War is looming. I have listened to many commentaries and predictions and rationalizations for the past several weeks. Accusations and justifications, numbers of people who will die. That is what grieves me. Thinking about the cost of the war. Not in dollars but in human life. And the cost to our humanity as well.
I hear the governments talking about people as if they are not real, just a statistic, the cost of war. People are referred to as possessions to be traded or leveraged. It reminds me of the language people used to talk about slavery. I am reading about the process of transforming our perception of humans into a commodity, the extracting of a soul in order to make a profit. It continues in its own way today.
We are all God’s possession, equally cared for and loved. No human has a right to own or injure or plan to injure any of God’s beloved. It’s one of the commandments. We are to honor one another, to see life as the sacred gift it is. A gift given not because we earned it, or because one group is better. A gift given to everyone who is alive.
I recently heard a priest talk about changing his language intentionally so as not to use possessive pronouns at all. He is trying to hold nothing as his personal possession, but acknowledge that every good thing belongs to God. Think about not saying “my house” or “my children” or “my country”. What might it mean if we saw everything as a gift we are given for a short time to steward?
I pray for peace. Not because I am worried about what war will do to my retirement funds. I pray for peace because all people matter, life is sacred. It is not ours to dispose of, but ours to cherish. People die in war.
How do we live in that sense of respect and dignity for all people, so that it becomes a disposition taken for granted? How do I treat the people in my life, my community, my world, as beloved of God? We need to change the narrative, and by that I mean I am responsible for that transformation in my own sphere of influence. And you are too.