Sometimes it is startling when things happen across the globe. Wars, beginnings of wars, acceleration of loss of life and sensationalized reporting. Once again, the American public is asked to take a side for this place or that.
I watch the main stream media to get to know what happened. Then I watch videos from less well-known characters in the country, or in other countries. I try to get a balanced point of view of what is happening in the midst of the state-TV blitz that everyone is expected to follow… whatever that is in the moment.
I once heard a story of a war where the two sides were having a particularly heavy battle in a certain part of a city. As fate would have it, an orphanage stood right in the middle of the fighting. Mother Teresa negotiated with both sides of the fighting so they would stop fighting for long enough for her to go in and lead all the orphans to safety.
I know as an individual, I can’t personally alter geopolitical dynamics which have played out for decades sometimes dramatically in war, and other times like a sleeping volcano destined to erupt. I don’t know the full context, and often don’t hear it in the news. I never want to choose this side or that side because I know context of everything matters.
I want those who are violent to stop being violent even when provoked. I want those who still play by outdated colonial settler rules to realize sometimes the end is not worth what your means is costing you. I know that is a lot to ask because on each side, external pressures are greater than third party bystanders with “happy, safe” lives can see.
I may not be in a war-torn situation myself, but I know from history, big starts from little. Major wars start with a single firecracker of a few people temporarily given to their vices. I hope not to be with those on a side, causing chaos for those on the other side. I hope instead to be like Mother Teresa, walking in through the smoke and rubble to get the precious human beings and bring them to safety as the power centers find their peace again.
In my view, the most vulnerable in any situation are the most important. Would that not have been Jesus’ view also? Would that not have been the perspective of the core of every major religion?
I know an army general might think this naive. War is part of life he might reason, so it is simplistic to think every life is important. I wouldn’t make a very good army general. In this country, at least a few decades ago, civilian culture led, and military culture followed. God help us the day the only criteria for whether or not a war is fought is potential profits for multi-national companies and the military industrial complex.
Individuals in the military benefit from peace more than anyone else. It means they don’t have to go to war. I wish that for them. May diplomacy and humanitarian efforts be the thing of the future, and may big wars become obsolete.
Our baby planet and all its vulnerable people depend on it.