Historians point out that war destroys more than the buildings people inhabit; it also destroys history. In its brutal attack on Ukraine, Russia is destroying – or at least, trying to destroy -- Ukrainian history and identity. During the 1930s Stalin tried much the same thing with the famine he created. But even after the deaths of literally millions of persons, he was unable to wipe out Ukrainian identity.
Targeted bombings of art galleries, libraries, and architectural treasures are just part of Putin’s plan to wipe out Ukrainian identity. I wonder how we would respond if our art galleries and national libraries were reduced to rubble.
Seeing daily pictures and videos of people who have become refugees with what they need in the equivalent of a rolling backpack forces us to consider what is essential in our lives. What would we hold closest to us in such a situation? What would we need to survive, to save?
Prayer for the Day
With images of frightened fleeing persons imprinted in our minds,
We look about our homes with all our possessions, O God;
And we wonder how we would respond, what we would do,
If our everyday lives were turned upside down’
Move us beyond shuddering and into a new perspective
As we struggle to hold you, O Lord, central in our hearts.
In the name of the One who points the way,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
No one can say in a brutal, bloodstained place.
- Jeanine Cummins, American writer
But that life, that time seems like a dream now, even to me, like some long dissolved rumor. First came the protests. Then the siege. Then the bombs. Death. Burials.
- Khalid Hosseini, Afghan-American writer
You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
Will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust,”
For God will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and the deadly pestilence;
God will cover you with pinions and under God’s wings you will find refuge.
Psalm 91: 1-5