Praying and Working in War-Time
The disaster of Ukraine, the bravery of her people, and the opportunity to do what we are called to do in this moment.
When it comes to Putin’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine and the murder and harm he is inflicting on my fellow humans there, leveling suburbs and destroying cities, I am sickened and angered, as I was when he did these same things in Syria, to the cities of Homs and Aleppo, and in Chechnya to Grozny.
This is just what Putin does and has done and will continue to do until he is somehow stopped.
No human should be in a position of uninterrogated power for twenty-two years. The temptations are too great.
The last time he was “elected” I felt somewhere deep down that this was really bad news for the world.
I did not just start being aware of Putin and the problems he poses as a fellow human for human flourishing.
And he is not the only human enemy of humanity, but he is the enemy causing the most public and brutal harm at present to the human story. I pray that the Russian people will rise up all over Russia and reject his homicidal leadership.
Still, I must tell you how very relieved I am that this invasion, and Putin’s campaign of human death, has not become yet another thing that is dividing my family, friends, and neighbors. A very large nine of ten folks I encounter agree that Putin’s words and behaviors are reprehensible and that the Ukrainians are victims of evil.
I half expected there to be some new conspiracy that had half of us siding with Putin. It’s so so so damn refreshing that that is not the way this is playing out.
It’s complicated, to be sure, as all things human are, but almost no one is excusing the violence or crowding my social media feeds with denials about the war: that it’s not really happening or is actually good when we can all see how bad it is. No one is trying to convince me that a maternity ward wasn’t really bombed.
And that has given me hope.
For someone who is committed to non-violent resistance, I have to confess how deeply divided I am from myself in this moment.
I watch these heroic people defend their lands and people against a bully and it angers me that we cannot do more to intervene in their life-and-death struggle for survival. Like Bruce Cockburn, I desire a rocket launcher. It’s a real struggle to trust God with this and not our armaments.
I believe that God invites us into his sovereign rule of the world through prayer, and I invite you to join me in praying that the Ukrainian people will be delivered from evil, and that we all will be delivered from the darkness in ourselves that leads to war.
And I have work to do. I am thankful for Malcolm Guite, and for his recent invocation of the preaching of C.S. Lewis in his “Learning in War-Time.”
I can neither bury my head in the sand and wish all of this away, nor can I doom-scroll my days away in anxious concern about my many dear friends in Lviv. I must be about my work in the world, which their bravery inspires and makes possible.
And for me that work is to bear witness to my encounter with the risen human Lord of history. I have seen the human God and it is my role in this moment to continue to talk and write about what I have seen, and as I do this I will stay conscious of the people of Ukraine and allow their suffering to inhabit my heart and mind as I work and pray.
Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.