When all the emphases in morning newscasts are on Black Friday, holiday menus, celebrity sightings, and even my favorite college football, I’m concerned that we are forgetting about things that matter even more. Mental pictures of innocent children caught in the path of bombs and Ukrainians who have fled their homes crowd out of my mind the biggest bargains at the largest sales. This war issue is not new.
This 100th anniversary year for the Newbery Awards, I have challenged myself to see how many I can read that I may have missed along the way. I am finding irony in how appropriate some of the lines are from books that were published long ago. Words in The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly, published in 1928 with a setting of Ukrainians fleeing to Poland in the 15th century, could be Ukraine today – “So it has always been in the time of war that the innocent suffer most – these poor, helpless peasants with their carts and horses and geese and sheep trudging along through the dust to escape, if God so willed, the terrible fate which would befall them if they were left behind.”
I thought about my father, graduating from Mississippi College as World War II was ending. He took a line from Paradise Lost as his theme, “War wearied hath performed what War can do.” His speech, given in the spring of 1945, pictures the setting of Milton’s lengthy poem, “This scene, enacted, in the poet’s imagination, in the realm of eternity, and beyond the bounds of space, has been repeated many times amid the surroundings of earthly experience.” Daddy’s summary about war is not that different from Eric Kelly’s. “War is a luxury – not a poor man’s game and the generation that fights the war never lives to pay for it. That is left for those who have nothing to do with it.” He won the shiny gold senior speaking medal with the only negative on his adjudication sheet “poor eye contact” – a nod to his visual challenges.
I think I can predict with a great deal of assurance, that neither I nor any of my blog readers had any part in the beginning or the continuance of this war. I’m guessing we would all be glad for peace on earth to come today, not even waiting for tomorrow. Almost always, war starts and continues by those seeking power, ignoring the powerless who suffer the most. So, feeling a sense of helplessness about one war following another or overlapping another, what can we do? (1) I think a beginning is promoting peace among those in our sphere of influence. (2) I think we can be careful not to forget those who are missing home and loved ones as we have our own celebrations during this holiday season. (3) I think we can contribute to legitimate organizations that help those seeking refuge and safety.
Finally, at the risk of preaching to the choir, could we substitute our own weariness with war with a passion for peace?