YOU WILL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS
[Our friend Viktor in Ukraine wrote this article so you can learn what is really happening there.]
"You will know them by their fruits." Good people bring forth good deeds, evil people produce evil deeds. War is pure evil. There will be so-called patriots in different countries telling people about our national security and our way of life. The news about the war is sanitized: we only learn about one side or the other advancing or retreating, jets being shot down, bases and buildings being bombed, etc. We hardly hear about the real. human side of it.
But war is pure evil – on both sides. Men are snatched from the street and sent to the front, often without any training... and some die the first day. Many civilians die, many are wounded, their homes are destroyed, their farm land is ruined, etc. The tractors sit idle in the fields because there are no men to drive them. The shops are becoming empty because there are no drivers for the trucks to deliver food to the shops. The only people who profit from war are politicians, generals and weapons producers. Every war has a beginning and will have an end... until it starts again and again. War is hell on earth and is the opposite of what Jesus taught our human race.
When war ends, the pain does not go away. Many families lose their loved ones, many of those who survive are seriously wounded either physically or psychologically. Their bodies and souls are injured. Many of the wounded soldiers will become unwanted by the same country that sent them to war. How do you heal and move forward? It is not easy. Even time does not have dominion over it. There are doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, different rehabilitation therapists, but they all have their limits.
In Ukraine, people are very family- and community-oriented, they like to be surrounded by people. Ukrainians do not break a sweat in an elevator when someone gets closer than two feet to them. Often times in a "marshrutka" (route taxi), as one of my driver friends told me, he tries to mix people up: man, woman, man, woman when he ckecks their tickets. People ride shoulder-to-shoulder, interact, talk to each other about everything and everyone, usually not even having an inch of distance between them. By the way, they are not only OK with it, they want it. After they get out of the marshrutka, everybody is happy.
This is how it used to be for millenia. God created a man and woman, not a man and a dog or a woman and a cat, but a man and a woman. Now, it is theraputic when a person feels that he or she is wanted and belongs in society! That is a good start, but where is God in all this? He is not necessarily a person with a long white beard sitting on a cloud somewhere above, extending a finger toward a man, but a loving Father and Creator who loves each and every one of us more than we can imagine.
He is everywhere and within us. In Aramaic, in the Lord's prayer, is says "dwashmeya" twice, Our Father who is everywhere and Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, which is everywhere. What is not do-able for a man is do-able for God our Father. It is no secret that a wound heals much faster when you pray, that is a visible way of an an invisible work of God on our body and soul.
Not all wounded soldiers have families or someone they can go to. When I was in the U.S., I had a friend who joined the army as a ranger as soon as he turned 18. He saw 7 years of war in Afganistan and Iraq. It was not easy to persuade him to stop taking drugs. Everybody who was there had to smoke weed to not go crazy. We communicated and he almost graduated from technical college until he called me one day and said he had to see the world.
I needed to tell him I could trust him more than anybody else around. I asked him to at least graduate as it was his last semester. He looked me in the eye and gave me an answer that I still remember, I have not seen anything but war in my life. I smiled as I realized he was right. I answered, "Go, but let me know where you go so I could get you out if necessary." He did go to see the world, first South America then Asia. Then he organized a rehabilitation organization in DC to help soldiers.
After this war ends, many wounded soldiers will not have a place or someone they can return to. If they end up living on the street, society in general will not necessarily greet them with open arms. In a reabilitation center such as an Agape Restoration Community where several generations, young and old, live in God's love, true miracles can happen. Wherever Ukrainians go, they have to be connected to God, community, and land. Serving Liturgy, cultivating land (at least a garden), and having community all together, is this not the true Kingdom of God here and among us? If you would like to "Donate," please designate your gift for "Ukraine." And please share these special requests: A Personal Note. Thanks in advance!
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