Friday Reflection - War 04-03-2022

I remember being worried about nuclear war as a pre-teen. This would have been during the Cold War and tensions between Eastern and Western bloc countries were extremely high. I had no real concept of what that fear was about, but it was real. It was palpable. We are made for conflict and war. I know that many people will understand that statement from a sin perspective and that's okay. That, however, does not negate my own personal struggle to understand this from a human perspective.

In 2018, I ran for office here in my town. There was a lot of dirty politics going on with the previous council and I wanted to do something better. For an introvert like myself it was a difficult thing to do but I felt compelled. What was mind-boggling to me was the vitriol and hate I received from some people. Up to 2020, I was still getting hate mail in my mailbox and on social media.

That experience helped me to understand the real nature of sin and hate in the heart of the human being. We all struggle with it, but many give up and give in. For some giving in to hate is much easier. They take to it like a fish to water. There is nothing you can do to change that person’s mind. Nothing. We see this level of hate even in world politics and we are seeing it play out before our very eyes. In 1932-33, Josef Stalin engineered the Holodomor famine that killed millions of Ukrainians. That was not just greed. That was hate. Now we see Vladimir Putin going down a similar road.

Choosing hate may seem hard but it isn’t, choosing love is much more difficult, but in the end, this is the path that leads to healing and reconciliation. Unfortunately, given the circumstances how many Ukrainians would ever choose love? And so, the cycle continues.