These past couple of weeks have been full of grief and anger for me – war is like that, even war on the other side of the world. Lives needlessly extinguished. Unbelievable atrocities. So many lives lost on both sides. Where is the right? There is no right, only death and destruction of real people on both sides who only wanted to live their lives in peace.

I feel the grief from thousands of miles away. It is too far away to touch me, but it touches me, nonetheless. It feels like the prayers I send mean nothing. They can’t change what is happening, but they do serve as a sop to make me feel better about my helplessness.

This quote came up on Facebook this week, and it touched me to the core. “War is a place where young people who don’t know each other and don’t hate each other, kill each other, based on decisions made by old people who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other… ” – Paul Valéry

For eons, that has been the case. Normal, everyday people become collateral damage in the mighty’s quest for more and more power. Any excuse will due – religion, land, wealth, resources, expansion. The powerful foment hatred where there is only the desire for peace. They create excuses for war.  Deaths don’t matter to the petty tyrants and dictators who hold the power. They just want more and more of whatever it is that inflates their egos, and the rest of us live or die with the consequences.

As I sit in my comfortable chair, looking out onto the crisp fall day, I am safe. And yet are any of us safe, as long as the dictators of the world hold power? Are any of us safe as long as there is hatred and bigotry in the world? Are any of us safe as long as corporations and billionaires hold so much power over our leaders?

There are so many people in the world working and praying for peace – and yet there continues to be conflict. I am both grief-stricken and enraged by what is happening in Israel and Gaza, in Ukraine, in Afghanistan, in parts of Africa. I feel helpless to make a difference. Prayer seems useless at best. And yet prayer and a resolve to become the peace that I seek are the only things I have at my disposal. I will continue to pray. I will continue to walk the way of peace in my own life. It is all I can do.

Barbara Garland
October, 2023