandemic. Civic separation and conflict. War. Inflation. Nasty politicians fighting in the sandbox.    

In a recent Atlantic magazine article, “Why People Are Acting So Weird,” author Olga Khazan gives us the laundry list of today’s current social ills, seemingly everyone acting out. Rage in the skies and on airplanes as the masked and unmasked square off.  Culture wars around issues like banning books. Public displays of incivility and downright meanness on the rise. Record numbers of car crashes.  Increased drinking and drug use and overdose deaths, more than ever before. A national murder rate that’s increased in the past two years by almost one-third, the largest uptick ever recorded.  

As Khazan asks in exasperation, “How did Americans go from clapping for health-care workers to threatening to kill them?” That’s not hyperbolic. Just last month white supremacists protested outside of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, with a sign that ominously read, “BW Hospital Kills Whites.” 

WHAT THE…….!!!???     

Time out people! Take a chill pill. Just breathe, ok?  And maybe, most important of all, let’s try and treat one another with grace and show one another grace, in these high emotion, high stress, high fear times.

So, perhaps, don’t be so judgy about folks and their politics—I know I need to give some of my fellow citizens a break. I don’t know what it is like to walk in their shoes or to live in their lives. I’ve no idea what keeps them up at night, the challenges they are facing right now. They need some grace. Some space. Some kindness.

Grace: shown to the people I work with and the people I work for.  They are worried about their bills, and they are worried about their kids and their health, and the health of their loved ones and they are exhausted from being whipsawed with all the changing health news and COVID news and war news that comes pouring out of their phones that they just can’t put down. WHEW!  They must be spiritually exhausted after the past 104 weeks or so. They absolutely need a little grace and understanding.

And yes, grace needs to be shown to ourselves by ourselves.  Like when you get cranky with the family because everything is so worrisome right now. Or when I beat myself up over the fact I’ve yet to lose that COVID extra poundage or I am watching too much TV to blow off steam and relax.  Or how some days are just so hard---to wade back into the world, this very hard world and very sharp world. Give yourself a break!

Grace. When we receive it, there is nothing else like it.  The grace of God comforts us. The grace of a neighbor heartens us. The grace of a loved one soothes us. Grace given, grace received just makes life softer, gentler, more beautiful and filled with hope for better tomorrows.

Grace: we all need it. Amazing grace.

 

    

 

   

      

 

COVID: Still a Pain Even As It Wanes

“Pain [is] the touchstone of all spiritual progress.” --Alcoholics Anonymous

“Tell me if it’s going to hurt.”

That’s my one rule for pain, at least physical pain.  If you are going to give me a shot or stick a needle in my arm to draw blood or do anything to my body that is going to cause pain, just give me a heads up. Okay?

I’ve been thinking about this personal maxim as our nation has started to emerge from COVID lock down and masking up and moved now to a time for COVID slow down and masking off. It’s like the spring of 2021 all over again. I’m as into it as the next mask wearer but then, this happened to me. After one of the very first big social situations I went to without a mask in almost a year, the next day I got a text letting me that a close contact at the meeting was sick with COVID and had tested positive. They hadn’t known they were infectious but that is often how things work when it comes to COVID. 

Everything is okay until it is not okay. You are safe until you are exposed. You are healthy until you become sick. You get sick and maybe it is mild and you recover fast or maybe it is worse and you are laid low, even hospitalized, or maybe you’ll always have long COVID or maybe it will take your life. I try and remind myself of these possibilities on a regular basis, especially now that folks are shedding their masks so fast and so joyfully.

Heck, that’s what I did!   

I want to get rid of the masks forever and everything else that accompanies COVID, all the pains, all the ways it has inflicted very real pain: physical, economic, social, and emotional. COVID is a pain! I wish it would just go away! Shoo! But in reading the news and listening to the scientists and epidemiologists, perusing government websites, heeding the folks who actually know what they are talking about, the message I’m hearing is…we are okay for now but, it could come back. There could be another wave. Or another variant. The need for another shot. But we don’t know if or when.

Pesky virus! Ugh.

But at least I know that the pain might make a return engagement. That the hurt may return. HEADS UP! I’d rather remember this possibility is real. Because the notion that right now, is actually the time, FINALLY, when we all get to go back to “normal” for good….Maybe normalcy is back. Maybe it isn’t.

This I do know. COVID is still a pain. A pain in the…. well, you get the picture.

I suppose the one piece of goodness I can still take from the badness is this: pain almost always makes me spiritually grow and grow up.  Pain, for all the struggle: it usually changes us. Deepen us. Make us return to our faith or recommit to our sacred beliefs. It can make us more powerful and more resilient. Pain—physical, mental, or spiritual—I know this is the thing that has most forced me to change in this life. 

I don’t seek pain out, no. No one does. And the God I love doesn’t inflict pain either. But when pain shows up—and it always shows up in every human life--we can’t negotiate away this truth. When pain stops by and when times are tough and when the valley we walk down into is dark and full of shadows, I often kid myself. “GREAT! Another blasted growth experience!” But there is truth to this.

The pain of COVID has taught me just how much I need and I love my family and friends. I hope I never, ever, EVER again take them for granted again.  The pain of COVID has taught me what a deep responsibility I have to care for the most vulnerable, the very sick, the very old, the very poor, the uninsured, because they certainly suffer more than me. The pain of COVID and almost getting it (knock on wood!) reminds me how lucky I am to have access to quality health care, and it moves me to work so that one day all folks have decent health insurance. The pain of COVID and its isolation has made me more fully appreciate doing things live and with real breathing, living human beings. Going to a baseball game or the movies or choir practice. Yes, it’s a risk still but I’ll take it.           

Will this hurt? If you have to ask the answer is probably, “yes.” But thanks for the heads up!

 

 

 

If We Only Seek the Bad, We Will Only See the Bad

“The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?”  --Julia Roberts, "Pretty Woman", 1990

I like “end of the world” movies and TV shows and books.

These are the stories that always end with…well…the immediate or the threatened or the possible or the definite end of the world.  My favorites are hard to choose. There’s “The Day After Tomorrow” a 2004 “climate change gone crazy” movie starring the then heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal as a teen falling in love, while also battling super subzero temps. Everything freezes all over the world in something like two days. Earth as a popsicle. That about sums it up. 

There’s also “The Stand,” the 1978 post-apocalyptic novel by Stephen King that tells of an epic battle between good and evil, God and the devil, in aftermath of a world killing flu pandemic.  The uncut and complete edition of this book weighs in at 1,152 pages, but even so I’ve read it cover to cover four times, the last when I was recovering from hip replacement surgery in the midst of this pandemic.  No doubt I will read it at least one more time before my personal end of the world story comes true.      

Why my gruesome fascination with the end of the world, end times, the apocalypse, Armageddon? I’m not sure.  There is the page turning drama inherent in such tales: what could be more at stake than all of life itself? Since such stories can be very, very far-fetched (like every single zombie apocalypse movie ever made!) they do offer complete escape from a world of hurt, especially in times like these. 

But the real reason I crave such tales may come from something called the negativity bias. That’s the human habit of responding to negative information and experiences much more quickly and powerfully than to positive information and experiences.  We homo sapiens tend to lean towards the depressing. Like that time in my employee review when nine people said “Good job John!” and one negative Nellie said, “Bad job!”  All I heard in my head walking back to my office was the words from that lone critic. Or the week on vacation, an amazing time away, when all I could think of was the one bad rainy day I had, not the 20 great sunny days I enjoyed.

Negative bias has been scientifically proven: we humans just tend to gravitate more towards the bad than the good, the down than the up, the end of the world versus “the sun will come up tomorrow!”  I’ve been pondering this truth as I doom scroll the news every day, especially about the war in Ukraine. Doom scrolling is where we seek out bad news, surf the internet, jumping from one awful story to the next, unable to stop. I’ve been stuck in this behavior the past few weeks. Refreshing my news website every few minutes to get the latest. I see it in others too. Folks just so weighed down by the sheer heaviness of planet earth right now.

The sad thing is that there is actually good news, even in the midst of the doom and gloom. Doesn’t mean we somehow downplay or soft pedal just how much folks are suffering right now, especially in the war zone.  It does mean we must—for our own sanity and spirit—find some glimpses of hope and the good. Some light in the darkness.

I know I must find some positivity to ponder.

Consider this: in a matter of days after Russia’s attack, almost every single nation on earth went on record at the United Nations condemning Russia’s invasion. Most of those countries are also now putting the squeeze on Putin’s economy with sanctions and sacrifice at home (like $4.50 a gallon gas). It is working, albeit at a slower pace than the battles. It’s the largest show of global solidarity and support for democracy and freedom since World War II.

Consider the merciful and miraculous welcome being extended to the almost three million refugees forced out of their own country by Russia’s savagery. Poland alone has embraced 1.8 million folks, most of them women, children, and the elderly.  Ukrainians are settling across the European continent--sheltered, fed, protected—in huge numbers. Out of this humanitarian disaster is the humanity, decency, and kindness being shown by so many, to so many.  It belies the cruelty of Putin’s violent bullying and reminds us that, yes, most folks are good at heart. Most folks do want to do the right thing.

I’m blown away by the courage of so many Ukrainians who are defending their homeland.  Who love freedom so much that they are ready to put their lives on the line for it. I’m amazed at their bravery, and that they are still holding back one of the biggest armies in the world. Their example makes me wonder just how grateful I am—and should be--for simple gifts like shelter, food, warmth, and safety. 

Yes, there is plenty of negative news to absorb these days.  Given the enormous and seemingly infinite amount of news and media now available to all of us 24/7 with just a swipe on our phones, we can easily doom scroll until…well…the end of the world. Or maybe we can balance that out by also searching for the good.  Seeking out those human beings who are displaying humanity at its best. Remembering and trusting, as my faith teaches me, to believe that in the long arc of human history and the universe, the good and the just do prevail. Will prevail.

I dare all of us not to doom scroll, but instead to actively look for the light. For love. It is out there. We just have to overcome our negative bias to find it.

The end of the world? As fiction, yes. As truth? Not yet.

 

                                   

Life Is a Test In 2022: Will We Pass?

“All through my life, I have been tested. My will has been tested, my courage has been tested, my strength has been tested. Now my patience and endurance are being tested.”― Muhammad Ali, 2004

A test.

That’s what it feels like to me the past two years has been about. Like life is a test. Like all the huge cataclysms and social upheavals, we’ve experienced collectively in the past 104 weeks or so; it is as if life itself is testing us, to see how we all will do and respond. 

I mean in your lifetime—have you ever experienced such dramatic and so many world altering events as those that have happened since the second week of March 2020?  Yes, it’s only been that long ago since it all started. First COVID, as in lockdowns, as in remote school and work, as in so many deaths, as in overflowing hospitals and nursing homes becoming prison like and surgeries getting cancelled and workers putting their health on the line for us and those ever-besieged health care workers who are still at it, today, tending the sick and the dying. They certainly must think it is a test.

In these weeks we’ll mark 730 or so days ago that our world changed in the blink of an eye. One day the country is wondering if Joe Biden can beat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. The next day the newspaper headline spoke for itself: “FEAR, CANCELLATIONS SPREAD”.  And then the headline on Friday March the 13^th: SHUT DOWN.

Thus begins our test.

If it was just COVID that would have been awful enough. Maybe we could have handled just one global crisis. Then the pile on began. The murder of George Floyd and how his tragic death brought our nation to a place of racial reckoning, to face our collective sin. Then an ugly national election in the fall of 2020. Then an attempted violent overthrow of the United States government and a legitimate election in January of 2021. Then a President impeached for the second time. Then an overheated economy and $4 a gallon gas and sky-high housing costs. Then, an awful, bloody, violent war in Ukraine, in Europe, waged by a blood thirsty despot who shows no signs of offering any mercy. A tyrant sitting on top of 6,000 nuclear weapons.

Now can you see why this all might seem like a test?

Like life or the universe or fate or chaos is just piling on the disasters to see how we as a world and as individuals will step up. Does humanity have the right stuff to survive, maybe even thrive? Or will these calamitous cumulative events force us to put up our hands and declare, “I give up.” Cry “Uncle!”

It'd be understandable if we did so. WE ARE STRESSED! A recent poll by the American Psychological Association of some 2,000 Americans, as of March 2022, shows we’re pretty much freaking out about everything. Eighty seven percent of us stressed about fast rising costs. Eighty four percent about the “terrifying to watch” invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Sixty-nine percent fear for a possible World War III.

I’d be more stressed, if I was not so stressed, if all of this drama was just rolling off of my back and I was going with the flow, you know, doot in da doo doo, feeling groovy! Nope. Instead, I’m carrying a lot of worry right now as I know so many of my fellow Americans are, as are the folks in the church I serve, as are the people in my family I love, as are the friends I spend each with on Zoom who lament with me, somehow making this shared life test easier to face into.

Some might say God is the one testing the world; to use Albert Einstein’s famous metaphor, God is “playing dice with the universe” to teach us a lesson. I just can’t see God as being that cruel or calculating. Instead, what if God is the one who gives us all our common humanity, a common heart absolutely breaking wide open at the sight of so many innocent folks suffering in Ukraine. A human community outraged at this war, united in its opposition to the Putin and his evil actions.  Maybe this universal spirit gives us the strength to not be bowed by this test called life in 2022, but instead spiritually buoyed, called to action, stepping up in the face of so much challenge. Maybe to live in these times is a gift and even a privilege somehow.

We get to witness history. We get to make history in how we choose to live in these days of testing. Dare we live in hope, trusting times will get better? Dare we live with compassion, responding to so much pain with so much care and mercy? Dare we take this test and yes, maybe even ace this test?

Life is a test. Grant us the wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of these days. For the taking of this test.

 

    

 

Civility Explained. Don't Be a Jerk. Please.

 

"Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.” --President George W. Bush

It’s the kind of current event you might have easily missed in the intensity of the news cycle. With war raging in Ukraine and a state of the union speech and baseball on strike and the usual cultural chatter, I’d have overlooked it too if I hadn’t seen the video for myself.

Wednesday, March 2.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was participating in a low key, typical news conference, his extolling the virtues of a state funded cybersecurity education initiative.  DeSantis walked up to a podium while the cameras rolled. Behind him stood seven high school students, all masked up.  The gathering was at the University of Florida at Tampa in Hillsborough County, an area the CDC considers high risk for COVID, and still recommends indoor masking.

DeSantis noticed the youth were wearing face coverings, turned, and faced them, his back now to the camera, and then began to lecture/harangue/berate those young people. All depends I suppose on how you hear what he said.  And this is what he said. “You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve got to stop with this COVID theater. So, if you wanna wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.” And then he turned back around, let out an audible sigh and with a scowl on his face finally began the briefing.

Meanwhile behind him the students looked awkward and embarrassed. They smiled uncomfortably and squirmed. Some removed their masks. Others stood pat.  It was an absolute cringeworthy moment.  An impatient and petulant adult telling kids that they are dupes or clueless or even “theatrical” in taking their precautions. As one of the boys, high school freshman and 14-year-old Kevin Brown Jr. said of DeSantis’ behavior, “I was a little bit surprised at his tone.” Brown wore the mask because he was surrounded by many unmasked people and is still worried about getting COVID. Brown’s Dad, Kevin Brown Sr. was blunter in his assessment of the Governor going off on his son and the others. In his view DeSantis should, “stop bullying kids.”

A side note: if the Governor had been a Democrat and not a Republican I still would have written about his rude and childish behavior. This is not about ideology or politics or debating public health policy. It is instead an example of the rampant and unchecked incivility that is becoming the norm in our world, especially among our so called “leaders.”  Like when the President of the United States is caught on a “hot” mike saying of a reporter, who asked a fair question at a gathering, “What a stupid son of a _____!” Or when his press secretary sarcastically mocked another reporter for suggesting the administration should send COVID test kits to every American.

Yes, this lack of civility is bipartisan. 

A boor is a boor, regardless of what side of the aisle they claim as home. What kind of leader, what kind of “adult” shames a kid for taking care of themselves or insults a reporter for just doing their job? Oh, let’s not forget about the two Congresswomen who stood up at the state of the union speech and heckled the President at the exact moment in his speech he was talking about the death of his son Beau from brain cancer.

I know some might judge my criticism of DeSantis and other impolitic politicians as overly nit-picky or just over the top.  What’s the matter with a little temper tantrum, right? Lighten up! Those kids aren’t snowflakes—they can take it. And he is the Governor after all. Who knows? Maybe he had a long day. Maybe he was “hangry,” or his pants were too tight. Got up on the wrong side of the bed. 

I won’t give him that benefit of the doubt. Won’t give any public servant or elected official slack on this question of civility in government and governing. Remember what your mother taught you? If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. If only that were the rule in the halls of government.

Civility is not just about being polite though politeness absolutely matters. Civility is the social glue that holds together a society. Civility allows opponents to disagree while not being disagreeable. Civility is about taking the high road and not going in for a low punch. Civility is about kindness and respect: the golden rule. Treating others as you’d like to be treated.

Not much to ask.

And in these days when everyone is on edge or has some reason to be cranky, we need the leaders among us to set a good example of patience and yes, love for others. Doesn’t seem like too much to ask.              

Listen to your mother. She was right. Civility is the civil thing to do.

 

 

 

     

 

Oh my God: What Else to Say Or Pray In the Face of War

“Oh my God, this is actually happening.”                

--Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, February 24^th, 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?