I love to express what I feel called to say. Writing helps me to open up my heart and do that. I hope that what I write helps you in some way. I hope it makes you think, encourages you, or inspires you. If it challenges you or if you disagree, I hope you know that I respect your right to have a different point of view.
War's completely unfair.
The people who start it
Send some people to kill
While they stay in safety.
Some people are killed.
Some lose family members.
Many just stay home.
And watch it on the news.
Some even make money on it.
Does any country have an honored grave for “the unknown civilian” murdered in war? Civilian lives matter!
War’s about:
Wiping out All Resistance.
War’s about a nation’s leader resorting to ordering violence and the nation’s soldiers going along with that one man’s decision.
War’s about bombs, bullets, blood, blasted bodies, and broken hearts.
War’s about people competing to put each other to death in the most violent and cruel ways imaginable.
War’s about intentionally inflicted pain, death, suffering, terror, horror, brutality, cruelty, evil, and destruction.
War-makers Are life-takers, Piling bodies On dead end Streets.
Perhaps solders should be Free to decide Which side is right And to switch From side to side.
By calling a nation an enemy, a leader makes soldiers feel justified in following his inhumanity.
Bombing cities isn’t combat. It’s mass murder!
The most important orders are often the most ignored and disobeyed–the orders of the human conscience.
Enemy lives matter. Calling a nation an enemy doesn’t devalue the lives of its citizens.
No one sees the soldiers fighting against them as heroes.
John Keats wrote: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever. It’s loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness.” Those are very poetic words, but are they true?
Watching a movie about Mr. Keats inspired these thoughts in me: Unobserved beauty is never described as beautiful. Beauty requires an observer.
“A thing of beauty” is only a joy when it’s seen (or remembered) and enjoyed. Beauty analyzed and dissected doesn’t increase. It disappears into data.
The most beauty I’ve ever observed is in experiencing the presence of the living, resurrected Jesus Christ. Experiencing Him throughout the day has brought ongoing, overflowing joy into my life for more than 50 years. I’m looking forward to that joy being forever and “never passing into nothingness.”
That joy doesn’t originate from human effort or from human belief. It’s a gift from God that is freely received by daily surrendering the living, ever-present Jesus. A text in the Bible calls it “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
If we never let the Holy Spirit change a strong belief or opinion that we hold (or a feelings-based behavior that we’re doing), then we’re probably following our own desires and emotions rather than the living, resurrected Jesus.
If Christ-followers
Would spend less time
Proudly texting
And more time
Humbly letting the text
Of the Bible
Deeply touch our heart
As leaven,
The world would be
A better place.
The first war crime an international court should hear is war itself. People who start wars like to hide behind lies like scared little boys.
If disturbing the peace
Is a crime
War is.
If disorderly conduct
Is a crime
War is.
If trespassing
Is a crime
War is.
If aggravated assault
Is a crime
War is.
If hate
Is a crime
War is.
If vandalism
Is a crime
War is.
If loitering
Is a crime
War is.
If reckless endangerment
Is a crime
War is.
If terrorizing people
Is a crime,
War is.
If breaking and entering
Is a crime
War is.
If armed robbery
Is a crime,
War is.
If manslaughter
Is a crime
War is.
If child abuse
Is a crime
War is.
If fraud
Is a crime
War is.
If stealing
Is a crime
War is.
If brutality
Is a crime
War is.
If animal cruelty
Is a crime
War is.
War is human-hunting season. Perhaps we should shut it down.The human mind has developed many astounding things, but as yet has failed to develop and regularly implement an effective alternative to war.
War is irrational. “Let’s break into armies and kill each other until one army surrenders. Might makes right.” We need alternatives.
War is failure. It produces losers not winners. “Winning” a war is like “winning” a massively destructive volcanic eruption.
Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, King, and Wałęsa were five courageous leaders, experimenters and practitioners of alternatives to war. They were heroes of nonviolence, noncooperation, truth-telling, and civil disobedience as alternatives to war. There are many more lesser-known ones. The Nobel Peace prize honors many of them.
Dictators and other leaders aren’t afraid of violence. (They have armies to protect them.) They fear massive noncooperation. That’s why they sometimes declare martial law. Leaders who start wars like to hide behind lies like scared little boys.
The Iron Curtain was brought down by using an alternative to war: Massive, nonviolent noncooperation and courageous protest.
Arbitration has proven to be an alternative to violence in personal and corporate situations. Why not between nations?
Much of the world is using economic sanctions as an alternative to going to war against Rushia. They’re having an impact.
I read that Ukraine is using a creative alternative to killing invading soldiers. They’re offering them money to surrender.
Truth is another alternative. Consistent truth-telling that boldly exposes lies and deception hinders the ability to make war.
Since hate, bitterness, and things that drive ware are invisible, they need an invisible (spiritual) cure.Sometimes people feel a need to use violence to defend themselves, but violence is never necessary to deny themselves like Jesus did.
War’s driven by demons as soldiers surrender their conscience, compassion and free will to officers who order them to kill and destroy.Renouncing, attacking, and overcoming the demons that drive war rather than killing the people who obey the demons can overcome violence.
When you’re dead nationalism is meaningless. Dead people aren’t Russian, Ukrainian, American, Chinese, Nigerian or Iranian.
Here’s a Christian view of the importance of finding alternatives to war. The Bible says that Christians are “foreigners and exiles” in this world.” It’s not our home, we’re just passing through.
People seldom fight for a country that isn’t theirs, but many will fight for their country. Too many Christians want to take up arms for their country, forgetting that their true country is international with citizens from “every kindred and every tribe.” Any war with Christians on both sides is a civil war in rebellion against the kingdom of God.
Sure, ancient Israel fought. But they were God’s country/people fighting against God’s enemies. Today, however, God’s people are scattered everywhere in every country. So, in Ukraine today we have Christians slaughtering Christians–Russian Christians launching missiles that kill Ukrainian Christans, and Ukrainian Christians pulling triggers that kill Russian Christians. It’s civil war against the kingdom of God. If Christians can’t or won’t love their Christian enemies, how will they ever love their unbeliever enemies?
A poetic alternative to war:
When despair Is in the air, Hope is rare, And life seems unfair Show people You care.
If I could make A rule of war It would be “No terror, torture, Or killing allowed.”
When success in war Depends on Breaking the rules, The rules No longer matter.
War does much that’s unfair! It’s not fair for a leader who sends people to war to stay behind and oversee the killing from comfort and safety.Bombardment is cowardly warfare, brutally terrorizing and killing people from a distance without giving them a fair chance. Terrorized, wounded, and killed people should never be called “collateral damage.”
Having rules for war is like having rules for murder. The best rule for either is, “Don’t do it.” Make peace, not war!If soldiers had the courage to obey their conscience instead of their orders, the world would be a better place.
Rules disappear in war. The most broken rule in war is the one about not killing. Starting a war is the first war crime.If soldiers would call for a universal strike and refuse to strike their enemies, armies couldn’t make war.
War is about lying, cheating, and killing, not about following the rules. Nothing’s fair in the shove of war. Every war is a public health crisis.
Countries don’t kill people. Soldiers do. No nation can pardon or excuse a person for violating his conscience. Only God can do that.
Many desires are better dodged than done, but it’s not easy to disobey the drumbeat of desires. That requires listening to God’s gift of our conscience, not silencing it.
Behavior management, without a change of heart, leads to frequent failure and many attempts at self-justification to try to bury the voice of conscience. When our conscience is made silent, our desires are then free to dominate and control us without much resistance.
Harmful desires are difficult to dump. However, greater desires will displace destructive desires. But where can we find better desires to replace the harmful desires that are dominating our life? Not in self-focus. The desires we find there are selfish.
Higher desires are found by looking beyond self, by caring about people, by becoming intently aware of their pain, by developing compassion and empathy. All humans have the capacity for inspired desires, but they don’t happen automatically. Jesus said that we need to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Our conscience was given to guide us in that direction. If we dare to follow it, it will lead us toward God.
Shame and guilt are robbers that try to keep you hooked on unhealthy desires. To protect yourself from them, obey your conscience and ask for forgiveness when you don’t.
To use the same term to describe a religious building or organization that we use to describe the body of Christ is very confusing. They are not the same things. The body of Christ is the people who have received God’s mercy offered through Jesus and have made Him the ruler of their life. It’s not a building or organization. It’s not even a religious service about Jesus, that we call church.
The Greek New Testament calls it ekklesia. If we would use that term for the body of Christ, we wouldn’t have to work so hard to try to separate if from church buildings, church organizations, and church services.
Throughout history people (and governments) have tried to use Christianity or destroy it but few have submitted to Christ. Ekklesia goes beyond church and follows the living Jesus instead of a preacher or an institution.
The Peace Testimony is the historic position taken by Anabaptists (Mennonites and Amish) and Quakers that violence is morally wrong. It’s the belief that nonviolence and peaceful confrontation of evil is better than violence. In 1660, Margaret Fell, an early Quaker, expressed it this way. “All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.”
Quakers, Mennonites, and Amish have lived and survived around the world, during war and peace, without weapons, for many centuries. If they can do it, why can’t other people?
Here are a few of my personal statements about the peace testimony:
People who cancel their conscience are capable of great cruelty. The peace testimony can awaken people’s conscience.
Conscience before country! Any country that commands or encourages its citizens (or soldiers) to do wrong should be disobeyed.
People who let nationalism silence their conscience are slaves of the state.
Immoral laws (and cruel military orders) can make it legal to do wrong, but they don’t make it right.
If you speak
Against war
While your
Nation's involved,
Your freedom of speech
Isn't appreciated.
The cruelty of Russian soldiers Invading Ukraine Opens a window To speak against war.
The pain Of Ukraine Is exposing War’s cruel wounds For the whole world To see.
The screen shot Of a Russian soldier (Now shot dead) Texting his Momma Broke my heart.
Soldiers are A nation’s citizens Who are treated Like they’re disposable, War weapons.
Soldiers don’t decide Whether they invade Or defend But blindly do What they’re told.
When soldiers hear Their conscience Call for restraint, They’re trained To resist it.
A soldier’s life Depends on His taking the life Of other soldiers.
When violence is common. And war is praised, It takes courage Not to kill.
Life is better When people embrace With bare arms Instead of bearing arms To kill.
One person Orders war, But tens of thousands Pull the triggers.
Soldiers are trained To obey Not to think, To kill Not to show compassion.
There’s one weapon That’s not Allowed in war: Truth.
War is horror That men do As they try To subdue A nation.
Soldiers compete In making Corpses.
War is soldiers Sold out To bringing death To other soldiers.
War dives deep Into the depths Of horror And dies the soul With darkness.
Bombing civilians Isn’t a fair fight. It’s murder.
War is Bad for People.
War seems to be Trenched Into the human Psyche. O, that we Could dig it out!
NLM “No Lives Matter” Howls the horrible Hound of war.
Nations don’t wage war. Soldiers do.
War is hell, Demons Directing people To do the devil’s Dirty work.
“Boots on the ground” Is a macho sound That leads To guts spread around On the very same ground.
A battleground Is a place Where human beings Were ground into dust.
War teaches That it’s shameful To refuse To kill an enemy.
Surviving soldiers say, “Our country Made us do it.” The dead say Nothing.
The great harvest Of war Isn’t peace. It’s causalities.
ISA
An "International Soldiers' Association"
Might help soldiers embrace as friends
Instead of killing each other.When soldiers
Put a commander's orders
Above their conscience,
The evil of war
Has no restraint.If soldiers had the courage
To listen to and obey
Their conscience,
War would run out of steam.
Instead, war runs over
Their conscience.As you can see,
Russia's aggressive invasion
Has emboldened me
To pull the trigger
And shoot off a lot
Of antiwar thoughts.
I read this amazing book a few months ago. Every Russian soldier should read it.
I read this amazing book a few months ago. Every Russian soldier should read it.
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 