Rhetoric

I should have written a poem. Amen.

When a U.S. President stands on a pile of hot rubble and ash and says, “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon," to the cheers of a bipartisan nation, you want to cry and worry all at the same time. War is a horrible thing. Fighting back evil and extremism is part of human nature. I believe that the majority of mankind understands this emotion.

This is a “re-write” response to waking up last Saturday, October 7th.

As I fell heavy, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I wrote two short poems. A good portion of my life was spent as a photographer, covering life, and never do I feel more pain when seeing images of war. So I wrote this:

Don’t look away.

As the invasion got worse, the burned out cars, failed escapes, stories of torture, rape, death, destruction, tears, fears, subterranean refuge in train stations. Faces of beautiful modern people. An unborn child gasping for breath in its mother’s womb as she lay dying. Carried from a bombed maternity ward, bared on a stretcher, rushing over rubble. A weathered elderly woman standing in the middle of her humble little home, muddied, bloodied, old fingers shaking in disbelief, desecrated. One day growing vegetables, another day, husband shot dead in the garden. A father and son riding bikes. Target practice. Women raped, men hung. Helpless. Watching their spouses. War crimes. Pictures of weddings, family. Strewn. Smashed glass. Lunch sitting on plates. Afternoon sun. Dogs, cats, pets wandering dead, injured. Baby deer hunkered down in the forest as bombs go off. Holes in walls, shredded, twisted carnage of curtains and metal, the stench I couldn’t smell, the innocent. The zoo.

I wrote this:

Over the weekend Saturday Night Live comedian, Pete Davidson, was reminded of his firefighter father’s death during 9-11. He was only seven years old and suddenly fatherless. His mom did everything to help him survive this tragic loss. She tried to make him laugh.

War followed.

We are the chess pieces in a big, complicated political board-game.

The world will always have extremism, evil and wars, yet we can strive to see goodness, seek holiness and stay on the positive path for as long as we can pull ourselves back up when we fall down.

Philosopher Eric Hoffer, in his book “True Believer,” wrote:

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.”

Motorized gliders flew into a music festival to murder and rape concert goers. And more. An extremist blew innocent people away from a window in a Las Vegas hotel room, another blew-up a federal building in Oklahoma. Disgruntled, or “bullied” young gunmen burst into schools, a gay club, a black church. Carnage. On and on and on and on. An old friend of mine lost her sister in the workplace. She was in the way of his rage toward his boss …and his gun. She had a young family.

My takeaway is how easy it is to be indoctrinated into a belief system. To become desensitized. Who are we? I never thought I would live to see large crowds of people condoning evil atrocities towards Jewish people in my lifetime. Surely antisemitism would not raise its ugly head again. Not far from where impenetrable buildings fell ashes to dust.

A tiny “Promised Holy Land,” given over, once again, this time by the British occupation in 1947. A resting place to the Jews, to come “home” to, after 6 million were annihilated. A “dream.”

This land that God promised to Abraham all the way back in Genesis is not simply a geographical backdrop - it acts as an image of covenant faithfulness as God's people try (and often fail) to live out their divine calling. Politics. The world interrupts.

We can speak less, contribute more and pray over the helpers, the faithful, who bring sustenance, aid, comfort and prayer into wartime. In all seasons.

Once again, I am “limited to prayer, which enfuses hope, and of this I am limitless.”

Because.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” - Serenity Prayer

Amen.

Ecclesiastes 3

P.S. I have 100 subscribers and I am really grateful. I believe it’s about half that open and half of that who read. I never expected one person to read (with exception to a family member). I do this to leave something behind, like my pictures. Thank you if you have joined me on this journey. I am very humbled. ox