How can we advocate / speak up for another way?
How do we keep our hearts from being seared & becoming so callous we cry for and celebrate bloodshed?
How can we always remember that our neighbours don’t necessarily share our nationality?
How do we share in the pain and loss of neighbours who don’t share our nationality?
How do we guard against believing that love for our country means hate for another?
We can’t allow our hearts to be more callous such that we even celebrate people’s deaths.
We can’t stop evil by becoming even more evil. Otherwise how do we speak out for a different way? How do we begin to forge the path for a better way?
Vengeful action could cripple the enemies but it often sows ugly seeds that sometimes sprout in posterity, if not almost immediately.
What if we raised our voices for a different way? What if dared to care about others despite what armies, governments and politicians are saying to us?
What if peace mattered more than patriotism, and that’s what we cried for? What if we did that more than defending, justifying or advocating for bloodshed?
What if we didn’t care about what we were being told to believe but chose to think of others and how our words and actions may contribute to their harm, even their death?
I resolve to be a peacemaker, starting with what I share. I don’t think I’ll get it right but I will try. I resolve to be a peacemaker by not advocating or justifying bloodshed and the nurturing of vengeance.
“Blessed are the peacemakers” — ancient words of a Middle Easterner
May we embrace, wrestle with and have the courage (to even try) to live out these words.