A cease fire is supposed to stop the killing. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. While we here at home have been preoccupied with the ICE outrages in Minneapolis and elsewhere, civilians in Gaza are still being killed. Last week a car carrying three journalists was targeted and a 13-year old boy was shot. This so-called cease fire doesn’t include the West Bank where Israeli settlers are attacking and killing Palestinian resident.
Now there is supposedly another cease fire agreement, this time in Ukraine; however, Putin doesn’t seem to recognize it. Drone strikes haven’t stopped. Personally asking Putin not to fire into Kyiv is like asking a wolf not to eat kill its prey.
The prey includes Ukrainian nuclear power plants. The Russians control Zaporizhzhia, the largest in Europe; the other three in Ukraine supply more than half its energy but are under threat of attack. It’s also clear that fighting on the ground has not ceased, Russia utilizing African and Bangladeshi men tricked into coming there for “work” opportunities and forced into battle. To make the point clear, the Pechersk Lavra, the 11th century Orthodox cathedral and compound, the spiritual center for Ukrainians, was hit this week. Like here at home, there is no cease fire to violence elsewhere.
Prayer for the Day
Like the ancients, with arms outstretched,
We cry to you, O God, in the midst of death;
Searching for a reprieve from violence and destruction,
We beg for real peace, so elusive in our time.
Be our shelter, O Lord, as we work to heal the wounds
Of those wounded in the terrible desire for power.
In the name of the One who is our shelter,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience
Thomas Merton, American monk, theologian (1915-1968)
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
- Eleanor Roosevelt, humanitarian (1884-1962)
They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
Whoever eats their eggs dies, and the crushed egg hatches our a viper.
Their webs cannot serve as clothing;
They cannot cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity
And deeds of violence are in their hands.
Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are the thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction their highways
The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths;
The roads they have made crooked, no one who walks in them knows peace.
Isaiah 59: 5-8